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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 50: 1904
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

God Has Spoken!-- Rejoice!

   (No. 2864)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1903.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   12, 1876.

   "God has spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem
   and measure out the valley of Succoth." Psalm 108:7.

   THERE is an old promise concerning God's people which says, "Before
   they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will
   hear." This text is one of the instances in which the Lord has dealt
   with His saints upon the lines of that promise. Read the preceding
   verse. David there prays, "Save with Your right hand and answer me."
   And while he is waiting for God to answer him, he remembers that God
   has already spoken. In effect, he says to himself, "I am waiting for an
   answer, but God has given it to me." Very often the response to a
   Believer's petition has been practically received before he presents
   his request--he only needs that God should open his eyes for him to see
   that before he called, God had answered his supplication! Indeed,
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, in one sense all your prayers--that is,
   your prayers that ought to be answered--are already answered, for
   whatever there may be that you may rightly ask of God, you really have
   it, since in giving us Christ, He has already given us all things! An
   important part of the duty of faith is to believe that you have what
   you ask in prayer and then you shall have it. This is blessed
   philosophy--may we all learn it!

   Oftentimes, when we are crying to God and waiting for an answer to our
   petition, if we did but look around us-- and if we had more acute
   powers of observation--if our spiritual faculties were keener and
   quicker, we would perceive that we already have the very thing for
   which we are asking. Some of you have, perhaps, been saying, "Oh, that
   we were, indeed, the Lord' s people who have their prayers answered
   even before they offer them! Well, then, turn to the Book and you will
   find that the Lord has there told you that you are His if, indeed, you
   are believing in His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God has
   already given you, by that most sure word of testimony, the clearest
   possible evidence of your personal interest in Christ! If you are
   asking for some further kind assuring word to soothe your fears to
   rest, turn to the Bible, for there is in it the very Word of God you
   need. So, seek it out, for I may truly say of God's Revelation in this
   blessed Book--

   "What more can He say than to you He has said, You who unto Jesus for
   refuge have fled?'

   This leads me to the practical remark that, possibly, the very thing
   that you have been praying for so long, you may already have
   obtained--and God may not intend you to pray any longer about it, but
   may say to you, as He did to Moses, "'Why do you cry unto Me? Speak
   unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.' Believe that you
   have the blessing for which you are asking and go forward in that
   belief! The time for praying about it has passed. This is the time for
   grasping the blessing by faith and using it to My praise and glory." So
   it seems to me, in our text, that David had prayed, and then suddenly
   remembered that he had already received the very thing for which he had
   asked. So he shakes himself from the dust and cries, confidently and
   jubilantly, "God has spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will
   divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth."

   I. Three things are clear in the text and the first is that GOD'S WORD
   IS THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH--"God has spoken in His holiness." That is
   the solid basis on which faith builds.

   To me this is a very precious Truth of God, even for the very childhood
   of Christian life--"Godhas spoken." He has not merely put before us His
   works, which are like hieroglyphs, difficult to read at times, but He
   has actually broken what otherwise had been eternal silence and spoken
   to us in words that even a child can comprehend! Unbelieving men still
   say, as they did of old, "'Since the fathers fell asleep, all things
   continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.' If there is
   a God at all, there is a great gulf fixed between Him and men; how can
   we know anything about Him?" Ah, Sirs, that great gulf will always be
   between you and your God if you do not believe in the Revelation that
   He has given you in His Inspired Word! Until that terrible day comes,
   when He shall speak in thunder-tones of wrath and summon His guilty
   creatures to appear at His judgment bar, you will not hear His voice,
   except as it speaks to you in His Word.

   But "God has spoken in His holiness" and we ought to be thankful that
   we have not to serve a God who is dumb. He spoke, in the garden of
   Eden, when our first parents sinned against Him. To the serpent He
   said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
   seed and her Seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His
   heel." It was a message of hope to the world when God spoke that great
   promise concerning His Son. Since then, "at sundry times and in divers
   manners," God has spoken unto men by His servants and "by His Son," of
   which we have the record in this blessed Book. And, since it is a
   message of mercy and love to us, we ought at once to rejoice that "God
   has spoken." Sinner, you are pleading with God for mercy and He might
   well refuse to answer you even a word, but, "God has spoken" already,
   and the answer to your petition is already recorded in His Word! If,
   when Adam sinned, He had turned away from our rebellious race and said,
   "From now on I will hold no communication with you until that day when,
   with fire and sword, I punish you for your many transgressions," we
   would have had no cause for complaining against Him. Certainly we could
   not have impeached His justice or found fault with His severity! But,
   "God has spoken." He has broken the silence which would have been death
   to us and, blessed be His name, He has Divinely spoken to us by Him who
   is THE WORD OF GOD--by God's great LOGOS--the only voice by which He
   could fully speak out His whole soul so that men might be able to
   comprehend Him! And it is upon what God has spoken to us, by His Son,
   that we have to place our faith, so that, had He not spoken, we would
   not have had any foundation for our faith--so this is our joy, that
   "God has spoken."

   Many of us are, I trust, at least somewhat acquainted with what God has
   spoken, though I wish that we were all more perfectly acquainted with
   His Word and that our confidence more fully rested upon what the Lord
   has therein revealed to us.

   Why is it that you are able to confide in God's Word? Surely it is
   because you know that for God to speak is for Him to do as He has said.
   By His Word He made the heavens and the earth--and it is by His Word
   that the heavens and the earth continue as they are to this day! When
   He shall "once more" speak, as Paul says in his Epistle to the Hebrews,
   then shall He unmake what He made and cast away the worn-out vesture,
   for, as the Old Hundredth Psalm reminds us--

   "He can create and He can destroy." God's speaking is very different
   from man's. Very often man talks about something that he says he will
   do, but when he has talked about it, that is the end of the matter as
   far as he is concerned. Man has spoken. Oh, yes, but you can never be
   sure that with the talking tongue will go the working hand! He who is
   quick to promise is not always so prompt to perform. We have many
   proverbs which remind us that men set light by one another s promises,
   and well they may, but we must never set light by the promises of God.
   "He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast." So,
   beloved Brothers and Sisters, if there is a promise of God to help you
   in a time of trouble, or to preserve you in the hour of temptation, or
   to deliver you out of trial, or to give you Divine Grace according to
   your day--that promise is as good as if it had been already performed
   since God's Word shall certainly be followed by the fulfillment of it
   in due season! I beseech you, then, as you read the promise, to say to
   yourself, "It is done as God has said." If any man of means, with whom
   you do business, gives you his check for the amount he owes you, do you
   not say that he has paid you? Yet he has not handed to you even a penny
   in cash--no notes or gold and silver coins have passed between you--but
   you rightly say that he has paid you because his signature on the check
   is as good as money. And is not God's Word as good as man's? Yes, that
   it is, and far better! Then, so regard it--oh, for faith to do so at
   this very moment!

   Further, what God has spoken shall never be reversed. "God is not a
   man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should
   repent." What He has spoken in public, He does not reverse in private.
   His own declaration is, "I have

   not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the
   seed of Jacob, Seek you Me in vain." Whatever there may be in the
   sealed scroll that records God's purposes in predestination, there
   cannot be anything there to contradict what is written on the open
   scroll of Divine Revelation. As to the Doctrine of Election which often
   terrifies seeking souls, it never should do so since there can be
   nothing, in the secret counsels of God, contrary to the plain promises
   of God recorded in His Word! He has not said, "Yes," in one place, and,
   "No," in another. And if He says, "Yes," today, He will not say, "No,"
   tomorrow. He Himself said long ago, "I am the Lord, I change not;
   therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Once let any message go
   forth out of His mouth and it shall stand fast forever!

   Oh, then, what a firm foundation for faith this is! First, "God has
   spoken," and that is as good as if He had already done as He has said!
   And, secondly, "God has spoken," and that which He has said can never
   be reversed! If there is a promise in the Bible made to a penitent
   sinner--and you are a penitent sinner--that promise must be kept to
   you! If there is a blessing promised to a believing soul and you are a
   believing soul--that blessing is sure to you. If God has promised to
   sustain you when you cast your burden upon Him, and to bring you
   through the furnace with your hair un-singed, He will do it, for He has
   never yet been false to His promise and He never will be! Heaven and
   earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of His Word shall ever
   fail. It stands, as an immutable decree, that Jehovah's will shall be
   done--and this is Jehovah's will--that, of all that He has promised to
   the sons and daughters of men, not one syllable shall ever fail! Oh,
   how blessedly faith ought to rest on such a foundation as this!

   Our text says, "God has spoken in His holiness." Now, it sometimes
   happens that our greatest difficulty in believing a promise of God lies
   in His holiness. There is, for instance, a promise of pardon to the
   soul that believes in Jesus. We think of stern Justice, with her
   majestic, yet severe look. In our heart of hearts we reverence her and
   we ask, "How can God be just and yet the Justifier of the ungodly?" We
   have, at times, had some idea of the perfect purity of God--the purity
   of Him in whose sight the heavens are not clean and who charges His
   angels with folly. We have trembled, sometimes, as though we were
   dissolved into nothingness when we have thought of His spotless
   purity--and we have said, "Can this holy God really mean to receive
   such sinners as we are whose very clothes, as Job says, abhor us? Can
   He purpose to bring us to His own right hand in Glory that we may be
   among the courtiers in His heavenly Kingdom?" Yes, He does mean to do
   even that! Yet the thought of His purity makes us wonder how it can be
   done. Now, the joy of David was that when God spoke concerning that
   glorious--

   "Stem of Jesse's rod'--

   He spoke it "in His holiness," that is, in His whole-ness, with His
   whole perfectly pure Nature. He knew all that David then was and all
   that David would be, yet He saw it to be consistent with His infinite
   perfections to make, even with such a man, "an everlasting covenant,
   ordered in all things and sure." And, beloved Brothers and Sisters,
   when the Lord entered into Covenant with Christ concerning those whom
   He gave to Him to be His portion forever and when, in that Covenant, He
   wrote down blessings exceedingly great and precious--and made promises
   so vast that we cannot, at present, form any estimate of their full
   value--He knew quite well what He was doing and He did it, knowing all
   about your doubts and fears concerning your sinfulness and His own
   holiness! And now, without in the least marring His perfect purity and
   inflexible justice, "God has spoken in His holiness" to poor lost
   sinners and said that He will save all of them who trust in Jesus
   Christ, His Son! And He has also "spoken in His holiness" to His poor
   imperfect children and said that He will bless them, and that He will
   not turn away from them to do them good. This is the Covenant that He
   has made with His people--"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 a heart of flesh. And I will put My
   Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall
   keep My judgments and do them. And you shall be My people, and I will
   be your God." All this, which "God has spoken in His holiness," He will
   do without obscuring that wondrous attribute, or marring the glory of
   His adorable perfections!

   II. Now, in the second place, let us notice THE JOY OF FAITH--"God has
   spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice." Are any of you heavy of heart
   just now? If so, I hope you will catch the spirit of David when he
   uttered these words. You ought to be glad that "God has spoken in His
   holiness," and you will be glad if you feel and know that He has spoken
   to you. "God has spoken; I will rejoice."

   Observe that this joy, which faith has, is a joy in the very fact that
   God has spoken. Though nothing may yet have been done for us, God has
   spoken and, therefore, our heart rejoices! Every Divine promise, if it
   is rightly viewed by faith,

   will make the heart leap for joy. Suppose you do not need that
   particular promise just now, rejoice all the same, for you will need it
   by-and-by. If the promise is not made especially to you, yet it is made
   to somebody--therefore rejoice that "God has spoken" so as to meet the
   needs of somebody else's case. What if the blessing is too high for you
   to reach at present? Nevertheless, rejoice that there are mercies
   stored up for future and more advanced stages of your spiritual growth.
   And suppose the mercy is one that you long ago enjoyed? Still be glad
   that you enjoyed it in years past and so rejoice that "God has spoken."
   Oh, what hymns of praise there are in this blessed Book if this is the
   theme of our song-- "God has spoken"! Then the very first pages of
   Genesis ought to make us rejoice and we will rejoice because we know
   how He made the worlds. Pass along through every page and feast your
   eyes upon every line of every page--and say all the while, "'God has
   spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice.' This shall be the subject of
   my joy all day long and, in the night watches, will I rejoice in His
   Word."

   You perceive, as I have said, that this joy comes to the Believer even
   before thepromise is literally fulfilled to him. It is the joy of
   faith. You have not yet had the promise fulfilled to your sight, but,
   seeing that it is fulfilled to your faith, begin to be glad about it!
   Praise the Lord for all the good things He has laid up in store for
   you! Take upon your lips the words of that sweet singer who wrote--

   "And a 'new song' is in my mouth,

   To long-loved music set--

   Glory to You for all the Grace

   I have not tasted yet"

   When you are ill, bless God for the health you will enjoy when you get
   well! When you are down-hearted, bless God for the joy that you will
   have when He shall again lift up the Light of His Countenance upon you!
   When you go to the grave of a Christian friend, bless God because you
   will meet that friend again! Though you cannot yet see the joys that
   await you inside the gates of pearl, begin to bless the Lord for all
   that He has prepared for them that love Him! Borrow from the eternal
   future--you may, for there is plenty of it. There is an infinity ofjoy,
   therefore, antedate it a little while. Send your messengers across the
   Jordan to bring you some of the Eshcol clusters. You may do so, for
   they are yours and you may have some of them, even now, as foretastes
   of the bliss that is yet to be revealed. "God has spoken" to His
   servants of the great things that He will do for them for many years to
   come and throughout eternity! He has said, "I will never leave you, nor
   forsake you." He has said, "Where I am, there shall also My servant
   be." Therefore, as "God has spoken," though as yet my soul abides in
   the land of darkness, drought and barrenness, yet, because He will
   fulfill His promise, my heart shall rejoice! David says, in the 11th
   verse of this Psalm, "O God, who hast cast us off," yet here, though he
   is one of the cast-offs, he says, "God has spoken in His holiness; I
   will rejoice."

   Perhaps I am addressing a minister whose public labors are apparently
   unsuccessful. My Brother, you have been exceedingly grieved because
   your people have been like the children of Ephraim who "being armed,
   and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." Well now, you
   must not give way to discouragement, or fall into a dull and sad state
   of mind. You must say, 'God has spoken in His holiness; I will
   rejoice.' Though I have not, as yet, seen any success attending my
   efforts, He has said, 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy,' and I
   believe I shall do so, for I have often sowed in tears and sowed the
   good Seed of the Kingdom with many tears and many prayers. Therefore,
   though I seem, at present, like one of the cast-offs, and little good
   has come of all that I have done, yet, 'God has spoken in His holiness'
   and, therefore, I will rejoice.'"

   I may be speaking to a Brother or Sister who is tried in another way.
   You, dear Friend, have not enjoyed the means of Grace as you used to
   do. You blame yourself for the change and it is right and proper that
   you should do so. You have not now those happy experiences that you
   once had--neither do you enjoy such blessed visits from your Lord as
   you had a year or so ago. You know that the fault lies with you. Still,
   remember that faith is never dependent upon feeling and our confidence
   is never to rest upon our inward condition. Otherwise it rests on the
   shifting sand. But, if this is the case with you, now is the time for
   you to exercise faith and to say, "Though I am, as it were, a cast-off
   and the Word of the Lord is not just now solacing my heart, yet, 'God
   has spoken,' and, sinner as I am, if I am not a saint, I trust to what
   God has said to believing sinners and 'I will rejoice,' even though I
   seem to be only a cast-off."

   Once more, notice that David, at the time he wrote this Psalm, had
   discovered the vanity of human confidence. He says, in the 12th verse,
   "Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man." "My best
   friend has proved to be a traitor;

   he that ate bread with me has lifted up his heel against me. Those who
   said that they would never leave me and who never did leave me while
   there was anything to be gotten out of me, are all gone. I said in my
   haste, 'All men are liars,' but 'God has spoken in His holiness; I will
   rejoice.'" It is grand faith that can rejoice in God when friends go as
   the swallows fly away in the autumn, or drop off as the leaves fade
   when the summer comes to an end! That was the kind of faith that
   Habakkuk had when he sang, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
   neither shall fruit be on the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail,
   and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the
   fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in
   the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."

   This is a good crutch for Mr. Ready-to-Halt--no, better than that,
   surely this will take Ready-to-Halt's crutches away and enable him to
   run without weariness in the ways of the Lord! Why, Brothers and
   Sisters, here are the wings of eagles for you, if you only know how to
   use them! "God has spoken." What a mighty power your soul will have in
   prayer if you go to God and say, "Do as You have said." What a sword
   this is to flash in the face of the foe--"God has spoken." "It is
   written"is that which makes old Rome tremble and her seven hills to
   quake for fear! Get a rejoicing grip of this great Truth of God and the
   dwarf shall become a giant, the feeblest among us shall be as David and
   the house of David shall be like the angel of the Lord!

   III. The latter part of the text shows us THE ACTIVITY OF FAITH--"God
   has spoken in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem and
   mete out the valley of Succoth."

   That is, David says, "As God has given me these places to be parts of
   my kingdom, I will go and take possession of them." Some people's
   so-called faith is of this order--God has promised a great blessing!
   Let us go--and sleep." Their philosophy is--God s promise will be sure
   to be fulfilled--therefore, let us eat and drink, and not trouble at
   all about the matter. The Lord will have His own people and He will
   carry out His own purposes and decrees. They stand fast forever, so the
   best thing for us is to do nothing at all! God says that there shall be
   a harvest--so there is no need for our sowing and we can stay in bed as
   late as we like." That is the kind of fatalism that many carry even
   into their Christianity--they make the eternal purposes and blessed
   promises of God to become reasons for inaction! But it is not so with
   any sane child of God. He girds up his loins and says, "God has spoken
   in His holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem and mete out the
   valley of Succoth."

   Whenever you look into the Word of God and read what "God has spoken"
   to you, see that you appropriate it Suppose that He has promised you
   comfort--do not rest satisfied without that comfort. Suppose He has
   promised you joy and peace in believing--never rest till you have that
   joy and peace. Suppose He has promised you complete sanctifica-tion,
   full deliverance from the power of evil--do not be satisfied till you
   are delivered from it all. Never say, "Ah, that is a constitutional
   sin--that is the result of my temperament." No, Brother, Sister, if the
   Lord has promised you the victory over your enemies, be not satisfied
   till you have planted your foot on their necks and they are in
   subjection to you. Some Christian people are living, spiritually, on a
   penny a week, when their income might be ten thousand a day! You might
   live like kings, yet you are starving like paupers! Your faith might
   lay hold on God s exceedingly great and precious promises and so fill
   her mouth with good things, but, instead of doing so, you are quivering
   with the palsy of unbelief and so not grasping what God has put within
   your reach! There lies Succoth, but you do not mete it out. There lies
   Shechem, but you do not divide it. Yet they are both of them yours by
   Divine donation! Oh, if our faith did but really grip the promises and
   believe in the promise-keeping God, she would never rest till she
   possessed all the blessings that are really hers!

   I think that every young Christian should say, when he joins the
   Church, "Now, I do not want to be merely an average Christian. I am
   nothing and less than nothing in myself, but, if there is any blessing
   to be had from God I will have it. If I can have a closer walk with God
   than others have, I will have it. If there is more of Christ's likeness
   to be had than others possess, I will have it. By God's Grace, 'I will
   divide Shechem and mete out the valley of Succoth!' If God has given me
   permission to take anything, why should I not have it?" If you have
   leave given you to go to Windsor Castle, or Buckingham Palace as often
   as you like and to take whatever you please that is there, and to be
   treated as a prince, I guarantee that you would not need anyone to
   remind you that you had not been to either place for weeks! If you had
   such privileges accorded to you, you would be sure to avail yourselves
   of them. Yet here are the gates of the palace of prayer always open to
   you and the doors of communion never shut against you--and Jesus, the
   great King of kings, not only inviting you to come to Him, but even
   urging you to abide in Him and never to depart from Him--yet, alas, you
   do not

   have fellowship with Christ by the month together! Be no longer like
   the starving professors that, now and then, taste a little of the
   heavenly manna, but, generally, live on the leeks, the garlic and the
   onions of Egypt.

   So, if we have faith in God, we ought to take possession of all that is
   ours and, further, we ought to know what we really possess. It is
   delightful to see David here mentioning his various possessions--"I
   will divide Shechem and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine.
   Manasseh is mine. Ephraim is also the strength of my head. Judah is my
   law-giver, Moab is my washpot. Over Edom will I cast out my shoe. Over
   Philistia will I triumph. Who will bring me into the strong city? Who
   will lead me into Edom?" Perhaps you say, "That is very
   uninteresting--I do not understand it." No, but David did. He had seen
   Shechem and he knew that it was a place worth possessing. And Gilead
   and Manasseh and all the other places interested him even if they do
   not interest you. And when a child of God looks over his spiritual
   treasures and mentions them one by one, he takes an interest even in
   the very mention of them. The Bible is a dull book to a person who has
   no part or lot in it. There is no drier reading, in all the world, than
   the reading of a will in which one has no interest--but there is
   nothing that would interest you more than listening to the will of your
   old uncle in which he had left you a large fortune! You would lean
   forward and you would put your hand to your ear lest you should lose
   any of it, and you would think that you had never heard a more eloquent
   discourse than that! And when a man gets to know what "God has spoken,"
   what He has written for him in this blessed Book which contains His
   will--every word is music to him and he is ready to pick out some of
   the choicest words and say, "Regeneration is mine! Justification is
   mine! Adoption is mine! Sanctification is mine! Union to Christ is
   mine! Resurrection is mine! Eternal life is mine! Yes, all things are
   mine!" And he would dwell upon each one with a holy unction, at least
   to his own soul.

   Then, if you know what God has given you, mind that you use it all.
   What does David say? "Moab is my washpot. Over Edom will I cast out my
   shoe." As an Oriental who is weary, throws his sandals to one servant
   and then puts his foot out, that another servant may wash it with
   flowing water, so David says, "I will use Moab and Edom as my
   servitors." Now, Christian, if you have true faith and mean to do real
   business with God and for Him, say to yourself, "I have this, and that,
   and the other blessing--and I am going to use them all for His Glory. I
   have been adopted by God. I am His child, so I will plead with Him and
   will get all I can from my Father to use in His service! I am
   justified, I have peace with God, so I will go forth and, in the power
   of that peace, I will let others see what bliss Christians know! Then I
   also have sanctification given me in Christ, so I will use that and
   seek to be a true saint, that my life may be a blameless, holy,
   gracious, Christ-like life. By God's Grace I will not have even one
   unused privilege!

   Once more, David, being in the spirit of full faith in God, now
   manifests the spirit of enterprise, for he says, "God has given me
   Edom--then I will have it. There is that strong city of Petra, the rock
   city. It is like an eagle's nest upon a crag--who is the bold man that
   can capture it and take the spoil? The fierce sons of Edom, in the
   gorge, will be sure to slay the first men who dare to march into that
   rocky chasm." "Who will bring me into the strong city?" he asks, "who
   will lead me into Edom?" The spirit of enterprise and of conquest is in
   his soul! And then he adds, "Will not You, O God, go forth with our
   hosts?" "Since You have spoken as You have done, You will surely lead
   us to victory." In like manner, every man who has faith in God's Word
   ought to be a man of enterprise. I wonder, Brothers and Sisters, how
   many of you have any enterprise for God in view just now--storming some
   rocky sin, some Petra-like evil in your soul that seems almost
   impregnable! You know that your Savior's name is "Jesus, for He shall
   save His people from their sins." Then, in the strength of that name,
   go up and kill your bosom sin and your constitutional sin--and never
   rest till you have driven your dagger through every evil that lurks
   within your soul!

   Then think what room for enterprise you have among your fellow men.
   "The earth is the Lord s, and the fullness thereof," yet vast
   multitudes of mankind still sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
   Have any of you enterprise enough to go up against the strong cities
   that are still in rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ? Can any of
   you go and look after those who walk the streets--and seek to bring
   them to Christ? That would be conquering Edom itself. Have any of you
   enterprise enough to go down into the slums and dens of London to seek
   out the poorest and the vilest of the people? Have you confidence
   enough to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ can give you that
   Petra-like city, that dark spot where thieves congregate, where
   blasphemy is the current language and where profanity seems even to
   pollute the very air? Have you "pluck" enough to undertake such an
   enterprise as that? Is there manliness enough in any one of you to
   attempt it? Then, having asked the question, "Who will lead me into
   Edom?" do not forget to pray, "Will not You, O God? You have spoken;
   will You not also act, through Your people, so that all flesh may see
   the salvation of God?"

   Let each child of God say, "O my Father, I believe that weak and feeble
   as I am, my weakness and feebleness need be no hindrance to me if I go
   to Your service in Your strength! You have spoken in Your holiness; I
   will rejoice and, in Your name, I will conquer the foe, and gather the
   spoil for You." "Through God," says David, in the 13th verse, "we shall
   do valiantly: for He it is that shall tread down our enemies."
   Therefore, if you believe in God, hasten to the spoil of His enemies!
   Be strong! If you really are linked with Omnipotence, prove it! Do not
   talk about it, but let your deeds show that the Lord of Hosts is with
   you and that the God of Jacob is your refuge. If, indeed, the Lord's
   arm is with you, smite as the Lord would smite! If, indeed, He speaks
   through you, speak as He would speak! Be strong, very courageous and
   press forward in the name of God! Set up your banners and who knows
   whether even this feeble message of mine, in rousing you to action upon
   the basis of confidence in the Word of God, may not cast down some
   stronghold of the enemy and make the walls of some mighty Jericho to
   fall flat to the ground? The Lord grant it for His name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   PSALMS 57:7-11; 108.

   Let me say, before we begin our reading, that the 108th Psalm is made
   up partly of the 60th and partly of the 57th, yet we are sure that the
   Holy Spirit is not short of language so that He needs to repeat
   Himself. It is always a pity to think that any portion of Scripture can
   be repetitious. It cannot be! There is some good reason for every
   repetition and you will see that in the two Psalms which we are about
   to read, the latter part of the 57th coincides with the first part of
   the 108th. And also that in the 57th Psalm we have prayer and praise
   and, in the 108th, we have praise and prayer. It is well that we should
   see how these two holy exercises can change places--so that sometimes
   we begin with prayer and pray ourselves up into praise and, at other
   times we begin with praise and find in it the strength we need to aid
   us in prayer.

   Psalm 57:7. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing
   and give praise. Let the lions open their cruel mouths and roar, and
   let wicked men, "whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a
   sharp sword," do their worst against me--let my every footstep be among
   the nets and pits that they have set and dug to catch me. Even in the
   midst of danger, "my heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I still
   sing and give praise."

   8. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake
   early.' 'I will awake the dawn"--so the Hebrew has it--"I will wake up
   the morning and chide it for being so long in opening its eyes to look
   upon God s works!" David did this, notwithstanding all the trials of
   his surrounding circumstances. He calls on his "glory"--perhaps he
   means his tongue--possibly his poetic faculty--perhaps his musical
   skill. It may be that he means his intellect. Whatever his "glory" is,
   he calls upon his highest powers to awake to praise his God. Then he
   takes his psaltery and harp--strange companions for a man whose soul is
   among lions--but saints know how to evoke sweetest music even when
   their enemies are fighting fiercely against them. And he sings--

   9-11. I willpraise You, Olord, among thepeople: I willsing unto You
   among the nations. For Your mercy is great unto the heavens, and Your
   Truth unto the clouds. Be You exalted, O God, above the heavens: let
   Your Glory be above all the earth. Have not some of you found God s
   mercy to be "great unto the heavens"? It even seemed to reach above the
   heavens and, as for God's Truth, you followed it till you could follow
   it no further, for it had ascended above the clouds! We could scarcely,
   I think, ever expect to understand, here, all the Truth which God has
   pleased to let us hear or read. It reaches "unto the clouds" and there
   we must leave it for the present. When God ceases to reveal anything,
   we may cease to enquire concerning it.

   I saw, in Florence, a picture of "The Sleeping Savior." He is
   represented as sleeping in the manger at Bethlehem and the artist
   depicts the angels hovering round Him with their fingers on their lips
   as though they would not wake Him from His holy slumbers. So, when God
   bids the Truth of God sleep, do not try to wake it! There is enough
   revealed for you to know and more that you will know, by-and-by, so pry
   not between the folded leaves, but wait your Lord s appointed time to
   teach you more of His will.

   Psalm 108:1-5. O God, my heart is fixed; I willsing and give praise,
   even with my glory. Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake
   early. I willpraise You, O LORD, among the people: and I will sing
   praises unto You among the nations, for Your mercy is great above the
   heavens: and Your Truth reaches unto the clouds. Be You exalted, O God,
   above the heavens: and Your Glory above all the earth. Here we begin
   with praise--the very praise with which we finished the

   other Psalm--praise in a very joyous, confident spirit, for the praise
   which precedes prayer has more of the "Jubilate" note in it than
   ordinary praise has. The prayer in Psalm 57:1 which preceded the
   praise, was earnest, and fervent and confident, yet it did not reach so
   high a note as this.

   6-9. That Your beloved may be delivered: save with Your right hand, and
   answer me. God has spoken in His holiness, I will rejoice, I will
   divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. Gilead is mine;
   Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of my head; Judah is my
   law-giver; Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over
   Phi-listia will I triumph. David is claiming the kingdom which God
   promised to him by the mouth of Samuel the Prophet-- looking first upon
   the kingdom, itself, and then upon the surrounding territories, and
   laying hold upon them all as his own because God had given them to him.

   10. Who will bring me into the strong city? Who will lead me into
   Edom?\n the spirit of a truly courageous leader, he means to fight with
   that ancient foe of Israel and, wisely, appeals to God to lead his
   army.

   11-13. Will not You, O God, who has cast us off? And will not You, O
   God, go forth with our hosts? Give us help from trouble: for vain is
   the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly: for He it is that
   shall tread down our enemies.
     __________________________________________________________________

Fencing the Table

   (No. 2865)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY JANUARY 7, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 2, 1876.

   "But let a main examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and
   drink of the cup." 1 Corinthians 11:28.

   THERE are two symbolical ordinances in the Christian Church--and only
   two--Believers' Baptism and the Lord's Supper. These have been so
   misinterpreted, perverted and abused that the wish has sometimes
   crossed the minds of spiritual persons that they had never been
   instituted. We do not wonder that there should be a denomination of
   Christians who have given them up, though we think that in this matter
   they have not acted according to the Word of God. We ourselves retain
   them for this reason only, because we believe that our Lord Jesus
   Christ ordained them--and we desire to observe them exactly as Christ
   ordained them. And only thus shall we find them instructive and helpful
   to our souls.

   Baptism, the immersion of the Believer in water, is the token of his
   death, burial and resurrection with Christ. It sets forth the
   fellowship which he has with his Lord as the Apostle tells us--"Buried
   with Him in Baptism, wherein also you are risen with Him"--not that the
   plunge into the water confers any Grace upon the person who is
   baptized, but it is the type, the emblem, the instructive symbol of the
   new birth--which new birth consists in passing, by death and
   resurrection, into newness of life. You all know that we are only born
   once. A thing can only have one true beginning. Hence, Baptism is never
   to be repeated. Once done, it is done forever.

   The other ordinance is the Lord's Supper and, as Baptism, sets forth,
   typifies, (mark you, nothing more than typifies), and is the emblem of
   the new birth, so the Lord's Supper is the emblem of the spiritual
   feeding of that new life. Now, though a man is born only once, he eats
   a great many more times than once and drinks a great many more times
   than once. Indeed, to eat and to drink often are necessary to the
   maintenance of our life. If we neglected to do so, we would soon find
   ourselves in an ill case. Hence, the Supper of the Lord, representing,
   as it does, the spiritual feeding of the new-born life upon the body
   and blood of Christ, (and only representing it, mark you--not really
   doing it in any carnal sense), is oftentimes to be repeated. We find
   that the early Christians very frequently broke bread together. I think
   they did so almost every day. It is recorded, by some of the early
   fathers, that the first Christians seldom met together, on any day of
   the week, without commemorating the death of Christ. Augustine mentions
   this and he seems to have taught that at least once in the week--on
   that blessed day which celebrates the Resurrection of our Lord,
   Christians should meet for the breaking of bread. I think that the
   oftener we meet for this purpose, the better it is for us. The Holy
   Spirit specifies no particular time--we are not under a law which binds
   us to this period or to that. Our Lord leaves it very much to our own
   loving hearts, but the words that Paul quotes, "This do you, as often
   as you drink it, in remembrance of Me," certainly imply that we should
   often "do this" in remembrance of our dear Lord and Savior.

   A simple feast, even of bread and wine, a feast often celebrated, would
   be liable to be trifled with and misapplied. Hence, as Paradise of old
   was guarded by cherubim, with a flaming sword which turned every way,
   to keep the way of the Tree of Life, so stands this simple Supper of
   the Lord guarded with a flaming sword, of which my text is a
   portion--"Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread,
   and drink of the cup."

   Now, with this thought upon our minds, let us go to the text, itself,
   and observe how we are bidden to examine ourselves before we come to
   the Table of the Lord. We will speak, first, concerning the necessity
   for this examination. Next,

   theperson who is toperform it. Then, the vitalpoints ofthe examination.
   And, lastly, the spirit in which we should come to the table after we
   have examined ourselves.

   I. First, then, THE NECESSITY FOR THIS EXAMINATION.

   The sense of that necessity will be very strongly impressed upon us if
   we remember that many have profaned the Table ofthe Lord. Hence it is
   incumbent upon us to examine ourselves lest we should do the same.
   Years ago--our grandfathers remember it well--men had to "take the
   sacrament," as it was called, before they could be made mayors of
   towns, or hold certain offices in the municipalities and, in that way,
   the Communion Table became a passport to secular office. I tremble as I
   think how the laws of this land compelled men--though they ought never
   to have yielded obedience to such laws--to eat and drink judgment or
   condemnation to themselves as they profaned this holy ordinance! Others
   have made it, as I fear that some still make it, a means of obtaining
   alms--coming to the Communion Table because those who are members of
   the church are helped in the time of their poverty, or there is a
   distribution of alms money among the needy communicants. Ah, dear
   Friends, however poor you may be, it would be better for you to starve
   than to get help in this way if you are not really the Lord's people!
   If any of you have acted thus, I charge you, before Almighty God, to do
   so no more! If we have any suspicions that we have ever done such a
   thing, we may well examine ourselves concerning that matter and
   sincerely repent if we have so sinned against the Lord.

   Others come to the Communion as a piece of sheer superstition, really
   believing, poor deluded souls, that when they take the wafer into their
   mouths, they actually eat the flesh of Christ. Such a monstrous
   doctrine as that is only fit for cannibals--it is not a Doctrine of
   Christianity! What a profanation of the ordinance it is to come to it
   with such a notion as that! If any of us have the slightest idea that
   to partake of what is called "the sacrament"--though there is no such
   name as that for it anywhere in Scripture--confers Divine Grace, let
   all such thoughts be banished from our minds at once!

   It is not a converting ordinance, nor a saving ordinance--it is an
   establishing ordinance and a comforting ordinance for those who are
   saved. But it never was intended to save souls, neither is it adapted
   to that end and if it is so misrepresented, it is apt rather to be the
   means of damning than of saving the soul, for he that so eats and
   drinks may, in very deed, be eating and drinking damnation to himself!

   I fear that there are others who come to the Communion Table out of
   mere form. I find that it is the custom of certain persons to do this
   always on Christmas day and on Good Friday, though what particular
   sanctity there can be about those two days, I am sure I cannot tell. I
   see little enough of holiness about them and a great deal of sheer
   superstition. But let all of us be careful that we never come to the
   Communion simply because it is the first Sabbath in the month, or even
   because it is the day of our Lord's Resurrection and because, as church
   members, we feel that we ought to come there. I mention these
   things--although I hope, to the most of you, they are
   unnecessary--because they are necessary to a certain class of persons
   who, in one or other of these ways, thoughtlessly profane the Table of
   the Lord.

   But, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we need to examine ourselves
   because it may be that though free from these evils which I have
   mentioned, we have come to this solemn feast without due solemnity,
   without serious thought, without the proper preparation of heart or the
   right observance of the ordinance. We have come very often to the
   Communion Table, yet there has been but little real heart-fellowship
   with Jesus. There has been bread upon the table and in our mouths, but
   we have not discerned the Lord's body. There has been wine there, but
   we have not looked through the sign to the blood of which it is only
   the symbol. If it has been so with any of us, we have, to that extent,
   eaten and drunk unworthily--and I know not how much of deserved
   chastisement God may have laid upon us on that account--but the
   Apostle's words have often been fulfilled since his day, "For this
   cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep."

   This examination is necessary, next, because the purpose of this
   ordinance requires that we should be in a fit condition for its
   observance. What is the objective of this ordinance? "This do in
   remembrance of Me," says the Lord Jesus. But you cannot remember what
   you do not know! how can you remember an unknown Christ? By coming to
   the Communion Table, you are supposed to let men see, as they look on
   at this ordinance, that you believe that Christ lived and died to save
   sinners. But suppose that you do not believe it--that you do not, at
   any rate, in your heart savingly believe it? Then you are not a fit
   person to proclaim that Truth of God to others by means of this
   ordinance. The Lord Jesus Christ does not want His enemies to remember
   Him--He wants His friends to cherish His memory and to keep the fact of
   His death prominently and permanently before the eyes of the world.

   It must be His friends who must do this! Besides, this ordinance is one
   special means of communion between Christ and His people, but what
   communion can there be between you and Christ if you are a son of
   Belial? If you love sin and continue to live in sin, what possible
   fellowship can you have with the holy Christ? Will He have communion
   with a man who comes to His Table drunk? Or who comes from dishonest
   actions all week? Or who has been singing a lascivious song, but now
   turns to join with those who laud and magnify the name of the thrice
   holy God? Imagine not that Jesus Christ will welcome such as you are to
   His Table! If you do come, it will be at your most imminent peril! It
   can do you no good--it will be a curse rather than a blessing to you!
   So, let us examine ourselves because those who come to the Table of the
   Lord ought to be of such a sort that the purposes and objectives for
   which the ordinance was instituted may be realized in them.

   But let us especially examine ourselves because, if we come not aright,
   we shall incur very severe penalties--the penalties which I have
   already mentioned to you. Let me again read to you these solemn word,
   "Therefore, whoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord
   unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." And
   then follows the sure penalty upon true Believers who, nevertheless,
   come in an unfit state to the Table. I have read it to you before, but
   I will read it again--"He that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and
   drinks condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For
   this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." Put off
   your shoes from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy
   ground! Rush not into the sacred place, but come with that gracious
   ti-morousness--no, rather with that holy boldness which becomes a
   sinner who has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ and is robed in
   His spotless righteousness!

   And, dear Friends, once more, there is a necessity for us to examine
   ourselves because we must know that there are, among us, some who are
   doubtless partaking ofthe Lord's Supper unworthily. We have known, to
   our great sorrow, of some who have been harboring an unforgiving
   spirit, yet who have dared to come to the Communion Table. When I have
   really known that this has been the case, I have prevented the
   wrongdoer from sitting down with us, but, unknown to me, and to other
   ministers, it HAS often have happened that persons have come professing
   to be Christians, yet all the while not manifesting the true spirit of
   Christianity toward some offending Brother or Sister. You remember how
   even the loving Apostle John writes, "If a man says, I love God, and
   hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom
   he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?"

   Then, alas, there are some, who, by coming to the Communion, profess to
   be Christians, yet who, nevertheless, are all the while living in
   shameful sin which they dare not have discovered. This is one of the
   greatest sources of sorrow to true ministers of Christ and it has made
   us often wring our hands with agony and weep bitter tears before the
   Lord, when we have seen trees looking fair and green, but which,
   inwardly, as Bunyan said, were "so rotten that they were only fit to be
   tinder for the devil's tinderbox." Their profession was a false one,
   for, all the while their moral character was unsound. There was a
   rottenness about them which no one discovered till, upon some fatal
   day--fatal to their own reputation, but good for the Church's
   purification--they were exposed and driven out with shame. Judas was
   found out at last. Ananias and Sapphira were at last found out and cut
   off from among the people of God--and the unclean and unholy among the
   early Christians were excommunicated from the assembly of the saints.

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, if, to your own personal knowledge, this has
   been the case with others, forgive me when I ask--Is there not at least
   the possibility that it may also be the case with you? At any rate, you
   will do well to examine yourselves and if, after having honestly
   examined, you can say, "No, that is not the case with me," then bless
   God that you can truthfully say so. Take no credit to yourselves, but
   give to God's Grace the whole of the praise. Still, do look thoroughly
   to this matter. "Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith." I,
   as a minister, am bound to examine myself because there have been
   eminent preachers of the Gospel who, nevertheless, have lived
   unhallowed lives. No preacher may dare to say, "My office screens me
   from this test." Deacons and elders of the church, you must examine
   yourselves because you have known church officers who have brought
   disgrace upon the offices that they have filled. And you Sunday school
   teachers, open-air preachers, tract distributors and the like--and you
   members of the Church-- however useful you may be and however highly
   you may be respected by your fellow members, I beseech you,
   nevertheless, shirk not this duty, but let each one examine himself
   before he comes to sit down at the Table of the Lord.

   II. Now, secondly, I am to speak about THE PERSON WHO IS TO PERFORM
   THIS EXAMINATION--"Let a

   man examine himself."

   Let not anyone say, "I was examined by the proper officers of the
   church before I was admitted into church membership, so I do not need
   any further examination." Now, mark, it is the duty of every church, in
   receiving members, to judge all applicants by their fruits. "By their
   fruits shall you know them," is our Lord's own test. We must have a
   credible profession of faith, supported by a life that is consistent
   therewith, but that is all upon which we can form a judgment. We cannot
   examine the heart and we cannot infallibly judge the life. How very
   often have we been deceived in these matters! If anyone were to suppose
   that a certificate of church membership is to excuse him from the duty
   of personal self-examination, he is grievously mistaken. No, dear
   Friend, you know what your secret thoughts are and what your private
   actions are and, therefore, it is to yourselfthat this duty is
   committed--"Let a man examine himself"

   "Well, but," someone may say, "my friends--my private friends--are
   quite satisfied concerning my spiritual condition. I have been talking
   to my godly mother. I have been conversing with my praying father. I
   have had sweet fellowship, just lately, with a good old Christian
   friend--and they all seem perfectly satisfied with me." I am glad they
   are but Paul says, under the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "Let a man
   examine himself" There is no greater error under Heaven than to try to
   shift the responsibility of our own personal religion on to friends or
   to so-called "priests." There can be no more gigantic imposture than
   the supposed sponsorship of infants! It amazes me that anybody can dare
   to say, on any child's behalf, that it shall renounce the pomp and
   vanities of this world, and all else that is mentioned in the Church
   Catechism. But it would be an equally gigantic imposture if we were to
   establish a sponsorship for grown-up people! Both of them are wicked
   and neither of them can be carried out--we cannot guarantee the
   Christian character of other people--the Apostolic rule must remain,
   "Let a man examine himself" Look you well to the state of your own
   souls and, to this end, go to God in prayer and say, as David did,
   "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."

   III. Now, thirdly, WHAT ARE THE VITAL POINTS IN THIS EXAMINATION? There
   are a good many, but I

   have arranged them under five heads for the sake of brevity and to help
   your memories.

   First, my dear Friends, examine yourselves concerning your knowledge.
   There are some who are too ignorant to come to the Table of the Lord.
   They may have taken their M.A. degree at Oxford or Cambridge, they may
   even be Doctors of Divinity and yet be too ignorant to come to the
   Lord's Table. What knowledge is necessary for coming aright to the
   Table? I answer--Saving knowledge--a living knowledge of the Lord Jesus
   Christ who said, "This do in remembrance of Me." You cannot remember a
   person you never knew, so you must be acquainted with the Lord Jesus
   Christ if you would observe this ordinance as He instituted it. There
   is the bread upon the table. Have you ever known what it was to be
   spirituallyhungry? Do you know that Jesus Christ is the only Food that
   can relieve the hunger of your spirit? Have you learned to know Him
   through feeding upon Him by faith? Then you are a fit person to partake
   of the bread on the Communion Table because you are a person who
   understands what it signifies--you who have been satisfied by feeding
   upon Christ.

   There is also the wine cup upon the Table. Were you ever spiritually
   thirsty? Did you then see how the Lord Jesus Christ, by His atoning
   Sacrifice, has fully met all the needs of your soul? Have you really
   partaken of Jesus Christ and has your heart been refreshed, revived and
   cheered by the application to it of the precious blood of Jesus? If so,
   you understand the meaning of that Communion Cup and you are a fit and
   proper person to partake of it. But if you have never known this
   spiritual hunger and thirst--if you have never realized your own
   spiritual needs--and if you have not known what it is for Christ to
   supply those needs--I charge you to stay away from this Table until you
   do know these things! Otherwise you will be eating and drinking in
   utter ignorance and the mere physical acts will be of no service
   whatever to you. May the Lord give you to know Him whom to know is
   eternal life! And when you do know Him, then come to His Table, for you
   will not then eat and drink unworthily.

   Then, next, examine yourselves concerning your faith. Knowledge is all
   in vain without faith. And the knowledge of which I have been speaking
   is a knowledge that is closely allied with faith. Are you trusting
   alone in the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ? I have asked myself that
   question many scores of times and I do not recollect that I ever had
   any hesitancy about how to answer it. I know that I am trusting in
   Jesus! If I am really living--if there is any truth in my own
   consciousness--I am sure that I have trusted my soul for time and for
   eternity wholly to the keeping of that Savior who lived, died and rose
   again for sinners! Well, that being so, I have a right to come to the
   Communion. Christ wants Believers at His Table--they are His own
   children. If you are believing in Him, He invites you to come and you
   will be welcome

   if you come! You will not eat and drink unworthily, dear Friend, if you
   apprehend, by faith, that Christ's flesh is meat, indeed, and His blood
   is drink, indeed. You will come to the Table in the right manner.

   In the third place, I want you to examine yourselves concerning your
   repentance. In the emblems upon the Communion Table, you can see
   something of what it cost your Lord to redeem you from sin, death and
   Hell. The bread, representing the flesh of Jesus, is separate from the
   wine, which represents His blood. And the separation of the blood from
   the flesh indicates death--a bleeding away of life in the most acute
   anguish. It cost your Lord untold agony to redeem you from going down
   into Hell, so can you ever imagine that any man is a fit person to
   participate in the emblems which set forth that agony if he has never
   felt, in his own soul, any agony on account of sin? What right has an
   impenitent person to come where the death of Christ, on account of sin,
   is especially set forth? A heart that has never been broken because of
   sin--shall it come and remember the broken body and broken heart of
   Jesus? A heart of stone that has never been melted--shall it come and
   remember His precious flesh that was melted in the agonies of Calvary?
   If your eyes have wept no tears of repentance, how can you properly
   remember Him whose veins wept blood to redeem His people from their
   sins? It is a contrite heart and a broken spirit that Christ wants
   here! Only with such persons will God deign to dwell and only with such
   will Christ commune, either at His Table or anywhere else. See to it,
   then, that you have genuine repentance.

   The next vital point for self-examination is love. Examine yourselves
   concerning your love. I think, Brothers and Sisters, that none of us
   can worthily eat of this bread and drink of this cup unless we truly
   love our Lord. So I venture to put the question to each one of you
   here. I know not your names, but the name that is used by our Lord
   Jesus will do for you. He says, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?"
   You answer, "Yes." Do you? Then I will put the question again. "Simon,
   son of Jonas, Jesus says to you, 'Do you love Me?'And yet a third time
   I may put it, "Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me?" 'Tis Jesus with
   the pierced hands and with the pierced feet who speaks, and He says,
   "Do you love Me?" This is the test of whether you may come to His
   Table, or not. Can you answer, "'Yes, Lord, You know all things, You
   know that I love You.' Sometimes my friends hardly know it, for I am
   not always as consistent as I should be. Sometimes, Lord, I have even
   to question it myself, but You know that, deep down in my heart,
   notwithstanding all my coldness and forgetfulness, all my wanderings
   and all my faults--You know that I do love You." Come along, Brother!
   Come along, Sister! You will not eat and drink unworthily if this is
   true concerning your love to your Lord!

   There is one other matter which is vital, and that concerns obedience.
   Examine yourselves concerning your obedience, for, unless a man obeys
   the commands of Christ, he does not prove that he really loves Christ.
   If we truly love Him, we shall keep His commandments. If Paul had said
   that no one had a right to come to the Communion unless he was perfect,
   I certainly could not come and I feel sure that there is no one in the
   whole world who would have the right to come. Perfect? Ah, perfect
   weakness! And if anybody says he is perfect in any other sense than
   that, he must be possessed of perfect folly! But the obedience that we
   must have is of this sort. Do you desire to be perfectly obedient to
   your Lord? Do you, in your heart, desire to be rid of every sin and to
   forsake every false way? Is there any sin that you would harbor and
   indulge? Then you are not truly obedient! But can you, on the other
   hand, say, "Lord, I would be purged from every evil of every kind and I
   desire to obey You in all things. No matter how it may grate upon my
   feelings, or how contrary it may be to my wishes, where You bid me, I
   will go, and what You command me, I will do--your Grace helping me"? Is
   that what you say? Then you may come to the Communion, for Jesus
   Himself welcomes you! But if you will not give up sin--if you have even
   one pet sin that you are still determined to keep, you are a traitor to
   Christ and you have no more right to come to His Table than Judas
   Iscariot had!

   IV. Now, in closing, I want to speak a few words concerning THE SPIRIT
   IN WHICH, AFTER THIS SELF-

   EXAMINATION, WE OUGHT TO COME TO THE COMMUNION TABLE.

   Ought we not to come, dear Friends, each one of us, in the spirit of
   holy wondefl This is the Lord's Table and I am coming, with the Lord's
   redeemed people, to eat and drink at it--what a wonder that I am here!
   I never come to the Communion without being astonished at the amazing
   Grace of God to me and especially as I think of this great church which
   God has been graciously pleased to gather in this place. How much I owe
   to Him! How constantly am I struck with the marvels of His mercy to me!
   And each one of you, my fellow Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, has
   some peculiar reason for feeling the same kind of wonder in your own
   case.

   Next, we ought to come to the Communion with a sense of self-abasement.
   Brothers and Sisters, we ought to think little of ourselves everywhere,
   but when we come to the Table of our Lord, we ought to shrink to
   nothing--yes, to less than nothing! In the wilderness, man did eat
   angels' food, but angels never ate such food as this! Yet we are
   permitted to come and partake of it. So, let us sink, and sink, and
   sink, and sink, and sink, and sink, and sink till we are lost in
   wonder, love and praise that we should ever be permitted to come to
   this sacred feast!

   Let us come, at the same time, in a spirit of strong desire. I believe
   that in a sermon people always get something good when they come
   desiring to get something good. A hungry congregation will be sure to
   be fed! And if we come to the Communion Table feeling, "My Lord and
   Master, I desire to meet with You. The bread alone will not satisfy
   me--I need to feed spiritually upon Your flesh. The wine will not
   quench my soul's thirst--I need spiritually to receive Your blood into
   my inmost soul. I desire, with all fervor of holy ardor, to put my
   finger into the print of the nails and to thrust my hand into Your
   side!" If you come to the Communion in this spirit--longing for
   Christ--you shall have Him! Open your mouths and pant for Him, and the
   living waters shall quench your soul's thirst.

   Then come to the table with a believing hope. Perhaps you have not seen
   your Master's face lately--you have been sorrowfully walking in
   darkness. Come to the Communion hoping that He will look through the
   lattice and reveal Himself to you. Do you not know that the two
   ordinances are windows of agate and of diamonds to the opened eyes of
   His people? Perhaps your loving Lord will look again through one of
   those windows while you are sitting at His Table. So, come expecting
   Him! Come with your heart wide open to receive its rightful Lord and
   Master and, with your eyes of love looking up to Him, surely, if the
   eyes of your love look up to Him, the eyes of His love will look down
   upon you! If you come to His Table, singing, "My Beloved is mine, and I
   am His; He feeds among the lilies"--if you come passionately desiring
   to enjoy His company--then you may also come with the full confidence
   that His company will be given to you!

   I have only one thing more to say. Come to the Communion Table resolved
   that if in the ordinance you do not find your Lord--if in the breaking
   of bread, He is not manifested to you and if, in the pouring forth of
   the wine, you get no taste of His love--you will still trust in Him. Do
   not depend on outward signs and visible evidences, but say, 'Though He
   slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' And if His Table should yield me no
   spiritual meat, I will still cleave to my Master. And if He will only
   let me be as a dog beneath His Table, I will eat the crumbs that fall
   there and so shall I live, for in every crumb of His mercy there is
   life everlasting!"

   As for you who, perhaps, have never thought upon this subject, I have
   to say just this to you, and then I have done. Remember that religion
   does not begin with ordinances. While I have been speaking to
   professing Christians concerning the Communion, I hope that none of you
   have been thinking of it as a saving ordinance. You, as sinners, have
   to exercise faith in Christ before you have anything to do with
   Believers' Baptism--you have to come to Christ, Himself, before you are
   qualified to come to the Lords Table. As soon as you have, by faith,
   received Jesus Christ, Himself, as your Lord and Savior, the tokens and
   emblems of His death will become instructive to you. But until Jesus
   Christ is wholly yours, hands off all these holy things! For, as
   uncircumcised Philistines would have had no right to be at the Paschal
   Supper, so have those who are not renewed in heart with that
   circumcision that is made without hands, no right to come to the feast
   of Christian love which is reserved for the followers of the Crucified!
   Come to Jesus, to Jesus only, and put your trust in Him! God grant that
   you may do so, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW26:17-30; 1 CORINTHIANS 11:18-34.

   Matthew 26:17-26. Now on the first day ofthe feast of unleavened bread
   the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto Him, Where will You that we
   prepare for You to eat the Passover? And He said, Go into the city to
   such a man, and say unto him, The Master says, My time is at hand; I
   will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples. And the
   disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the
   Passover Now when the evening was come, He sat down with the twelve.
   And as they did eat, He said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you
   shall betray Me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began, every
   one of them, to say unto Him, Lord, is it I? And He answered and said,
   he that dips his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.
   The Son of Man goes as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man by
   whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he
   had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed

   Him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, you have
   said. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it So the
   Jewish Passover melted away into the Lord's Supper. Indeed, so gently
   did the one dissolve into the other that we scarcely know whether this
   incident, relating to Judas Iscariot, occurred during the Passover or
   the Supper. According to one account, it would seem to be one and,
   according to another account, the other, but, indeed, the one ordinance
   was almost imperceptibly merged into the other. I want you carefully to
   notice, as we read this narrative through, whether you can see, here,
   any trace of an altar. Look with both your eyes and see whether you can
   find any trace of a priest offering a sacrifice. Watch diligently to
   see whether you can perceive anything about kneeling down, or about the
   elevation or the adoration of "the host." Why, even the Roman Catholic
   church knows better than to believe in what it practices! Most of you
   have seen copies of the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, himself a
   Catholic of the old school. How does he picture those who were at the
   institution of the Lord's Supper? Why, they are all sitting around a
   table, with the Lord Jesus in their midst! I wonder that they exhibit
   and still allow to be in their churches, a picture like that, which,
   painted by one of their own artists--most effectually condemns their
   base idolatry in which a wafer-god is lifted up, to be adored by men,
   who must be besotted, indeed, before they can prostitute their
   intellects so grossly as to commit such an act of sin! What a rebuke to
   that idolatry is conveyed by this simple statement--"As they were
   eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it."

   26. And broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said. Take, eat,
   this is My body. The Romanists do not even break the bread. They have a
   wafer so as to avoid anything like an imitation of the example set by
   our blessed Lord and Master. He took a piece of the bread which was
   provided for the paschal feast--the ordinary unleavened bread--and He
   broke it and gave it to His disciples, and said to them, "Take, eat,
   this is My body." Not, of course, the literal body, which was there at
   the table--this was the emblem of His body about to be broken on the
   Cross on the behalf of all His people!

   27. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying,
   Drink you all of it "Every one of you, take your own personal share."
   This, also, the Papists have perverted by denying the cup to the laity.

   28-30. For this is My blood ofthe new testament, which is shed for many
   for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink
   henceforth of this fruit ofthe vine until that day when I drink it new
   with you in My Father's Kingdom. And when they had sung a hymn, they
   went out into the Mount of Olives. It was a social feast, somewhat
   funereal and tinctured with sadness, for Jesus was about to go from
   them to die. Still, it was a joyous celebration, closing with a hymn.
   At the paschal feast, the Jews always sang Psalms 113 to 118. Probably
   our Lord sang all these through. At any rate, Christ and His Apostles
   sang a hymn and I always like to think of Him as leading the little
   company--going to His death with a song upon His lips, His voice full
   of melody and made more sweet than ever by the near approach of
   Geth-semane and Calvary. I would like always to sing, whenever we come
   to the Communion Table, after the fashion in which they sang that
   night--"When they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of
   Olives." Now let us read what the Apostle Paul writes concerning the
   Lord's Supper.

   1 Corinthians 11:18-22. For first of all, when you come together in the
   church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe
   it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are
   approved may be made manifest among you. When you come together,
   therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. For in
   eating everyone takes before the other his own supper and one is
   hungry, and another is drunk. What?Have you not houses to eat and to
   drink in? Or despise you the church of God, and shame them that have
   not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you
   not. These Corinthians fell into a great many errors. Everybody was a
   speaker and said whatever he pleased. And they had no proper order or
   rule. Among other evils--when they met together to observe the Lord's
   Supper, they brought their own food with them, thinking that eating
   thus together was keeping the sacred feast. So the richer ones feasted
   to the full and the poor went almost without anything. "One is hungry,
   and another is drunk," says the Apostle, and he tells them that this
   was not the right way of observing the Lord's Supper. Yet it is evident
   that the idea which was in their mind was that of feasting together.
   They had exaggerated it and carried it to a grievous excess, but that
   was the idea they had concerning it. Certainly, there was no altar, or
   priest, or anything of the sort. Now the Apostle tells them how the
   ordinance should be observed.

   23-25. For Ihave received ofthe Lord that which also I deliver unto
   you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took
   bread: and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, Take, eat:
   this is My body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.
   After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had

   supped, saying, This cup is thee new testament in My blood: this do
   you, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. How wonderfully
   simple it all is! There is nothing here of the paraphernalia of a
   "sacrament." It is a simple memorial festival, that is all.

   26, 27. For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you
   proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. Therefore whoever shall eat
   this bread and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty
   of the body and blood of the Lord. He shall be guilty with respect to
   that body--not with respect to the breadagainst which he cannot
   sin--but with respect to that body which is represented by the bread,
   and with respect to that blood which is represented by the cup. See
   with what holy solemnity this humble feast is fenced and invested?
   There is a Divinity which hedges the simple ordinance of Christ lest
   men should trifle with it to their eternal ruin!

   28, 29. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread,
   and drink of the cup. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and
   drinks damnation to himself not discerning the Lord's body.' 'Judgment"
   or "condemnation" is the word in the original, not, "damnation." That
   is nota fair translation, neither does it express the Truth of God. He
   that eats and drinks unworthily condemns himself in so doing--he comes
   under judgment for that act. This is the kind ofjudgment that falls
   upon Christians if they come unworthily to the Lord's Table--

   30-32. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many
   sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But
   when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be
   condemned with the world. Believers who are rendered sick, or who even
   die because of their offense against the Lord's ordinance, are not
   therefore condemned to Hell! Far from it--it is that they may not be so
   condemned that God visits them. "When we," the people of God--"are
   judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned
   with the world'"

   33, 34. Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, tarry
   one for another. Andif any man is hungry, let him eat at home; that you
   come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order
   when I come. By due attention to the Apostle's injunctions, they would
   be able to rightly observe the ordinance. And we, also, may learn, from
   what Paul wrote, how we may worthily come to the Table of our Lord.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good News

   (No. 2866)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY
   6, 1876.

   "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."
   Proverbs 25:25.

   THIS is a text for summertime rather than for a winter's evening. It is
   only on one of our hottest summer days that we could fully appreciate
   the illustration here employed. We need to be parched with thirst to be
   able to feel the value of cold waters to quench our thirst. At the same
   time, I think that we can, without any very great stretch of
   imagination, put ourselves into the position of some to whom cold
   waters have been almost like life from the dead. Look at Hagar in the
   wilderness with her child, whom she has cast under one of the shrubs
   that she may not see him die. The water in the bottle is spent and she
   longs for a cooling draught that might save the young lad's life. Then
   the Lord opened her eyes so that she saw a well of water in the desert
   and, as she filled her bottle from it, she understood what cold waters
   are to a thirsty soul. Think also of the whole nation of Israel in the
   wilderness crying out in agony because there was no water for them to
   drink. Then they began to murmur against the Lord and against
   Moses--but how joyful they were when the smitten Rock poured forth its
   cooling stream and they rushed to it and drank to the full.

   If you want another personal example of the blessing of cold water to a
   thirsty soul, think of Samson. Heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of an
   ass he has slain a thousand men! But the dust of the conflict, the heat
   and the exhaustion had caused such an intense thirst to come upon him
   that he is ready to die. Then he lifts up his voice to the Lord and the
   same God who had made the jawbone to be so mighty a weapon against the
   Philistines, opens for him a spring of water in that very jawbone--and
   he drinks and is refreshed--and magnifies the name of the Lord. So, you
   see, there are occasions when cold waters are inexpressibly precious to
   thirsty souls. And Solomon, who seems to have known something of their
   value, says that good news from a far country is equally pleasant,
   refreshing and reviving.

   This proverb is true in its most literal interpretation. When we are in
   a far country, separate from those we love, there is no greater
   pleasure than that of receiving letters with tidings of their welfare
   from them. Even the little details about household affairs--the minor
   events which we would scarcely have noticed if we had been
   there--become exceedingly interesting to us and the longer we have been
   away from home, the more dear everything becomes to us when we hear of
   it in the far country where, for a while, our lot has been cast. I
   suppose that merchants who have costly ventures in distant parts, also
   long for good news from the far country which is still their home
   wherever they may be. Solomon had sent his ships to various foreign
   countries and when the news came from Joppa that the vessels were in
   sight which had come back from India, or from the Pillars of Hercules,
   bringing all manner of precious things, the merchant prince was highly
   pleased and felt that, "as cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good
   news from a far country." And this, which is a literal fact, may become
   an illustration of the spiritual Truth of God--and I am going to use it
   in that way as God, the Holy Spirit, may guide me.

   First, good news from God for sinners is like cold waters to a thirsty
   soul. Secondly, good news from Heaven for saints is like cold waters to
   a thirsty soul. And, thirdly, good news in Heaven from earth--the good
   news which reaches that far country every now and then--is to angels
   and glorified saints as cold waters to a thirsty soul.

   I. First, then, (and may God bless this first head very richly!) GOOD
   NEWS FROM GOD FOR SINNERS is like cold water to the thirsty.

   Sin has led the sinner into a far country. That part of the description
   of the prodigal son who gathered all and went into a far country aptly
   describes the condition of the whole human race. Man, before the Fall,
   was near to God. He communed with Him. But when Adam and Eve "heard the
   voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,"
   after they had disobeyedHim, they "hid themselves from the Presence of
   the Lord God among the trees of the garden." Practically, by his sin,
   Adam set out on a long journey away from his happy home and, soon, he
   was so far off that when God came where He had formerly communed with
   him, He had to cry to him, "Adam, where are you?" In like manner, we
   are alienated from God by wicked works, far off from Him in character,
   for He is Light and we are darkness. He is Truth and we are falsehood.
   He is Love and we are just the opposite. We are also far off from God
   in our aims and objectives, for we aim not at the good of others, nor
   at His Glory, but we seek earthly things. We are, by nature, far off
   from God in the whole bent and current of our life which no longer runs
   in a parallel line with the life of God as first imparted to man, but
   runs rather according to the fashion of the life of Satan--so that we
   yield ourselves up to the evil influence of that foul spirit who works
   in the children of disobedience.

   When a sinner is awakened by the Holy Spirit, he becomes conscious of
   this distance and he feels, in a measure, like the lost spirits in Hell
   who realize that there is a great gulf fixed between them and God. At
   first the convicted sinner fancies that gulf can never be passed and
   the longer he looks into its awful depths--the longer his eyes try to
   gaze across it to the other side--the more he discovers that he is far
   off from his God and that there is, indeed, a vast, yawning chasm
   between him and his Maker. If any of you, dear Friends, are conscious
   of being thus at a distance from God, I have come as a messenger from
   Him bringing to you His words of mercy and Grace which should be to you
   as good news from a far country!

   And the first piece of good news that I have to give you is that God
   has not forgotten you. You are a lost sheep and you have almost
   forgotten your Shepherd. Perhaps you have altogether forgotten Him--but
   your Shepherd has been counting over the number of His sheep and He
   finds that there is one missing, for there are only 99 where there
   should be a hundred and He is deeply concerned about the one that has
   gone astray!

   God has not only remembered that there is such a person as you but he
   remembers you with pity. It is wonderful to notice how He speaks.
   Sometimes He cries, "How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I
   deliver you, Israel? How shall I make you as Admah? How shall I set you
   as Zeboim?" Like as a father pities his children, so is it with our
   God-- He pities those who wander away from Him. "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." God takes no delight in your sin
   and no delight in the shame and sorrow which your sin will bring upon
   you unless you turn from it--but He will take delight in you if you
   return to Him! He still cries to you, "Return you, now, everyone from
   his evil way!" And He still remembers you in pity and compassion.
   Notwithstanding your forgetfulness of Him and your willful rebellion
   against Him, He does remember you, for God is Love and there is love in
   His heart even towards sinners who are dead in trespasses and sins.
   That, surely, is good news to you! And if God thus thinks of you in
   pity, should not you think of God with deep, heartfelt penitence and
   contrition?

   But there is even better news from God for you than this, namely, that
   He has prepared the way by which you may come back to Him. Do you ask,
   "How can that be, for there is a wall of partition between us? How can
   I ever get to God? Surely, the justice of God, on account of my sin,
   raises an impassable barrier between us. That justice stands like the
   cherubim with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of
   the Tree of Life, lest, haply, I should attempt to return to my God."
   That is quite true, yet listen to this, poor, guilty Sinner. God must
   be just, that is certain and, being just, He must punish your sin. But
   have you not heard that He has given His only-begotten Son that He
   might stand in the sinner's place and bear the punishment that was due
   on account of the sinner's guilt? That cherub's flaming sword has been
   quenched in Jesus' precious blood! That middle wall of partition Christ
   has broken down, even as the veil of the Temple was torn in two, from
   the top to the bottom! Oh, what a mighty rip was that! Not a little
   slit, part of the way down, but from the top to the bottom!

   So has Jesus Christ demolished the barrier which stood between a justly
   angry God and a guilty but repenting sinner--and now there is a way of
   approach for the very worst of men and women--right up to the Throne of
   the Most High! By the blood of Jesus, once shed for many for the
   remission of sins, the guiltiest foot of man may come. Yes, by that
   blood-besprinkled way, the most condemned sinner may come without fear
   of being repulsed! The chasm has been filled, the gulf bridged over and
   if you truly believe in Jesus Christ, you may, in His name, and for His
   sake, come back to your

   Heavenly Father! That wise resolve within your heart which says, "I
   will arise and go to my Father," should be at once carried into effect,
   for your Father has prepared the way by which you may come back to Him
   and, to encourage you, He has sprinkled it with the blood of His dear
   Son--the surest sign and token of His love to sinners that even God,
   Himself, could give! Here, then, is good news from a far country. Your
   Father thinks of you, poor prodigal, and He has paved the way for you
   to come back to His own house and heart!

   Is there any more good news for you? Yes, that there is, far more than
   I can tell you! This is another piece of it--God has sent you His Word
   and sent you His servants to invite you to come back to Him. It is very
   gracious for God to prepare the way, but it is even more gracious for
   Him to invite you to make use of that way. There are, sometimes, cases
   of necessity when a man thrusts himself upon the notice of another and
   seeks his aid in some great emergency. It is a dark and stormy night
   and the wanderer, who has lost his way, knocks at the first door he
   sees and asks for shelter. But that is not your case. You, also, are a
   wanderer and you need shelter, but Mercy's door stands wide open and
   God has sent His messengers to invite you to come in! If the door had
   been closed, it would have been a wise action on your part to knock and
   ask for admission, or even to cause the Kingdom of Heaven to suffer
   violence and to take the blessing by force. But that is not necessary.

   Think, then, of the goodness of God who invites, entreats, exhorts and
   persuades sinners to come to Him. No, more, there is a text--a blessed
   text, I think--which says, "Compel them to come in." The great King
   bids His servants to seize them by the mighty force of Love and to draw
   them in with tears and entreaties again and again repeated, until they
   yield! "Compel them to come in," He says, "that My house may be
   filled." This is good news indeed! Such gracious invitations as these
   make up still more good news--"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. "I
   have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions and, as a
   cloud, your sins: for I have redeemed you." "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." "Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
   be saved." "All manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto
   men." "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
   "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." Is not
   this good news for poor sinners? O my Master, bless You, Your own Words
   of Grace and mercy to all who hear or read them--and make them to be
   like cold waters to a thirsty soul!

   There is still more good news beyond all this and I will tell you some
   of it. It is good news that many have already returned to their Father
   and have been welcomed. Some of these are your own friends and
   relatives--your brother, your sister, your father, your mother. This
   good news does not relate to anything which is merely a matter of
   experiment. The experiment has been made so often--the blessed
   experiment of proving whether God will receive repenting sinners or
   no--that it is now a matter of certainty! Why, you even know one who
   used to be your companion in every kind of folly and sin--and he has
   sought and found the Savior! Did he not tell you so the other day? And
   there was one who seemed to be even worse than you--at least he went
   further in open sin than you have ever done--yet he sought the Lord and
   he was not rejected! Now, when I see so many come to Christ and find
   that He never casts out one of them, what ought I to infer from that?
   Why, that, He will not cast me out if I come to Him!

   If from my Master's door I saw a stream of sinners coming back with sad
   countenances and all shaking their heads, and saying, "We have been
   denied admittance. We were too guilty to go in." Or, "We were not fit,"
   or, "We were not sensitive enough," or something of that kind, then I
   think I should not dare to go. But if the footprints of sinners all run
   towards Christ and never is there a single footprint of a penitent
   sinner turned back by Him--if I see Him drawing men unto Himself
   according to His word, "I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw
   all men unto Me"--and if I never see Him repelling or repulsing one
   sinner, however black or crimson he may be, I may well say, "Come, my
   poor guilty Soul, why should you not have acceptance, too?" At any
   rate--

   "I'll to the gracious King approach,

   Whose scepterpardon gives.

   Perhaps He may command my touch,

   And then the suppliant lives!

   I can but perish if I go,

   I am resolved to try--

   For if I stay away, I know I must forever die. And if I die with mercy
   sought, When I the King have tried This were to die (delightful
   thought!) As sinner never died'--

   for no sinner ever did seek Jesus Christ by faith in vain! That,
   surely, is good news from a far country!

   And, once again, we have to bring thisgood news--that the Lord has not
   only made a way for His poor wandering children to come back to Him,
   but He has provided all the means needed to bring them back You
   remember that when Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, to come to him in
   Egypt, Jacob could not believe that Joseph was still alive. The news
   that he was, under Pharaoh, ruler over all Egypt, seemed too good to be
   true! But when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent, then his spirit
   revived. "Wagons" is the word in our translation, but I expect that
   Joseph also sent some of the best chariots that Egypt could produce to
   carry poor old Jacob and all his family down into Egypt. And I do not
   wonder that the spirit of the Patriarch revived when he saw those
   wagons or chariots! There is many a poor sinner who says, "Yes, I know
   that there is a way of salvation, but, then, my feet are lame, so how
   can I run along that way? I know that there is saving Truth of God in
   the Bible, and blessed be God for that, but how shall I ever learn that
   Truth? I know that Christ is Himself the Truth, but how can that Truth
   be mine? I know that there is eternal life and that Christ is the Life
   as well as the Truth and the Way, but I am spiritually dead--can I ever
   have that life?"

   Yes, you can, for our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely the Way, but He
   is also the powerby which we run in that way! He is not only the Truth,
   but He gives us the illuminating Spirit to lead us into the Truth! And
   He is not only the Life, but He puts that Life into us and sustains and
   perfects it! You have nothing to do, Sinner, but to give yourself up to
   the leading, guiding, directing, assisting, quickening of the blessed
   Spirit of God! It is true that you must believe, but He will give you
   the Grace of faith. It is true that you must repent, but it is also
   true that He works repentance in us. There must and there will be a
   change of life in all true converts but it is the Holy Spirit who
   converts you and turns you completely around. There must be
   sanctification in genuine Believers, but it is the Holy Spirit who
   sanctifies you. There is nothing asked of you in the Gospel but what
   the Gospel itself givesyou! Those things which, in one part of
   Scripture, are put as precepts, are, in other parts of Scripture, among
   the promises! What the Lord bids the sinner do, He enables the sinner
   to do, just as when Jesus said to the man that was paralyzed, "Take up
   your bed and walk"--with the command He gave the power to obey it! And
   when He said to another man, "Stretch out your hand, withered though it
   is," the miraculous power that gave the nerves and muscles force,
   again, went with the mandate from the lips of Jesus! In like manner,
   trust the Lord to give you the power to lay hold on the Gospel. The
   very eye with which to look at the bronze serpent is His gift--and that
   gift He is prepared to bestow upon all who come to Him for it. Is not
   this good news from a far country?

   And this, too, is good news--that you may come to Christ at once. If,
   at this moment, you are enabled to trust the Lord Jesus, He is yours!
   The way home looks very far, but the good news I have to bring you is
   that you can be there in a moment. That is to say, far off as you are
   from God, if you believe in Jesus, you are brought to God that very
   instant. As soon as the Holy Spirit enables you to trust in Jesus, you
   are brought near to God at once. What said our Savior to the dying
   thief? "This day shall you be with Me in paradise." You perhaps will
   not have an immediate entrance into the paradise above, but may live a
   little longer here, but, as soon as you do believe in Jesus, you shall
   be reconciled to God by the death of His Son--you shall have
   instantaneous forgiveness and, at the same time, it shall be as
   permanent as it is instantaneous, and as complete as it is immediate.
   This is the good news which comes to you by the Gospel.

   And what you have to do with it is this--believe the Father's Word and
   trust yourself wholly to what Christ has done for sinners. May the
   Divine Spirit take you off from all other ways of salvation and bring
   you to trust to this alone, and make you abhor and loathe even to
   detestation anything like confidence in your prayers, or your tears,
   your doings, your suffering, your preparation, your repenting--or
   anything else--for it is none but Jesus who can bring a sinner near to
   God! All that you spin, you will have to unravel. All that you build,
   will have to come down. All that you can bring to God, you will have to
   take back. You must come to Him empty-handed, with nothing of your own,
   and simply rest where God Himself rests--in the blessed Person and the
   finished work of the Lord Jesus who is All in All!

   Now, if you are spiritually thirsty, this good news will be to you as a
   draught of cold water. But if you are not thirsty, you will not partake
   of it. It is little use to praise cold water to a man who is already
   drunk with the world's intoxicating draughts, or to those who have no
   thirst and who will despise it. If there is anyone here who does not
   feel that he is a sinner, or who thinks that he has no great guilt and
   who has no true sorrow of heart on account of his sin--I might as well
   walk into St. Paul' s Cathedral and talk to the statues there, or into
   Westminster Abbey and preach to the dust beneath my feet, as preach to
   you! Cold waters are for the thirsty and the good news of mercy and
   salvation is for the guilty. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would make you
   feel your deep need and give you intense spiritual thirst, for, then,
   Jesus Christ and the good news from the far country would be precious
   to you!

   II. Now I turn to the second part of our subject which is, GOOD NEWS
   FROM HEAVEN FOR SAINTS. That also is as cold waters to a thirsty soul.

   Does someone ask, "Is there any news from Heaven?" Yes, there is, and
   that shall be my first remark in this part of my theme--that news does
   still come from Heaven. There is an invisible telegraph between us and
   the Glory Land. We are not cut off from communication with those who
   are there. Jacob dreamed of a ladder reaching to Heaven, but it was not
   merely a dream. Never was there anything more real than that vision of
   the night, for there is a blessed means of communication between this
   far-off land and the goodly land beyond the river. Our prayers and
   sighs and tears, our praises and thanksgivings get there all
   right--they are not lost en route. They reach the great heart of God
   and messages come down to us from Him in response to them. How do they
   come? Well, they come by the Holy Spirit sealing home to the soul the
   promises of the Word. Do you know, experimentally, what I mean by that?

   Every now and then some blessed portion of Scripture seems as if it
   were set on fire and, as you read it, it blazes out before your eyes
   just as, sometimes, we see the lamps that are being prepared for an
   illumination. There is some grand device and, before it is lit up, it
   is little more than an array of pipes--but how different it looks after
   they have lit it all! So, there is many a text of Scripture which is
   like that design--you can see something of what it means, but you
   should see it when it is lit up! How very different it is then! You
   sometimes get a promise from the Word whispered into your ear and it is
   just as new to you as if it had never been written down 1,800 or three
   or four thousand years ago! It is as fresh to you as if the eternal pen
   had written it today and written it for you, alone. Some of us--I hope
   many of us--know how the Spirit of God takes of the things of Christ
   and reveals them to us--leads us into the very heart and soul of the
   precious blessings of the Covenant of Grace. This is as good news from
   a far country, and is as cold waters to a thirsty soul!

   And often, too, the Lord Jesus Christ sends us news concerning the
   fellowship which He intends us to enjoy with Him. Still do godly men
   walk with God as Enoch did. Do not imagine that God has gone away and
   that no longer may we speak to Him as a man speaks with his friend. No,
   for, "truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus
   Christ." Still does Jesus lay bare His heart to His beloved. Still may
   we say with the spouse and have the prayer answered, "Let Him kiss me
   with the kisses of His mouth: for Your love is better than wine." There
   is still sweet communion and blessed love passages between Christ and
   His chosen, of which the world knows not, but "the secret of the Lord
   is with them that fear Him and He will show them His Covenant." Yes,
   there is good news from a far country for the saints of

   God!

   And, dear Friends, it should be our earnest aim to keep unbroken our
   communion with Heaven, for it is the most refreshing thing beneath the
   sun. This world is like an arid desert where there is no water except
   as we maintain our communion with Christ. So long as I can say that the
   Lord is mine, all things here below are of small account. But if I once
   get a doubt about that matter and if I cease to walk with God, then
   what is there here below that can content my immortal spirit? Without
   Christ, this world is to us as thorns without the roses and as bitters
   without the sweets of life. But You, O Lord, make earth to be a Heaven
   to Your saints even when they lie in dungeons when Your Presence cheers
   them. But were they translated to the palaces of kings and thereby lost
   Your blessed company, those palaces would be worse than prison to them.
   It is most important that you who are obliged to mingle with the world,
   should maintain your communion with Christ, for that is the only way to
   keep yourself clear from its corruptions. And you who have much to do
   in the Church, must keep up your communion with Christ, for that is the
   only way of preserving your service from becoming mechanical and of
   preventing you from doing good works as a mere matter of routine. You,
   too, who have much to suffer or even much to enjoy, must keep up this
   holy communion or else your soul will soon be like a thirsty land where
   there is no water.

   It may be that I am addressing some who have not had much news lately
   from the far country of Heaven. You are going there, one day, and--

   "There your best friends, your kindred, dwell. There God your Savior
   reigns"--

   but you have had no news from there lately. If it is so with you, I
   hope you feel as some of us did a little while ago, when we were in the
   South of France. "No letters?" we asked, as the time came for our usual
   post. When the next day came and there were still no letters, we
   enquired, "What is the matter?" And they said, "There is deep snow on
   the railway, the trains cannot travel, so the mails cannot be brought
   in." Another day passed and as the snow was not gone, we had no
   letters. When the letters did come, they were very sweet--and all the
   sweeter because we had had to wait for them. And there were more of
   them than usual, for those that had been delayed came tumbling in two
   or three at a time. I hope it may be so with you and your good news
   from Heaven! If there have been any snow-drifts between your soul and
   Christ-- and that does happen sometimes in this cold world--if there
   is, between you and the Savior, a chilly air and a frozen mass of
   unbelief so that the trains cannot travel to and fro--oh, cry mightily
   to the Lord to melt the snows and clear them away! And, I guarantee
   you, if you do so, when you get communication restored and fellowship
   renewed, it will be exceedingly sweet.

   I hope you will often feel that you cannot have too much of it and seek
   to have more and more. Say, as the spouse did in the Song, "It was but
   a little that I passed from them, but I found Him whom my soul loves: I
   held Him and would not let Him go." Let this dark season of interrupted
   fellowship into which you have passed only make you the more
   desperately in earnest to get out of it, so that when that fellowship
   is restored, you may be able to say, "I held Him, and would not let Him
   go." Get such a firm grip of Him, again, such a grip as you had when
   first you knew Him--when the love of your espousals was upon you--when
   you were newly married to the blessed Bridegroom and say again, "I held
   Him, and would not let Him go." God grant to you that there may be no
   more lukewarmness, no more of being neither cold nor hot--and may the
   cold atmosphere through which you have passed in His absence make your
   heart grow all the warmer towards Him now that you have Him again! May
   you now cling to Him with an intensity of affection that you have never
   reached before!

   What is this good news of which I have been speaking? Well, dear
   Friends, I think that this good news may be summed up thus. God is
   working in Providence and making all things work together for your good
   if you belong to Him. Your heart is heavy just now and your harp is
   hanging on the willows. Yet God is permitting that to happen for your
   good. The bitter medicines you have to take are nauseous to you, but
   they are to work together with other things for your good--therefore,
   be of good cheer!

   The next piece of good news is that Jesus is pleading for you. Remember
   how He said to Peter, "Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift
   you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not."
   Jesus has your name upon His breastplate--yes, "engraved on the palms
   of His hands." You are not forgotten of Him! Is not that good news?
   When somebody comes to you in a foreign land, you like to hear him say,
   "When I was at your home, they were all talking about you and they all
   sent loving messages to you. I saw your portrait in a locket and I
   could tell that you were not forgotten." You are glad to hear that--and
   Jesus has your names engraved on the palms of His hands and He is
   pleading for you before the Mercy Seat--you are not forgotten up there!

   Another piece of good news is that He is coming here again--coming here
   for you--coming to be admired by you and the rest of His redeemed
   family when He comes to take His people up to their eternal home. The
   message which He has sent is, "Behold, I come quickly." What is your
   answer to that? I think I hear you say, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It
   will not be very long before you will be with Him, or else He will be
   with you! In a short time you will have ended your pilgrimage here. The
   days of your banishment from Home will be over. Wait a little
   longer--only a few more tears and, then--

   "Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast."

   Is not that good news?

   There is another piece of news which you have often heard before--that
   is, that a great many of the saints have got Home already. There is
   good news from the Fair Havens! Many have entered there--thousands,
   millions--who have had

   as stormy a sea to traverse as you, yourself, have had, but their Pilot
   has brought them to their desired haven. Many, whom we loved on earth,
   have gone Home to be "forever with the Lord." They are all right. All
   is well with them. The sheep are getting Home to the fold! The children
   are going Home to their Father's house above!

   I have another piece of good news and that is, beloved Brother or
   Sister, that there is a house there for you! Our Lord Jesus Christ has
   made it ready for you. There is a crown there which nobody's head but
   yours can ever wear. There is a seat in which none but yourself can
   sit. There is a harp that will be silent till your fingers strike its
   strings. There is a robe, made for you, which no one else can wear. And
   let me also tell you that they are needing you up there. "Oh," you say,
   "they are so happy and so perfect that they surely do not need me." But
   they do. What does Paul say in the Epistle to the Hebrews? "They
   without us should not be made perfect." Nor can they--there cannot be a
   perfect body till all the members are there! It cannot be a perfect
   Heaven till all the saints are there! Jesus Christ has not all the
   jewels of His crown, yet, and He will have a perfect crown. So they are
   looking for you and waiting and watching for you--and all is ready for
   your reception. You shall go Home soon, therefore live in hope and
   having this hope within you, purify yourselves, come out from the world
   more and more. "Our conversation is in Heaven, from whence 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."
   There is good news for you! Is it not like cold waters to a thirsty
   soul?

   III. Now, lastly, and very briefly. SOMETIMES, IN HEAVEN, THEY GET GOOD
   NEWS FROM EARTH.

   Our text may be applied to the angels and to the spirits of just men
   made perfect--"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a
   far country." We do not know how they receive news about us and it is
   no use speculating concerning the matter, but there is one thing that
   we are sure of--that is, in Heaven they know when a sinner repents, for
   our Lord Jesus Christ has told us that "there is joy in the presence of
   the angels of God over one sinner that repents." That is, to them, good
   news from a far country! The angels all know about Jesus having died.
   And every time they see a repenting sinner washed in the blood of the
   Atonement, they must rejoice for Jesus' sake because He sees of the
   travail of His soul and is satisfied.

   I believe, too, Brothers and Sisters, that they get good news from a
   far country when you who are running the Christian race run well For
   how does Paul put it in the 12th of Hebrews? Does he not tell us that
   we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses? And who are
   these witnesses? Why, those he had been speaking of--those brave men
   and women who had performed such valorous deeds by the power of
   faith--whose names he had inscribed on the triumphal arch of the 11th
   Chapter of his Epistle. These are they who gaze upon us from their
   lofty seats and they see us as we run the race and note how we do it.
   And they clap their hands, as the spectators were known to do in the
   old Roman foot races, and rejoice over the Grace that is manifested in
   us--and it is as cold water to their souls when they see what God does
   for His struggling, suffering people.

   And, moreover, there is another piece of good news that reaches the far
   country. That is when the Church of God is being built up and the
   Gospel is spreading in the earth. When the world was created, did not
   the morning stars sing together and shout for joy? And do you not think
   that as this new spiritual world is being fashioned by the pierced
   hands, the spirits above are looking down and watching the wondrous
   process? I am sure they do. "When the Lord shall build up Zion, He
   shall appear in His Glory and appear, not only to those who are
   watching here below, who are workers together with Him, but also to
   those who have gone above, who rejoice together with Him in His
   gracious work below!

   And I believe it is also good news from a far country when the saints,
   one by one, finish their course. They get tidings up there when another
   saint is crossing the Jordan of death. "Precious in the sight of the
   Lord is the death of His saints," and it must be precious, also, in the
   sight of the angels and the redeemed from among men. John Bunyan
   pictures the shining ones as coming down to the river's brink and I can
   easily conceive that it is so. I can well imagine their glad welcome to
   the spirit as, disencumbered of this poor body, it comes forth from the
   stream of death and taking it up to the pearly gates of the celestial
   city. Then that is good news from a far country!

   I sometimes like to send a message Home by some whose hands I grasp as
   they are in the last article of death. Rowland Hill, when he was very
   old, said to one aged Christian who was dying, "I hope they have not
   forgotten to send for old Rowley." And then he added, "Take my love up
   to the three glorious Johns, the Apostle John, John Bunyan and John
   Newton." I have sometimes felt inclined to do the same. Surely, a
   spirit there will not forget anything that was

   good here below and pass, in utter unconsciousness, into the next
   world. It will have enough to do to think of Christ and to behold His
   Glory, but, perhaps the mind will be so expanded as to be able to think
   of other things besides. This, however, I do not know. But this I am
   sure of--that as one by one they for whom the Savior died, come Home,
   there must be joy. As they rejoice over repenting sinners, so do they
   rejoice over perfected saints who are without spot, or wrinkle, or any
   such thing and who come up cleansed and delivered from anything like
   sin through the precious blood of the Lamb. Then is there good news for
   them from the far country!

   I cannot help feeling that I am addressing some who know nothing about
   the good news of which I have been speaking. For their benefit, let me
   tell you a story I have heard concerning one of our English pilots. A
   vessel was off the coast of Kent, gently sailing, as the seamen
   thought, towards their desired haven. A pilot who was watching them,
   observing the extreme danger in which they were, went at his utmost
   speed to warn them of their peril. He was hardly aboard before he
   shouted to the captain, "The Goodwins! The Goodwins!" They were almost
   on to those fatal sands and they did not know it. At once the course of
   the vessel was changed and all possible sail was set--and they were
   saved as by the skin of their teeth!

   So, I come to you thoughtless, careless ones, and I cry to you, "Hell
   lies right ahead of you--eternal destruction from the Presence of the
   Lord and the glory of His power! Steer your helm hard aport, up with
   such sail as you have and may God send the breath of His Eternal Spirit
   to blow you off these breakers which already seem booming with the
   certainty of your eternal doom!" O God, almighty and ever-merciful,
   save them by Your Grace! Save them by the precious blood of Jesus, for
   His dear name's sake! Amen and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Life-look

   (No. 2867)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 9, 1876.

   "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am
   God, and there is no other." Isaiah 45:22.

   I HAVE preached a good many times from this text. [The following
   sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon this passage, have been previously
   published--No. 60, Volume 2--Sovereignty and Salvation and No. 2805,
   Volume 48--Life for a Look]. I hope to do so, if life is spared, many
   more times. It was about 26 years ago--twenty-six years exactly last
   Thursday--that I looked unto the Lord and found salvation through this
   text. You have often heard me tell how I had been wandering about,
   seeking rest and finding none, till a plain, unlettered lay preacher
   among the Primitive Methodists stood up in the pulpit and gave out this
   passage as his text--"Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of
   the earth." He had not much to say, thank God, for that compelled him
   to keep on repeating his text and there was nothing needed--by me, at
   any rate--except his text! I remember how he said, "It is Christ that
   speaks. 'I am in the garden in an agony, pouring out My soul unto
   death. I am on the tree, dying for sinners-- look unto Me! Look unto
   Me!'

   "That is all you have to do! A child can look! One who is almost an
   idiot can look! However weak, or however poor a man may be, he can
   look! And if he looks, the promise is that he shall live." Then,
   stopping, he pointed to where I was sitting under the gallery and he
   said, "That young man there looks very miserable." I expect I did, for
   that is how I felt. Then he said, "There is no hope for you, young man,
   or any chance of getting rid of your sin but by looking to Jesus." And
   he shouted, as I think only a Primitive Methodist can, "Look! Look,
   young man! Look now!" And I did look and when they sang a hallelujah
   before they went home, in their own earnest way, I am sure I joined in
   it. It happened to be a day when the snow was lying deep and more was
   falling, so, as I went home, those words of David kept ringing through
   my heart, "Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow"--and it seemed as
   if all Nature was in accord with that blessed deliverance from sin
   which I had found in a single moment by looking to Jesus Christ!

   I have always felt inclined, when this time of the year comes round, to
   preach from this text. I have sometimes thought--"They will suppose I
   must go over the same ground again and give them the same sermon and
   so, perhaps, I shall not have so attentive an audience." I cannot help
   it if it is so, for I must preach from this text. As it was blessed to
   me, I hope it will be blessed to somebody else. I wanted to preach from
   it last Thursday night, on the exact anniversary of my spiritual
   birthday, but I was led to take another text and I am glad I was, for,
   when I entered my vestry tonight, I found on the table this note--"Mr.
   Spurgeon, I want to tell you that your 'good news' [Sermon No. 2866,
   Volume 50-- "Good News"] last Thursday, was the means of reclaiming a
   wanderer. How good of Jesus to take such an one as I am back and give
   me the joy I had when first I knew Him!" The writer enclosed a
   thanksgiving offering and blessed the name of the Lord. So, this text
   has been reserved for tonight and who knows but that there has come
   here somebody who was not here on Thursday night, and whom the Lord
   intends to bless? I only hope it may be so! Indeed, I knowit will be
   so!

   Let us read the text again. "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the
   ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other." This message
   is addressed, as you perceive, not to the Israelites, but to the
   Gentiles--to the nations at the very ends of the earth. Alas, many of
   these nations have long been looking to their idols. They do not feel
   at rest. They know

   that they lack something and very earnestly are devout heathens looking
   to their false gods for what they need. They make great sacrifices and
   spend vast sums of money upon their idol temples--but salvation does
   not come and cannot come through these false gods. Jehovah bids them
   look to Him, that they may be saved. Some among the nations are
   throwing off the yoke of superstition, but, sad to say, they seem to be
   falling into skepticism instead. The Hindu, when educated, turns from
   his idols only to make an idol of his own judgment. Many men worship
   their own wisdom. They hope, by searching, to find out the Almighty
   unto perfection--and this theory and that they promulgate and say--
   "This form of thought and the other will emancipate the human mind."
   Ah, it is not so! "The world by wisdom," in the old Socratic and
   philosophic days worked out that problem, and the result was that they
   "knew not God," but, "professing themselves to be wise, they became
   fools." And that is where man, with his great thought and wisdom,
   always drifts to some absurdity or another. Only Jehovah can save
   mankind! Philosophy is powerless in this matter.

   The nations have been looking long, first to this thing and then to
   that, to save them. Sometimes they have looked for some great conqueror
   who will break the yoke of oppression and set the people free. But how
   often have they been deceived and the idols of the democracy have
   turned out to be the grossest tyrants that ever lived. Then there are
   various international and other societies formed by which men are to
   lift themselves up by confederation. They will look there, too, in
   vain--though all men should join hand in hand, they cannot do it. If
   they looked to God, there would be accomplished what all mankind would
   not be able to perform! One man advises this policy. Another pleads for
   that form of government. One has this idea and the other has another.
   And, every now and then, there seems to be a craze for something or
   other. Just now we are told that civilization will do away with war and
   I know not what besides. All evil is to be extinguished by the growth
   of commerce. But the Lord of Hosts has willed it that nothing shall
   save the nations but Himself and this poor, bleeding earth needs to be
   told, again and again, that, for her wounds--and she has many of
   them--there is no healing liniment but that which flows from the hands,
   feet and side of Jesus Christ, the Son of God! From the crown of her
   head to the sole of her foot, she is full of "wounds, and bruises, and
   putrefying sores," and for all these there is no cure but the blessed
   balm that flowed from Jesus' heart on Calvary--no remedy but the one
   Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. "Look unto Me," He says, "and be you saved,
   all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other." O
   Lord, turn the eyes of the nations to Yourself and to Your Son! When
   this happens, then shall the day of the world's salvation have fully
   come!

   The general principle holds good in each particular case. As it is with
   the nations at the ends of the earth, so must it be with me, so must it
   be, dear Friends, with you. There is no salvation but by looking unto
   God in Christ. Let us try to turn that thought over, not merely with
   the view of thinking of it, but that we may carry it into effect--that
   if there is salvation to be had, we may have it, and have it at once. O
   God, grant that it may be so!

   First, we shall ask, What does the word, "Look," mean in reference to
   God? Secondly, for what part of salvation are we to look to God
   Thirdly, what is our encouragement to look?'And, fourthly, when is the
   best time to look?

   I. First, Jehovah says, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends
   of the earth." WHAT DOES THIS WORD, LOOK, MEAN? It means a great deal
   more than I can tell you, but, among other things, it means this--

   First, consider that there is a God and enthrone Him in your mind as a
   real Person, the one living and true God. You have been trying to cure
   yourself of your spiritual maladies. Now think of God as the great
   Physician of your soul. Let your mind turn towards Him. You are like
   that young man who left his father's house and whose circumstances
   became so bad, through his own fault, that he was obliged to take up
   very low and mean employment. And yet, with all that he did do, he did
   not earn enough to fill his belly. The best thing that he could do was
   to remember that he had a father--and the happiest day for him was when
   he came back to his father and received a loving welcome from him.

   You say that you are not happy, you are not at rest, your conscience is
   disturbed and you have tried ever so many things in order to get peace.
   Now, think about your God. Think about the loving Father who receives
   His wandering prodigal children and as you think of Him, you will have
   begun to look to Him. While you are thinking about Him, I wish you
   would remember this concerning Him--that "God was in Christ reconciling
   the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Think
   of that wonderful Truth that God came here in human flesh and blood
   and, for us men and for our salvation died a cruel death upon the tree.
   Turn that over and over, again, for it is there that your only hope of
   salvation lies. Do think of that. Read often--

   "The old, old story

   Of Jesus and His love."

   Think over all the details of it. Accustom yourself to look towards God
   in Christ Jesus in your thoughts and contemplations. By the blessing of
   the Holy Spirit, this will breed faith in you. Set your face that
   way--look at God as He has revealed Himself in the Person of the great
   Propitiation, Jesus Christ, His Son.

   Looking to God means, however, more than that. When you have considered
   Him and taken Him into your calculations, then address yourself to Him.
   Speak to Him! Tell Him where you are and what you are. Tell Him what
   you feel and what you do not feel, what you ought to feel and what you
   wish to feel. Tell Him what you want which you have not yet got. If you
   cannot pray, tell Him so. If you cannot repent and cannot believe, tell
   Him so. Only speak to Him, for that speaking will be a turning to look
   and I find that the Hebrew word used here is not so well expressed by
   the word, "look," as by the phrase, "turning to look." If I want to
   look at the clock above my head, I must turn to look at it. In that
   fashion, I want you to turn towards God, to consider Him and then to
   speak to Him. Tell Him that you are a wretch undone without His
   Sovereign Grace. Tell Him whatever you know to be the truth--do not
   mock Him with mere words that do not come from your heart, but let your
   heart speak to Him. Address Him, for that is looking to Him.

   Only, mind that you get to God. The mischief is, dear Friends, that we
   often stop somewhere short of God when we are seeking salvation. A
   Romanist, for instance, erects a crucifix and bows down before it. The
   original intention of the crucifix, no doubt, was to help the person
   who used it to remember the death of Christ--but frequently the thought
   rests on the crucifix, instead of upon the Christ. If the Romanist says
   that he does not worship the image, it is not true, because there is a
   certain, "Our Lady of Lourdes," and another, "Notre Dame de la Garde,"
   and other, "Our Ladies." Why is it that the Virgin Mary, in a certain
   church, or a certain town, works great cures and gets more worship than
   "Our Lady" in a certain other place? The fact is, it is the image that
   is worshipped, and so is it with the crucifix--that gets the Romanists'
   worship--not the Christ. They stop there.

   But why do I talk about this to you Protestants? Why, because many of
   you do the same in other respects! You say, "Now, if I am to be
   converted, I ought to read the Bible." Yes, that is quite right. Read
   the Bible, but, if you stop at the Bible, you will no more get to God
   than if you stop at the crucifix! What you need is to get to God
   through what you read and not merely o come to the Book. The Bible, or
   the most gracious words, or the most appropriate collects, or the most
   pious prayers cannot save you! You must pass through these things,
   which ought to be helps, and not make them into barriers, for, if you
   make them into barriers by stopping there, you never will be saved. You
   have to get to God, dear Heart--to God in Jesus Christ--and I pray you,
   do not stop till you feel, "I have spoken to God in Jesus Christ. I
   have confessed to Him my sins. I have sought His forgiveness. I have
   asked Him for mercy." You are sure to get it if you have done so.

   But if you stop at this point--"I have prayed so often, I have read so
   much," these very readings and praying will get to be idols and they
   will keep you away from God! I used to, when seeking the Lord, often
   read Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," and an
   admirable book it is. I also red Baxter's '"Call to the Unconverted." I
   would wake up as soon as the sun was up in the morning that I might
   read these books! But I must confess that for many a day I stopped at
   Doddridge's "Rise and Progress" and Baxter's "Call."" When I had read
   so much and tried to feel what those good men said, there I stuck. Oh,
   that I had gone to Christ before! Oh, that I had got away from
   Doddridge's "Rise and Progress" and Baxter's "Call," and gone to Jesus
   Christ Himself! I am not finding fault with those books--I commend
   them, but I find fault with myself for making so bad a use of the
   books. In like manner, I do not find fault with prayer or the reading
   of the Scriptures--God forbid! But I do complain of putting prayer and
   the reading of the Scriptures into the place of getting to God, for it
   is looking to Him as He is revealed in Jesus Christ that will save the
   soul and nothing short of that, be it what it may, will do so!
   Therefore, looking to God means that we are to consider God and then to
   address ourselves to Him.

   In the next place, to look to Him means that we must know that if we
   are ever to be saved salvation must come from God alone. Learn this O
   Man, that you are helpless and hopeless apart from God--that you are
   shut up and cannot come forth, bound with fetters of iron, and laid
   like the dead in their graves, numbered among the slain like those that
   go down into the pit--and no arm can help you but the arm of the
   Omnipotent! Nothing can save you but the blood of Jesus Christ!

   Then, next, to look to Him means expect that He will save you. Oh, what
   a step that is for anyone to take! I would that, by God's Grace, you
   might take it, saying, "Nobody but God can save me. Salvation comes
   from Him, but He is gracious, He has given His dear Son to die for
   sinners. I, a sinner--the most unworthy, perhaps, who ever lived--will,
   nevertheless, dare to hope that I shall be saved. No, more--

   "'He has promised to receive

   All who on His Son believe'-- "so I will now trust His Son and look to
   Him to give me full and free salvation because I trust Him." Joseph
   Hart's hymn puts it--

   " Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude! None but
   Jesus

   Can do helpless sinners good."

   Some have objected to the verse because, they say, it is not a venture.
   It is very easy to be too critical. It is a venture to the sinner' s
   thoughts--it appears to him to be a venture--and you must not expect
   him to talk as you wise men talk! Do not put into a sinner' s mouth
   words that would be above his range of thought. I know it seemed a
   wonderful venture to me. I thought, "Can it be true that this is all I
   have to do? Have I to believe God's Grace in Christ and trust myself
   only to that?" Why, if the minister had said, "You must go home and
   take a whip and flog yourself--20 lashes will do"--I tell you I would
   have laid them on as heavily as I could, for I would have felt, "I will
   make sure work of it" and they would have been 20 of the sweetest cuts
   that ever a man endured! If they made me smart, I would have blessed
   God for them, so long as I received mercy through them. But there was
   nothing in the Gospel about lashing myself--nothing even about lashing
   my conscience--I was simply told to look to God as He revealed Himself
   in Jesus Christ--and I did so and thus I was saved!

   Possibly someone asks, "Does that faith make any difference to a man?"
   It makes all the difference in the world! Suppose you have a bad
   servant who is always doing wrong things and you find out that the
   great reason why he so provokes you is that he does not believe in you
   and has no respect for you? But, one day you convince him of your kind
   feeling towards him and prove to him that all you wish is for his good
   and that you have been seeking his good all the while you have had him.
   Now that man is saved from his ugly temper by believing you to be good
   and kind and, from the moment when this change takes place, there is
   nothing too much for him to do for you! That is just the effect that
   faith in God has upon a sinner's moral character. Before you believe in
   God, you do not care much about Him. It is true that you may do a few
   good works with the hope of thereby getting salvation--just as your
   servant does as much or as little as he dares do for the sake of his
   wages. But, oh, when once you believe in God and serve Him out of love,
   then you become like those old-fashioned servants that our grandmothers
   used to have--we cannot get them now. They used to serve their masters
   and mistresses from motives of affection--those old body-servants that
   the squires and dames used to have who would cleave to them, wages or
   no wages, because they loved them so! What a grand thing it is to have
   faith in the heart! It will save a man entirely from his old ways, his
   old lusts and his old sins by making him love God and serve God out of
   love, which is the mightiest transforming motive that was ever
   implanted in the bosom of a lost soul! This is how God saves men--by
   leading them to trust in Him in Jesus Christ.

   II. Secondly, FOR WHAT PART OF SALVATION ARE WE TO LOOK TO GOD?

   For every part of it, from beginning to end and, first, for the pardon
   of sin you must look to God in Christ, for who can pardon an offense
   except the person who was offended? If somebody over there has offended
   a Brother, yonder, it would be no use for me to say to that person, "I
   forgive you the offense." The other Brother might say, "The wrong was
   not done to you, it was done to me! Only I, who have been offended, can
   forgive the offense." So, if you need the pardon of your sin, it is
   evident that it can only come from God. But you tell me that you feel
   as if you were not fit to be forgiven? Very well then, if there is such
   a fitness--I know there is none--but if there is any truth in what you
   mean, that fitness must be given you by God and you must look to Him
   for it--

   "True belief and true repentance--

   Every Grace that brings you nigh--

   Without money,

   Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

   Possibly you say to me, "It is not merely that I need to have my sins
   forgiven--I want to become a new man." You must look for that, also, to
   God. I think that the best man to clean a watch is the watchmaker--and
   the best person to renew the heart is the God who made the heart. He
   who made you can alone remake you. There is no power under Heaven
   except the power that created you, which can create you anew in Christ
   Jesus! So you must look to God for that.

   But you say, "Well, if I were made a new man, I fear that I would go
   back to my old sins. Must I not trust to something to keep me ?" No, to
   nothing but God, for all the bonds and all the devices that men make to
   keep themselves from sin are of no more strength than a spider's web.
   God must keep you alive as well as make you live. "For I am God," He
   says, "and there is no other." Rest in the almighty power of God to
   keep you from going back to sin after He has rescued you from it.

   You know, also, that you must be perfect, or you can never enter
   Heaven. How are you to become perfect? Well, you must look to God for
   that, too, for He, the perfectly Holy One, can sanctify you
   wholly--spirit, soul and body. May your faith embrace the whole of
   salvation and see it to be all in God in Christ--and look to God in
   Christ Jesus for it all!

   III. Our third question is, WHAT IS OUR ENCOURAGEMENT TO LOOK TO GOD?

   I tried to show you what it was to look--to consider God, to speak with
   Him, to trust in Him as He is revealed in Christ Jesus and to rest
   wholly in Him. You say, "What is my encouragement to do that and to
   expect that thus I shall be saved? May I do it? I know that trusting in
   Christ saves men, but mayI trust Him?"

   Your encouragement to do this is, first of all, God's command---"Look
   unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." We, certainly,
   almost beyond the inhabitants of any other country, might have been
   called "the ends of the earth." There was a time when England was
   reckoned to be the Ultima Thule--the far-off land. It was supposed that
   there could be nothing beyond the British Islands. When the Prophet
   spoke, these were the very ends of the earth, so, surely, God commands
   you, my dear Hearer, to look unto Him, inasmuch as you belong to the
   ends of the earth! If you tell me that you come from America, well, you
   also come from the ends of the earth. Do you say that you come from
   Australia? That is another of the ends of the earth. Some of you sail
   round the world--well, sometime or other, you have been at the ends of
   the earth and you know that when God sends His command to the ends of
   the earth it always includes everything within its bounds. He certainly
   commands the middle as well as the ends. Those who are farthest off
   from Him are bid to look unto Him and, as He commands you to do it,
   what better warrant can you desire than His command? The Gospel command
   is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." You
   never ought to say, "May I believe?" for God commands you to do so, and
   threatens you with punishment if you do not, for He says, "He that
   believes not shall be damned." The only warrant for a sinner's
   believing is the command of the Gospel! Oh, that you might be
   encouraged by that!

   The next encouragement for you is God's promise--"Look unto Me, and be
   you saved"--as much as to say, "As surely as you look, you are saved.
   When you look, you are saved." Does it not mean that? If anyone said to
   you, "Sit down and eat and be filled," you would not say, He only means
   that I am to sit down at a bare table"--you would feel sure that he
   meant that there should be something on the table of which you might
   freely eat. So, Sinner, do but look to the Lord! Turn your eyes in
   confidence to God in Christ Jesus, for there is no other God and no
   other Savior--and when you have done this, you shall be saved at once!

   Still further to encourage you, you have the fact of His Godhead-- for
   I am God." You need a God to save you. You have a great load of sin
   resting upon you, but the Omnipotent can lift it off your shoulders.
   Then, there are the bonds of iniquity--the old habits of 40 years,
   perhaps of 50 years--but Christ can tear away the iron net, break the
   chains and set the captive free in a moment, for He is God! Were the
   Savior any less than Divine, I would not dare to encourage sinners to
   believe in Him! But here is a Divine Savior infinitely strong and
   infinitely gracious, so, you blackest, foulest, vilest sinner, why
   should you not obey the command of my text and look unto Him, expecting
   mercy and favor from Him?

   Another encouragement to you comes from Gods character. He knew that
   you sinners would be afraid that His justice would stand in your way
   and that, though able to save you, He might not do it because you have
   been such great sinners and He must punish you. So kindly read what He
   says in the latter part of the 21st verse--"There is no God besides Me:
   a just God and a Savior: there is none besides Me." God can justly save
   you by His wondrous plan of Substitution. If you look unto Him, He will
   not mar the integrity of His government or the severity of His justice
   in order to save you,

   for, by the blood of His dear Son, His Law has been so magnified and
   made so honorable that He can be as just in pardoning as He would have
   been just in punishing! This Doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice of
   Christ is the marvelous mystery of the Gospel, the greatest of all
   revealed Truths of God and this ought to take away from the guilty
   conscience everything that makes it fear to trust God! God's justice is
   satisfied by Jesus' death--therefore, trust Him! I implore you, trust
   Him! Did you know the joy that faith brings--could you but understand
   the peace, the liberty, the transport, the bliss which simple
   confidence in Christ will bring to you--you would not need my
   pleadings, but you would say, Blessed Jesus, I rush into Your arms,
   accepting You as my Savior and rejoicing in Your great salvation!"

   IV. Our last question was to be, WHAT IS THE BEST TIME IN WHICH TO LOOK
   TO THE LORD?

   I answer--the best time is God's time. And when is God's time? What
   does the Holy Spirit say is the best time? "Today, if you will hear His
   voice, harden not your hearts." This is God's time--today. I do not
   remember, nor do I think there is in the whole Bible, a single precept
   addressed to the sinner requiring him to repent and believe tomorrow,
   or next week. The Gospel promise runs, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and you shall be saved." But it does not say, "Believe next
   February." Or, "Believe next March," or, "next year." It is understood
   that every Gospel precept or command is for this present moment. God
   Himself, my Hearer--not I, poor, feeble man, but God Himself says to
   you, 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." And He says this
   to you at this very moment!

   What is your answer? What reply shall I give to Him who sent me to you
   with this message? Will you have Him to be the Savior, or will you not?
   Say one or the other, whichever you will! If I may plead with you, I
   urge you to say, "Yes." from your very heart. But I shall be almost
   satisfied if you will say one or the other, for that will bring you to
   the point. But if you say, no," it may be that, having taken up that
   position, you may begin to think where you are and you will go home
   saying, "I have refused to look to Christ. I have refused the great
   salvation and deliberately said, 'I will not look for salvation in God
   through Jesus Christ.'"

   I wish, Sinner, that you would even do that rather than act as so many
   do who say, Go your way for this time. When we have a more convenient
   season, we will send for you." For that tends to quiet conscience,
   although the convenient season never comes and Felix is most infelix.
   There is nothing felicitous in what he says. Happy by name, he is most
   unhappy in his fatal procrastination concerning this all-important
   matter! I must have an answer to give to Him that sent me. Will you now
   be saved or not? God sets the time--the time is now--so, say, Yes," or,
   No."

   Let me, however, remind you that the present is the only time you have.
   The past is gone--the future may never come. Should it come, it will be
   present when it does come. On this winged hour all eternity hangs.
   Possibly you are thinking of what you will do when you get home--but
   you do not know that you will get there. Do not many fall in the street
   never to rise again? You are calculating upon what you will do
   tomorrow. The image of death will be on your face when you are
   asleep--are you quite sure that you will ever awake from that form of
   death into real life again? May not that bed become your sepulcher? You
   have planned what you intend to do on Monday, Tuesday and
   Wednesday--yet you know not what a day may bring forth! There is a
   seat, just there, that may speak to some of you. There used to sit, in
   that pew, one who was well known to you. He came home from business
   feeling slightly unwell. The doctor was sent for, but our friend was
   dead before he arrived. Why should not that which has happened to many
   others who have attended here, happen also to you, or to me? Be you
   also ready, for in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man
   comes."

   If I knew how to preach to you so that I might win men to believe in
   Jesus Christ, God knows that there is nothing that I would not say, or
   leave unsaid, that might conduce to that end. I know that there is no
   power in mere rhetoric or oratory, so I have chosen to speak to you
   very plainly and simply, without any ornament of speech and almost
   without an illustration--so that he who runs may read. It is not one
   half as much my business, dear Hearer, that you should be saved as it
   is yours! When I have faithfully delivered the word of salvation, I
   wash my hands of you. If you refuse it, I cannot help it.

   At your own door must your doom lie and at your own door alone. Yet
   would I pluck you by the sleeve and say, Dear Friend, you do need to be
   saved. Salvation must come from God and He bids you look to Him for it.
   Trust His Son for it. God in Christ must be your hope. Will you trust
   Him? Do you understand me? Simply relying upon the Atoning Sacrifice,
   trusting in it, resting in it, believing God to be God and henceforth
   yielding yourself up to be ruled by His goodness--believing Christ to
   be able to save you and yielding yourself up to be saved by Him and
   guided in the way of

   holiness and peace--believing that the blood of Jesus can take away
   your sin and trusting to it so to do--if so it be, it is done and you
   are saved!"

   The salvation has commenced which will never end, for, in the simple
   act of faith, there lies a living seed which the devil himself cannot
   crush--which, though it is small as the mustard seed, will begin to
   swell, and germinate, and send forth its shoots till it shall be such a
   tree that many a happy bird of the air shall come and sit and sing
   among its branches! And your life, made happy and shaded by this
   blessed faith in Jesus, shall then bring forth fruit unto God and the
   end shall be everlasting life! God grant that it may be so, for His
   dear Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH45.

   The first paragraph concerns Cyrus and the great work for which God
   raised him up.

   Verses 1-4. Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right
   hand I have held, to subdue nations before him; and I wiil 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: and I will give you the treasures of darkness, and
   hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD,
   which call you by your name, am the God of Israel For Jacob My servants
   sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name: I have
   surnamed you, though you have not known me. A remarkable prophecy,
   issued long before the time of Cyrus, foretelling that he would conquer
   Babylon and destroy it. And, though for many a day Cyrus knew nothing
   about the Most High God, yet he was used, in the Lord's hands, for
   wonderful purposes! Sometimes a man may have been used of God for great
   ends without his own knowledge. When, however, he comes to the
   discovery of that fact, as he may if he will but think it over, should
   he not reverently bow before the Most High and worship Him who, though
   unknown to him, had been his Helper and his Friend?

   5, 6. I am the LORD, and there is no other. There is no God besides Me:
   I girded you, though you have not known Me that they may know from the
   rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none besides Me. I
   am the LORD, and there is no other. Those who believe in idols think
   that there may be many lords and many gods, but he who is a true
   follower of Jehovah knows that there can be no other god besides Him.
   He fills all space and there is no room for another. There is but one
   Creator, one Preserver and one God who alone is to be worshipped.

   7. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil
   I the LORD do all these things. Cyrus was a believer in two gods--one,
   the god of light and the other, the god of darkness. Hence this
   declaration from God's servant, the Prophet, that there was no prince
   of darkness who was a god, but that all things were made by the one
   Most High God.

   8-11. Drop down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down
   righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation,
   and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it.
   Woe unto him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with
   the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashions it,
   What are you making? Or your worksay, He has no hands? Woe unto him
   that says unto his father, What didyou beget? Or to the woman, What
   have you brought forth? Thus says the LORD, the Holy One ofIsrael,
   andhis Maker, Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and
   concerning the work of My hands you command me. Note the tone which God
   uses. He speaks like a God and claims to be above the questioning of
   His creatures. These verses remind us of what the Apostle Paul wrote--
   No but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing
   formed say to Him that formed it, Why have You made me thus? Has not
   the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel
   unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" God is the great Sovereign over
   all and He claims a Sovereign's place. He does as He wills, but He
   always wills to do that which is just and right.

   12-17. I have made the earth and created man upon it: I, even My hands,
   have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. I
   have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he
   shall build My city, and he shall let go My captives, not for price nor
   reward, says the LORD of Hosts. Thus says the LORD, The labor of Egypt,
   and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall
   come over unto you, and they shall be yours: they shall come after you;
   in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto you, they
   shall make sup-

   plication unto you, saying, surely God is in you; and there is no
   otheer, there is no God. Verily You are a God that hides Yourself, O
   God of Israel, the Savior. They shall be ashamed, and also confounded,
   all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of
   idols. But Israel shall be saved by the LORD with an everlasting
   salvation: you shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end.
   If you are God's people, you have a God of whom you need never be
   ashamed and One who will not leave you to be ashamed of your confidence
   and hope. Those that trust to false gods will be ashamed. Those that
   rest upon themselves will be confounded. But stay yourself upon God, O
   Man, and you shall never be ashamed, world without end!

   18, 19. For thus says the Lord that created the heavens; and Himself
   that formed the earth and made it; He has established it, He created it
   not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is
   no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I
   said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek you Me in vain; I the LORD speak
   righteousness, I declare things that are right. Here is the Glory of
   our God--that His every Word is true and that He has never said, in any
   place, that which contradicts what He has spoken in public to His
   people. You may safely rest upon the God who is always the same, who
   never plays fast and loose with His promises, or speaks anything in
   secret contrary to His pledged Word. He is as true as He is
   Sovereign--therefore stay yourselves upon Him.

   20, 21. Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you that are
   escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of
   their engraved image, and pray unto a god that cannot save. Tell and
   bring them near, yes, let them take counsel together: who has declared
   this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I the
   LORD?He challenges all the idols to prove that they had uttered any
   true prophecy--that they had spoken about Cyrus, or anybody else from
   ancient times, so that the prophecy was literally fulfilled. There were
   dark double-meaning oracles with which the false priests mocked their
   votaries, but the true Words of God--His ancient prophecies--proved Him
   to be the only real and true God.

   21-23. And there is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior
   there is none besides Me, look unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends
   of the earth: for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by
   Myself, the word is gone out ofMy mouth in righteousness, andshallnot
   return, That unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shallswear.
   Glory be to God, it will be so in the latter days! It shall come to
   pass that the Truth of God shall be universally triumphant and the one
   God who made the heavens and the earth shall be worshipped both by
   Heaven and by earth, without any discordant note.

   24, 25. Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and
   strength even to Him shall men come; and all that are incensed against
   Him shall be ashamed. In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be
   justified, and shall glory.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Ready, Yes, Ready!"

   (No. 2868)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A THURSDAY EVENING,
   DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.

   "Ready to perish." Isaiah 27:13.

   "Ready to forgive." Psalm 86:5.

   "The graves are ready for me." Job 17:1.

   WHEN attempting to prepare for this service, I found it impossible to
   fix my mind upon any one subject. This afternoon I had to take rather a
   long journey to visit a friend who is sick unto death. And at his
   bedside I trust I have learned some lessons of encouragement and have
   been animated by witnessing the joy and peace which God grants to His
   children in their declining hours. Finding that I could not fix upon
   any one subject, I thought that I would have three. It may be that out
   of the three, there will be one intended by Divine Grace for a third of
   the audience, the second for another third and the other for the rest,
   so that there will be a portion of meat in due season for all. You
   know, dear Friends, that the motto of our navy is, "Ready, yes, ready!"
   That is something like my present subject, for I have three texts in
   which the word, "Ready," occurs, each time in a different connection.

   I. The first text will be especially addressed to those who are under
   concern of soul, having been led, by the enlightening influence of the
   Divine Spirit, to see their state by nature and to tremble in the
   prospect of their deserved doom. The text which will suit their case is
   in Isaiah 27:13--"READY TO PERISH." "They shall come which were ready
   to perish."

   By nature, all men, whether they know it or not, are ready to perish.
   Human nature is, like a blind man, always in danger. No, worse than
   that, it is like a blind man upon the verge of a tremendous cliff,
   ready to take the fatal step which will lead to his destruction. The
   most callous and proud, the most careless and profane cannot, by their
   indifference or their boasting, altogether evade the apprehension that
   their state, by nature, is alarming and defenseless. They may try to
   laugh it away from their minds, but they cannot laugh away the fact.
   They may shut their eyes to it, but they shall no more escape, by
   shutting their eyes, than does the silly ostrich escape from the hunter
   by thrusting its head into the sand. Whether you will have it so, or
   not, fast young man in the dawn of your days--whether you will have it
   so, or not, blustering merchant in the prime of your age--whether you
   will have it so, or not, hardened old man in the petrified state of
   your moral conscience--it is so--you are ready to perish!

   Your jeers cannot deliver you. Your sarcasms about eternal wrath cannot
   quench it. And all your contemptuous scorn and your arrogant pride
   cannot evade your doom--they do but hasten it. There are some persons,
   however, who are aware of their danger--to them I speak. They are fitly
   described by the Spirit of God in these words of the Prophet--"The
   great trumpet shall be blown and they shall come which were ready to
   perish." Having passed through this anguish, myself, I think I can
   describe, from experience, what some of you are now suffering.

   You are ready to perish, in the first place, because you feel sure that
   you will perish. You did not think so once, but you do now. Once you
   could afford to put away the thought, with a laugh, as a matter which
   might, or might not, be true, but, anyway, it did not much concern you.
   But now you feel that you will be lost as surely as if it could be
   demonstrated to you by logic. In fact, the Divine logic of the Law of
   God has thundered it into your soul and you know it. You feel it to be
   certain that you shall, before long, be driven from the Presence of God
   with that terrible sentence, "Depart, you cursed." If any unbeliever
   should tell you that there is no wrath to come, you would reply, "There
   is, for I feel it is

   due me. My conscience tells me that I am already condemned and before
   long I am quite certain to drink of the wormwood and the gall of the
   wrath of God."

   You have signed your own death warrant, you have put on the black cap
   and condemned yourself. Or, rather, you have pleaded guilty before your
   Judge--you have said, "Guilty, my Lord," and now you think you see
   before your eyes the scaffold and yourself ready to be executed. You
   feel it to be so sure that you even anticipate the Judgment Day--you
   dreamed of it, the other night, and you thought you heard the trumpet
   of the archangel opening all the graves and wakening all the dead. You
   have already, in imagination, stood before the bar of God! You feel
   your sentence to be so certain that conscience has read it over in your
   hearing and anticipated its terrors. You are among those who are ready
   to perish, so permit me to say that I am glad you have come here, for
   this is the very spot where God delights to display His pardoning
   Grace! He is ready to save those who are thus ready to perish. Those
   who write themselves down as lost are the special objects of our
   Savior's mission of mercy, for, "the Son of Man is come to seek and to
   save that which was lost."

   You are ready to perish, in another sense, for you feel as if your
   perishing was very near. You are like the dying man who gasps for
   breath and thinks that each gasp will be his last--his pulse is feeble,
   his tongue is dry with feverish heat, the clammy sweat is on his brow.
   The Valley of the Shadow of Death casts its gloomy shade on his pale
   cheeks and he feels that he will soon die. Is it not thus that some of
   you feel just now? You feel that you are coming near to the wrath of
   God. I have known the day when, as I lay down to rest, I dreaded the
   thought that, perhaps, I should never awake in this world, or, at
   mid-day I have walked in the fields and wondered that the earth did not
   open and swallow me up! A terrible noise was in my ears--my soul was
   tossed to and fro--I longed to find a refuge, but there seemed to be
   none, while always ringing in my ears were the words, "The wrath to
   come!" "The wrath to come!" "The wrath to come!"

   Oh, how vividly is the wrath to come pictured before the eyes of the
   awakened sinner! He does not look upon it as a thing that is to come in
   ten, twelve, or 20 years, but as a thing that may be before long, yes,
   even today! He looks upon himself as ready to perish because his final
   overthrow appears to be so close. I am glad if any of you are in this
   plight, for God does not thus alarm men unless He has purposes of mercy
   concerning them and designs for their good! He has made you fear you
   are perishing that you may have no perishing to fear! He has brought it
   home to you in this life that He may remove it forever from you in the
   life that is to come! He has made you tremble now, that you may not
   tremble then. He has put before you these dreadful things that, as with
   a fiery finger, they may point you to Christ, the only Refuge and, as
   with a thundering voice, they may cry to you, as the angels cried to
   Lot, "Escape for your life, look not behind you, neither stay you in
   all the plain! Escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed!"

   It may be that I am also addressing some who not only realize the
   sureness and the nearness of their destruction, but they have begun to
   feel it. "Begun to feel it," asks someone, "is that possible?" Yes,
   that it is. When day and night God's hand is heavy upon us and our
   moisture is turned into the drought of summer, we begin to know
   something of what a sinner feels when Justice and the Law are let loose
   upon him. Did you ever read John Bunyan's, Grace Abounding to the Chief
   of Sinners? There was a man who had, even here, foretastes of the
   miseries of the lost. And there are some of us who can, even now,
   hardly look back to the time of our conviction without a shudder. I
   hope there is not a creature alive who has had deeper convictions than
   I had, or five years of more intolerable agony than those which crushed
   the very life out of my youthful spirit. But this I can say--that
   terror of conscience, that alarm about the wrath of God, that intense
   hatred of past sin and yet consciousness of my inability to avoid it in
   the future were such combinations of thought that I can only describe
   them in George Herbert's words--

   "My thoughts are all a case of 'knives Breaking my poor heart."

   Oh, the tortures of the man who feels his guilt, but does not know the
   remedy for it! To look leprosy in the face, but not to know that it may
   be healed! To walk the hospital and hear that there is no physician
   there! To see the flame, but not to know that it can be quenched! To be
   in the dungeon, but never to know the rescue and deliverance! O you
   that are ready to perish, I sympathize with you in your present
   sufferings, but I do not lament them! This is the way in which God
   begins with those whom He intends to bless--not to the same degree in
   all, but yet after the same kind. He destroys our confidence in our own
   works and then gives us confidence in Christ's work. You know how
   Bunyan describes Christian as being much tumbled up and down in his
   mind. And when his wife and children came round about him, he could
   only tell them that the city in which they lived was to be
   destroyed--and though his easy-going neighbors told him not to

   believe it and not to make such a fuss about it, the truth had come
   home to him with too much power to be put away. Atheist might say it
   was all a lie and Pliable might give slight heed to it and pretend to
   believe it for a season, but Christian knew it to be true, so he ran to
   the wicket gate, and the Cross, that he might escape from the wrath to
   come. To the careless, these words, "Ready to perish," should sound an
   alarm. May God the Holy Spirit, while I preach upon the second text,
   enable me to blow the great trumpet of the jubilee! May the gladsome
   sound reach the heart of him that is ready to perish! May he know that
   Divine Mercy brought him here that he might find a God ready to pardon!

   II. My second text is in Psalm 86:5--"READY TO FORGIVE." Does not that
   ring like a silver bell? The other was a doleful note, like that of St.
   Sepulcher's bell when it tolls the knell of a criminal about to be
   executed--"Ready to perish." But this rings like a marriage
   peal--"Ready to forgive. Ready to forgive." What does it mean when it
   says that God is ready to forgive?

   "Ready" means, as you all know, prepared. A man is not ready to go by
   railway until his trunk is packed and he is about to start. A man
   cannot be said to be ready to emigrate till he has the means to pay his
   passage and the different things needed for his transit, and for his
   settling down when he gets to his destination. No road is ready till it
   is cleared. Nothing is ready, in fact, till it is prepared. Sinner, God
   is ready to forgive--that is, everything is prepared by which you may
   be forgiven! The road used to be blocked up but Jesus Christ has, with
   His Cross, tunneled every mountain, filled every valley and bridged
   every chasm so that the way of pardon is now fully prepared. There is
   no need for God to say, "I would pardon this sinner, but how shall My
   justice be honored?" Sinner, God's justice has been satisfied, the sin
   of all who believe, or who ever will believe, was laid upon Christ when
   He died upon the tree! If you believes in Him, your sin was punished
   upon Him and it was forever put away by the great Atonement which He
   offered, so that, now, the righteous God can come out of the ivory
   palace of His mercy, stretch out His hands of love and say, "Sinner, I
   am reconciled to you. Be you reconciled to Me."--

   "Sprinkled now with blood, the Throne, Why beneath your burdens groan?
   All the wrath on Him was laid Justice owns the ransom paid." In the
   case of the ancient Israelites, it was necessary that the sacrifice
   should be slain and be burned upon the altar. So, the Divine Victim has
   been slain upon Calvary. Once and for all, the Sacrifice for sin has
   been offered by Jesus, accepted by the Father and witnessed by the Holy
   Spirit. God is ready--that is to say, He is prepared--to forgive all
   who will believe in Jesus Christ! You think that much preparation is
   needed on your part, but you are greatly mistaken. All things are
   ready! The oxen and the fatlings are killed, the feast is spread, the
   servants are sent with the invitations to the banquet--all you have to
   do, poor Penitent, is to come and sit down and eat with thankfulness to
   the great Giver of the feast! The bath is filled, O black Sinner, so
   come and wash! The garment is woven from the top throughout, O you
   naked, so come and put it on! The price is paid, O you ransomed ones,
   so take your blood-bought liberty! All is done. "It is finished," rings
   from Calvary's summit! God is ready to forgive!

   But the word, "ready," means something more than prepared. We sometimes
   use the term to indicate that a thing can be easily done. We ask, "Can
   you do such-and-such a thing?" "Oh, yes!" you reply, "readily." Or
   perhaps we remind you of a promise you have given and ask if you can
   carry it out. And you say, "Oh, yes! I am quite ready to fulfill my
   engagement." Sinner, it is an easy thing for God to forgive you!
   "Indeed," you say, "but you don't know where I was last night." No, and
   I don't want to know. But it is easy for God to pardon anybody who is
   not in Hell. But you ask, "How can He do it? "He speaks and it is done!
   He has but to say to you, "Your sins which are many, are all forgiven,"
   and it is done! Pardon is an instantaneous work! Justification is rapid
   as a lightning flash. You may be black one moment and as white as
   alabaster the next! Guilty--absolved! Condemned--Acquitted!
   Lost--found! Dead--made alive! It takes the Lord no time to do this--He
   does it easily.

   O Brothers and Sisters, if He could make a world with a word. If He
   could say, "Let there be light," and there was light--surely, now that
   Christ has offered up Himself as a bleeding Sacrifice for sin, God has
   but to speak and the pardon is given! As soon as He says, "I will. Be
   you clean," the most leprous sinner is perfectly cleansed! O Sinner,
   will you not offer the prayer, "Save, Lord, or I perish?" Will you not
   ask the Lord to forgive you? Since He can so readily forgive,

   will you not cry, "Jesus, save me, or I die"? Stretch forth your hand,
   poor trembling woman up yonder, and touch the hem of His garment and
   you shall be made whole, for He is ready to forgive--that is, He can do
   it with ease!

   Again, the word, "ready," frequently means promptly or quickly. In this
   sense, also, God is ready to forgive. I know that some of you imagine
   that you must endure months of sorrow before you can be forgiven. There
   is no necessity that you should wait even another hour for this great
   blessing! After what I have been saying concerning the experience
   through which others have passed, some of you may fancy that you must
   be for four or five years floundering about in the Slough of Despond,
   but there is no need for you to do that. The plan of salvation is
   this--"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Let
   me give you a picture. Paul and Silas have been thrust into the inner
   prison at Phi-lippi and their feet made fast in the stocks. Though they
   have been brutally beaten, they are singing at midnight-- singing of
   pardon bought with blood, singing of the dying and risen Lamb of God
   and, as they sing--suddenly there is an earthquake. The foundations of
   the prison shake, the doors fly open and the jailer, fearing that his
   prisoners have escaped, leaps out, draws his sword and is about to kill
   himself! But he hears a voice crying, "Do yourself no harm! We are all
   here."

   He calls for a light, springs in and falls tremblingly at his
   prisoners' feet and says, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" What
   would some of you have said in reply to that question? "Well, you must
   first believe the guilt of your sin more than you do at present--you
   had better go home and pray about the matter." That was not Paul's
   answer. He said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
   saved, and your house." And, to prove that he was saved, the Apostle
   baptized him and all his, straightway, and we are expressly told that
   they all believed. What do you say to that, you old deacons who say, as
   many country deacons still do, that the young converts ought to be
   "summered and wintered" before they are baptized? I have known scores
   of good old souls in the country who have said, "We must not take Mrs.
   So-and-So into the church. We have not had time to prove her enough."
   But the Apostle knew that as they had believed, they were fit to be
   baptized because they were pardoned--

   "The moment a sinner believes,

   And trusts in His crucified God,

   His pardon at once He receives,

   Redemption in full through His blood." If the Lord wills, you may be
   pardoned this very moment. Jehovah needs not months and years in which
   to write out the charter of your forgiveness and put the great seal of
   Heaven to it. He can speak the word and swifter than the lightning
   flash, the message shall come to you, "Your sins, which are many, are
   all forgiven." And you shall say, "I'm forgiven--

   "'A monument of Grace

   A sinner saved by blood!

   The streams of love I trace

   Up to the Fountain, God

   And in His sacred bosom see

   Eternal thoughts of love to me.'" The word, "ready," is also frequently
   used to signify cheerfulness. When a person says to you, "Will you give
   me your help?" you say, "Oh, certainly, with readiness!" That means
   with cheerfulness. The Lord loves a cheerful giver and I am sure that
   He is, Himself, a cheerful Giver. You do not know, poor Soul, how glad
   God is when He forgives a soul. The angels sang when God made the
   world, but we do not read that He sang. Yet, in the last chapter of the
   prophecy of Zephaniah, we read, "The Lord your God in the midst of you
   is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy; He will
   rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing." Only think of
   it--the Triune God singing! What a thought--the Deity bursting out into
   song! And what is this about? It is over His pardoned people, His
   blood-bought chosen ones! O Soul, you think, perhaps, that God will be
   hard to be entreated and that He will give His mercy grudgingly! But
   the mercy of the Lord is as free as the air we breathe. When the sun
   shines, it shines freely, otherwise it were not the sun. And when God
   forgives, He forgives freely, else He were not God! Never did water
   leap from the crystal fountain with half such freeness and generous
   liberality as Grace flows from the heart of God! He gives forth love,
   joy, peace and pardon--and He gives them as a king gives to a king! You
   cannot empty His treasury, for it is inexhaustible. He is not enriched
   by withholding, nor is He impoverished by bestowing!

   Soul, you do libel Him when you think that He is unwilling to forgive
   you. I once had, as you now have, that hard thought of my loving Lord,
   that He would not forgive me. I thought He might, perhaps, do so one
   day, yet I could hardly think so well of Him as to believe that He
   would. I came to His feet very timidly and said, "Surely, He will spurn
   me." I supposed that He would say to me, "Get you gone, you dog of a
   sinner, for you have doubted My love." But it was not so. Ah, you
   should see with what a smile He received the prodigal, with what fond
   tenderness He clasped him to His breast, with what glad eyes He led him
   to His house and with what a radiant Countenance He set him by His
   side, at the head of the table, and said, "Let us eat, and be merry:
   for this My son was dead, and is alive again: he was lost, and is
   found."

   I would that I could write upon every heart here and engrave upon every
   memory those sweet words, "Ready to forgive." Are there any of you who
   do not want to be forgiven? The day will come when you will want this
   blessing. Sailor, are you in this building? Within a little while you
   may be out upon the lonely sea, the waves may have swallowed up your
   vessel and you may be clinging to just an oar. When the waters surge
   around you, how gladly you will remember that God is ready to
   forgive--but how much better it would be to trust your soul to Him now!
   Some, whom I am now addressing, will probably die this week. I am not
   making a rash assertion--my statement is based upon the statistics of
   mortality. O Soul, you say that it is nothing to you now, but when you
   are in the article of death--and that may be before another Sabbath's
   sun shall rise--how might this note ring like music in your dying ears,
   "Ready to forgive"!

   Am I speaking to some abandoned woman who thinks that she will destroy
   herself? See you do it not, for God is ready to forgive! Am I
   addressing some man who is cast out of society as a reprobate for whom
   nobody cares? Soul, give not up hope, for God is ready to forgive!
   Though your father has shut the door against you and your mother and
   sister shun you because of your vices and sins, yet God is ready to
   forgive you if you will repent and turn from your iniquity! Turn you,
   turn you--'tis a brother's voice that entreats you to turn! By the love
   with which He pardoned me. By the mercy which made Him pass by my
   innumerable transgressions, I beg you to turn, no, more, linking my arm
   in yours, I say to you, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord and let
   us say unto Him, 'Receive us graciously, and love us freely, so will we
   render unto You the calves of our lips.'" Ready to perish are you, but
   ready to forgive is He! Blessed be His holy name!

   III. My third text is intended as a hammer to drive home the last nail.
   This sentence, in Job 17:1, is most solemnly true of each one of
   us--THE GRAVES ARE READY FOR ME.

   About three years ago I gazed into the eternal world. It then pleased
   God to stretch me upon a bed of the most agonizing pain and my life
   hung in jeopardy, not merely every hour, but every moment. Eternal
   realities were vivid enough before my eyes, but it pleased God, for
   some purpose which is known to Him, to spare my life and I went to
   spend a little season, that I might fully recover, with a beloved
   friend who seemed, then, far more likely to live than I was. This day,
   it is his turn to lie upon the borders of the grave and mine to stand
   by his bedside. The grave then seemed ready for me--it now seems ready
   for him. As I stood talking to him this afternoon, he said with greater
   force than Addison, "See how a Christian can die." When I asked him
   about his worldly goods and possessions, he said that he had been
   content to leave them all, some time ago. "And what about your wife and
   your little ones?" I asked. And he replied, "I have left them all with
   God." "And how about eternal things?" I enquired. "Oh," said he, "you
   know that God's love is everlasting and His Grace is unchanging, so why
   should we fear?"

   He had no doubt about his acceptance in the Beloved, or about the power
   of Christ to carry him through his dying moments. When I said, "The
   battle's fought, the victory's won forever," I saw his eyes sparkle as
   though he heard the melodious voice of the great Captain of our
   salvation saying to him, "Well done! Enter into your rest." I never saw
   a bride at her marriage look more happy than this man upon the eve of
   death. I never saw a saint more peaceful, when retiring at eventide,
   than he was when about to undress himself that he might stand before
   his God. "Ah," he exclaimed, "remember what you said to me, 'Sudden
   death, sudden glory!'" and his eyes sparkled again at the prospect of
   soon beholding his Lord--

   "Onegentle sigh, the fetter breaks"--

   and you are gone, O earth, and my soul is in Heaven! One gasp and you
   have melted, O shadowy Time, and I have come to you, you welcome
   substance of Eternity! Blessed be God that the graves are ready for us!
   Christian, does the idea of a long life charm you? Do you want to
   remain long in this prison? Would you cling to these rags of mortality,
   to this vile

   body, whose breath is corrupt, whose face is so often marred with
   weeping and upon whose eyelids hangs the shadow of death? Would you
   long to creep up and down this dunghill world, like some poor worm that
   always leaves a slimy track behind it? Or would you not rather--

   "Stretch your wrings, O Soul, and fly

   Straight to yonder world of joy"?

   Were we wise, we would--

   "Long for evening, to undress, That we might rest with God."

   "The graves are ready for me." Young men and young women, and all of
   you who are here, can you look upon the grave which is ready for you
   with as much complacency as my friend did this afternoon? O Death, you
   do not need to furbish up your darts, or whet your scythe! You are
   always ready to slaughter the sons of men. O Eternity, your gates need
   not to be unlocked and thrown back on their hinges with long and
   tedious toil, for they are always open! O world to come, you do not
   need long intervals to make yourself ready to receive the pilgrims who
   have finished their journey! You are an inn whose doors are always
   open--you are whose gates are never closed! Our grave is ready for us.
   The tree is grown that shall make our coffin--perhaps the fabric that
   shall make our winding sheet is already woven and they, who will carry
   us to our last home, are ready and waiting for us!

   "The graves are ready for us." Are we ready for the graves? Are we
   prepared to die--prepared to rise again-- prepared to be
   judged--prepared to plead the blood and righteousness of Christ as our
   ground of acceptance before the eternal Throne of God? What is your
   answer, my Hearer? Do you reply, in the words I quoted at the beginning
   of my discourse, "Ready, yes, ready!"? Did you say Death, that I was
   wanted? Here I am, for you did call me! Did you say, O Heaven, that you
   need to receive another blood-bought one? "Ready, yes, ready!" O
   Christian, always keep your houses in such good order that you will
   always be "Ready, yes, ready!" Always keep your heart in such a state,
   your soul so near to Christ and your faith so fully fixed on Him, that,
   if you should drop dead in the street, or some Providence should take
   away your life, you would be able to cheerfully say, "Ready, yes,
   ready! Ready for you, O Death! Ready to triumph over you and to pluck
   away your sting! Ready for you, O Grave, for where is now your victory?
   Ready for you, O Heaven, for, with your wedding garment on, we are
   ready, yes, ready!" The Lord make us ready, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 8:1-27.

   Verse 1, 2. When He was come down from the mountain, great multitudes
   followed Him. And, behold, there came a leper. You see that particular
   mention is made of this one special case and, in any congregation,
   while it may be recorded that so many people came together, the special
   case that will be noted by the recording angel will be that of anyone
   who comes to Christ with his own personal distresses and who thereby
   obtains relief from them--"Behold, there came a leper."

   2, 3. And worshipped Him, saying, Lord if you will, you can make me
   clean. And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will; be
   you clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. His faith was not
   as strong as it might have been. There was an, "if," in it, but still,
   it was genuine faith and our loving Lord fixed His eye upon the faith
   rather than upon the flaw that was in it. And if He sees in you, dear
   Friend, even a trembling faith, He will rejoice in it and bless you
   because of it. He will not withhold His blessing because you are not as
   strong in faith as you should be. Probably you would have a greater
   blessing if you had greater faith, but even little faith gets great
   blessings from Christ! The leper said to Him, "If you will, you can
   make me clean." So Christ answered to the faith that he did possess,
   "and touched him, saying, I will; be you clean. And immediately his
   leprosy was cleansed."

   4-7. And Jesus said unto him, See you teelno man; but go your way, show
   yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a
   testimony unto them. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there
   came unto Him a centurion beseeching Him, and saying, Lord, my servant
   lies at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said
   unto him, I will come and heal him. He had not asked Christ to "come
   and heal him." He wished his servant to be healed, but he considered
   that it was too great an honor for Christ to come to him. I am not
   sure, but I think that this man's judgment is correct--that for Christ
   to come to a man is better than for healing to come to him. Indeed,
   Brothers

   and Sisters, all the gifts of Christ fall far short of Himself! If He
   will but come and abide with us, that means more than all else that He
   can bestow upon us.

   8, 9. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that You
   should come under my roof: but only speak the word and my servant shall
   be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me:
   and I say to this man, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he
   comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it. From his own power
   over his soldiers and servants, he argued that Christ must have at
   least equal power over all the forces of Nature and, as a centurion did
   not need to go and do everything himself, but gave his orders to his
   servant and he did it, so, surely, there could be no need for the great
   Commander, to whom he was speaking, to honor the sick man with His own
   personal Presence. He had simply to utter the command and it would be
   obeyed, and the centurion's servant would be healed. Do you think this
   is an ingenious argument? It is so, certainly, but it is also a very
   plain and very forcible one. I have read or heard many ingenious
   arguments for unbelief and I have often wished that half the ingenuity
   thus vainly spent could be exercised in discovering reasons for
   believing--so I am pleased to notice that this commander of a hundred
   Roman soldiers did but argue from his own position--and so worked in
   his mind still greater confidence in Christ's power to heal his sick
   servant. Is there not something about yourself, from which, if you
   would look at it in the right light, you might gather arguments
   concerning the power of the Lord Jesus Christ?

   10. When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that followed,
   Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not in
   Israel. "Not in Israel"--where the Light of God and the knowledge were,
   there was not such faith as this centurion possessed! This Roman
   soldier, rough by training and experience, who was more familiar with
   stern fighting men than with those who could instruct him concerning
   Christ--had more faith than Jesus had so far found "in Israel."

   11,12. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west,
   and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom
   of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer
   darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is a
   strange thing, yet it is continually happening, despite its
   strangeness, that the persons who are placed in such positions of
   privilege, that you naturally expect that they would become Believers,
   remain unbelievers, while others, who are placed at a terrible
   disadvantage, nevertheless often come right out from sin and right away
   from ignorance and become believers in Christ! Oh, that none of us who
   sit under the sound of the Gospel from Sabbath to Sabbath, might be sad
   illustrations of this Truth of God, while others, unaccustomed to
   listen to the Word, may be happy instances of the way in which the Lord
   still takes strangers and adopts them into His family!

   13. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go your way; and as you have
   believed, so be it done unto you. And his servant was healed in the
   same hour. Jesus will treat all alike according to this rule--"As you
   have believed, so be it done unto you." If you can believe great things
   of Him, you shall receive great things from Him. If you think Him good,
   great and mighty, you shall find Him to be so. If you can conceive
   greater things of Him than anyone else has ever done, you shall find
   Him equal to all your conceptions and your greatest faith shall be
   surpassed! It is a Law of His Kingdom, from which Christ never
   swerves--"According to your faith, be it unto you."

   14, 15. And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's
   mother lying sick of a fever, and He touched her hand, and the fever
   left her: and she arose and ministered unto them. That was, perhaps,
   the most remarkable thing of all, for, when a fever is cured, it
   usually leaves great weakness behind it. Persons recovered of fever
   cannot immediately leave their bed and begin at once to attend to
   household matters! But Peter's wife's mother did this. Learn,
   therefore, that the Lord Jesus can not only take away from us the
   disease of sin, but all the effects of it as well! He can make the man
   who has been worn out in the service of Satan, to become young again in
   the service of the Lord. And when it seems as if we never, even if
   converted, could be of any use to Him, He can take away the
   consequences of evil habits and make us into bright and sanctified
   Believers. What is there that is impossible to Him? In the olden time,
   kings claimed to have the power of healing with a touch. That was a
   superstition. But this King can do it--all glory to His blessed name!
   May He lay His gracious hand upon many of you, for, if it could heal
   before it was pierced, much more can it now heal every sin-stricken
   soul it touches!

   16-18. When the evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were
   possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and
   healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
   by Isaiah the Prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bore
   our sicknesses. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave

   commandment to depart unto the other side. For He neither loved nor
   courted popularity, but did His utmost to shun it. It followed Him like
   His shadow but He always went before it. He never followed it, or
   sought after it--"When Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave
   commandment to depart unto the other side."

   19. And a certain scribe came and said unto Him, Master, I will follow
   You wherever You go. How bold he is with his boasting! But Jesus knows
   that the fastest professors are often just as fast deserters, so He
   tests him before He takes him into the band of His followers.

   20. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes and the birds of the
   air have nests; but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head.
   Christ means--"Can you follow the Son of Man when there is no reward
   except Himself--not even a place for your head to rest upon, or a home
   wherein you may find comfort? Can you cleave to Him when the lone
   mountainside shall be the place where He spends whole nights in prayer
   while the dews falls heavily upon Him? Can you follow Him then?" This
   is a test of love which makes many to be "found wanting."

   21. 22. And another ofHis disciples said unto Him, Lord, suffer me
   first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow Me; and
   let the dead bury their dead. It must be Christ, first, and father
   afterwards. We pay no disrespect to our dearest relatives and friends
   when we put them after Christ--that is their proper place. To put them
   before Christ--to prefer the creature to the Creator--is to be traitors
   to the King of kings. Whoever may come next, Christ must be first.

   23-26. And when He was entered into a boat, His disciples followed Him.
   And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the
   ship was covered with the waves: but He was asleep. And His disciples
   came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And He
   said unto them, Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? Then He
   arose, and rebuked the winds; and the sea; and there was a great calm.
   Probably no calm is so profound as that which follows the tempest of
   the soul which Jesus stills by His peace-speaking word. The calm of
   Nature, the calm of long-continued prosperity, the calm of an easy
   temper--these are all deceitful and are apt to be broken by sudden and
   furious tempests. But, after the soul has been rent to its
   foundations--after the awful groundswell and the Atlantic billows of
   deep temptation--when Jesus gives peace, there is "a great calm."

   27. And the men marvelled, saying, What manner of Man is this, that
   even the winds and the sea obey Him?We have often marvelled in the same
   way, but we know that it is not any "manner of Man" alone, but it was
   He who was truly Man, who was also "very God of very God," the God-Man,
   the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and men!
     __________________________________________________________________

Prayer Found in the Heart

   (No. 2869)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 16, 1876.

   "Therefore has Your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto
   You." 2 Samuel 7:27.

   It is a very blessed thing for a child of God to be anxious to glorify
   his Heavenly Father, whether his wish is realized or not. The strong
   desire to magnify God is acceptable to Him and is an indication of
   spiritual health. It is certain, in the long run, to bring blessing to
   our own souls and I have frequently noticed that when we earnestly
   desire to do something special for the Lord, He generally does
   something for us very much of the same kind. David wished to build a
   house for God. "No," says Jehovah, "you have been a man of war and I
   will not employ a warrior in spiritual business. But I will build you a
   house." So, although David may not build a house for God, it is well
   that the plan of it is in his heart and God, in return, builds up his
   house, and sets his son and his son's son upon the throne after him.
   But, my dear Friend, if you should not find an opportunity to do all
   that is in your heart, yet, nevertheless, it is well that it is there.
   Carry out the project if you can, but if you cannot, it may be that as
   you have desired to deal with the Lord, so will He deal with you. If
   you have sown sparingly, you shall reap sparingly. If you have sown
   liberally, you shall reap largely, for, often and often, the Lord's
   dealings with His own people are a sort of echo to their hearts of
   their dealings with Him.

   Sometimes it happens that God will not let His servants do what they
   would most of all like to do. David had long been storing up gold and
   silver in great quantities that he might build that house for the Lord.
   It had been the great project of his life that he might make a fit
   sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant. "I dwell," he said, "in a house
   of cedar, but the Ark of God dwells within curtains." The dream of his
   life was that he might build a magnificent temple which would be
   supremely gorgeous for architecture and rich in all the treasures of
   the ends of the earth--that there the Ark of his God might be
   appropriately housed. But the Lord would not have it so. David might
   pray about it and think about it, and plan about it and save his money
   for it, but the Lord would not have it so. It was not in that
   particular way that David was to serve his God.

   And I have known some good Christian young men who felt that they must
   be preachers. They had not the proper gifts and qualifications for the
   ministry, but they felt that they must preach--so they have strived
   very hard, but at all points they have met with rebuffs. People who
   have heard them once, have been quite satisfied, but have not desired
   to hear them again. Doors have been shut against them, no conversions
   have followed their efforts and thus God has said to each one of them,
   "Not so, My son. Not in that way shall you serve Me." And there are
   others who have had other plans in their heads--Brothers and Sisters
   who have arranged wonderful schemes and plans which they have dreamed
   over and said, "Thus and thus will we serve God." Yet, hitherto, my
   Brother, you have had to keep to the workman's bench. And you, my
   Sister, have had to keep to nursing those little children. Up till now
   you have not been very successful in any special path of usefulness, or
   that which is commonly thought to be the path of usefulness. But God
   knows best and He has uses for all the vessels in His house--and it is
   not right for any one vessel to say, "I will be used here, or there, or
   not at all." It is for Godto use us as He pleases!

   Every private soldier would like to be an officer, but it is only a
   very few who ever will be. And if every private soldier coulddbe an
   officer, what sort of an army would it be where all were officers and
   none were men in the ranks? So we would, perhaps, each of us, like to
   do something more remarkable than we havedone, but it is for our great
   Commander

   to say to this man, "Stand here," or to that man, "Go there." And it
   ought to be equally a matter of contentment to us whether God permits
   us to serve Him, here or there. I think it was good Mr. Jay who used to
   say that if there were two angels in Heaven and God wanted one of them
   to go and be the ruler of a kingdom, and the other to sweep a crossing,
   the two angels would not have the slightest dispute as to which post
   they would have, provided that they knew they had the Lord's command to
   occupy either position. Brother, if ever the Lord should rebuff you and
   seem to refuse that which you desire to offer Him, do not sulk--do not
   get into a bad spirit, as some have done in similar circumstances--but
   know that the very essence of Christian service is to be willing notto
   serve in that particular way if, by not serving, God would be the more
   glorified! Be willing, O vessel in the house of the Lord, to be hung up
   on a nail in the wall. Be willing to be laid aside in a corner if so
   God would be glorified, for thus was it with David. God would not let
   him erect the temple which he wished to build, but He gave him great
   blessings in return for his desires. And then David, instead of sulking
   and saying, "Well, then, as I cannot have my own will, I will do
   nothing at all," went in and sat before the Lord and blessed and
   praised Him--he never uttered one grumbling or surly word--but blessed
   the name of the Lord from the beginning of his meditation even to its
   close. Oh, to have a heart molded after the same fashion!

   In the midst of David's memorable address to God, we meet with this
   suggestive expression--"Your servant has found in his heart to pray
   this prayer unto You." I am going to speak upon that subject in this
   way. First, concerning David's prayer--how did he come byit?Secondly,
   how came this prayer to be in his heart? And thirdly, how may we get
   into such a condition that we shall find prayers in our hearts?

   I. First, then, HOW DID DAVID COME BY HIS PRAYER? He tells us that he
   found it in his heart--"Your servant has found in his heart to pray
   this prayer unto You."

   Then it is pretty clear that he looked for it in his heart. How many
   men seem to begin to pray without really thinking about prayer! They
   rush, without preparation or thought, into the Presence of God. Now, no
   loyal subject would seek an audience of his sovereign, to present a
   petition, without having first carefully prepared it. But many seem to
   think there is no need to look for a prayer, or to find one, when they
   approach the Mercy Seat. They appear to imagine that they have only to
   repeat certain words and to stand or kneel in a certain attitude--and
   that is prayer. But David did not make that mistake. He found his
   prayer in his heart. David and his heart were well acquainted--he had
   long been accustomed to talk with himself. There are some men who know
   a thousand other people, but who do not know themselves! The greatest
   stranger to them in the whole world is their own heart. They have never
   looked into it, never talked with it, never examined it, never
   questioned it. They follow its evil devices, but they scarcely know
   that they have a heart, they so seldom look into it. But David, when he
   wanted to pray, went and looked in his heart to see what he could find
   there--and he found in his heart to pray this prayer to God.

   This leads me to say, dear Friends, that the best place in which to
   find a prayer is to find it in your heart. Some would have fetched down
   a book and they would have said, "Let us see--what is the day of the
   month--how many Sundays after Advent? This is the proper prayer for
   today." But David did not go to a book for his prayer--he turned to his
   heart to see what he could find there that he might pray unto God.
   Others of us would, perhaps, have been content to find a prayer in our
   heads. We have been accustomed to extemporize in prayer and so,
   perhaps, bowing the knee, we would have felt that the stream of
   supplication would flow because we are so habituated to speaking with
   God in prayer. Ah, dear Friend, it is no worse to find a prayer in a
   book than to find it in your head! It is very much the same thing
   whether the prayer is printed or is extemporized--unless it comes from
   the heart--it is equally dead in either case.

   How many, too, have found a prayer upon their lips! It is a very common
   thing with those who pray in Prayer Meetings and those of us who pray
   in public, for our lips to run much faster than our hearts move. And it
   is one of the things we need to cry to God to keep us from, lest we
   should be run away with by our own tongues, as men are, sometimes, run
   away with by their horses which they cannot restrain. And you know the
   horse never goes faster than when he has very little to carry. And,
   sometimes, words will come at a very rapid rate when there is very
   little real prayer conveyed by them. This is not as it ought to be with
   us. We must look into our hearts for the desire to pray--and if we do
   not find it in our hearts to pray a prayer, let us rest assured that we
   shall not be accepted before the Throne of God.

   How was it that David found this prayer in his heart? I think it was
   because his heart had been renewed by Divine Grace. Prayer is a living
   thing--you cannot find a living prayer in a dead heart. Why seek you
   the living among the dead, or search the sepulcher to find the signs
   and tokens of life? No, Sir, if you have not been made alive by the
   Grace of

   God, you cannot pray! The dead cannot pray and the spiritually dead
   cannot pray. But the moment you begin to pray, it is a sign that life
   has been given to you. Ananias knew that Saul was a living soul when
   God said to him, "Behold, he prays." "It is all right," said Ananias,
   "for the Lord must have quickened his heart." David found this prayer
   in his heart because his was a living heart!

   And he found it there, also, because his was a believing heart. How can
   a man pray if he does not believe in God, or if he merely thinks that
   there maybe a supernatural Being, somewhere or other in the universe,
   but that He is not near-- and cannot be made to hear--or is not a
   living personality, or, if He is, He is too great to care about us, or
   to listen to the words of a man? But when the Lord has taught you the
   Truth of God about His own Existence and His real Character--when He
   has come so near to you that you know that He is the Rewarder of them
   that diligently seek Him--then, in that believing heart of yours,
   prayer will spring up as the corn springs up in the furrows of the
   field! The Lord, who has sown in your heart the seed of faith, will
   make that seed to spring up in the green blade of prayer. It must be
   so, but, until you believe in God, you cannot pray. It would be useless
   for me to say to some men, "You should pray," when I recollect that
   Christ has said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must
   worship Him in spirit and in truth." And that is what these men cannot
   do. How can they, therefore, pray acceptably? "He that comes to God
   must believe that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of them that
   diligently seek Him." Where there is that true faith in God, there is
   fervent prayer in the heart, but nowhere else!

   David's was also a serious heart. Some men's hearts are flippant,
   trifling, full of levity. God forbid that we should condemn holy
   cheerfulness! As oil to the wheels of a machine, so is cheerfulness to
   a man's conversation, but there is a frothiness, a superficiality, a
   frivolity which is far too common. Some men do not seem to think
   seriously about anything. They have no settled principles. They are
   "everything by starts, and nothing long." "The Vicar of Bray" is their
   first cousin. Perhaps they have scarcely as much principle as he had,
   for they do not so steadily seek their own interests and scarcely seek
   any interest at all but that of the transient pleasure of the hour. If
   that is your case, I do not wonder that you cannot pray! A man says, "I
   cannot find prayer in my heart." No, how could you? Yours is a heart
   full of chaff, full of dust, full of rubbish--a heart tangled and
   overgrown with weeds--a sluggard's heart, where grow the nettles of
   evil desire and unholy passion--where live the docks and thistles of
   idleness and neglect. Oh, may God grant us the Grace to have serious
   hearts--hearts that are in solemn earnest--hearts that are
   intense--hearts that can really give due heed to things according to
   their merits and that give to eternal things their chief concern,
   because eternal things deserve them best. David's heart was a serious
   heart and, therefore, he found this prayer in it.

   And, once again, David's was a humble heart, for a man who is proud
   will not pray. A man who is self-righteous will not pray, except it is
   in the fashion of the Pharisee, and that was no prayer at all. But a
   man, humbly conscious of his soul's needs, and realizing the guilt of
   his sins--that is the man to pour out his heart in prayer before the
   living God! I pray the Lord graciously to break our hearts, for, unless
   our hearts are broken in penitence, we shall never find in them a real
   prayer unto God.

   There are some of you who have got on wonderfully since your Lord
   called you by His Grace. You were wretched enough when He looked at
   you, cast out in the open field, covered with blood and filthiness. And
   He washed you, clothed you, nourished you and now He has even begun to
   use you in His service and you are already beginning to be rather proud
   that He has given you some success. I charge you, Brothers and Sisters,
   not to pilfer any of the Glory that belongs to God alone! Never begin
   to throw up your caps and to cry, "Well done!" It is all up with us if
   we do that. Stay down low, my Brother. Stay down low, my Sister. The
   lower we are and the more we fear and tremble--not through unbelief,
   mark you, (that kind of fear I denounce with all my heart), but with
   that really believing trembling and believingfear that grows out of
   genuine love to Christ and is not inconsistent with that love--the more
   we have of that sort of fear, the more securely shall we walk and the
   more will it be safe for God to trust us with His goodness! When your
   ship floats very high upon the water, I hope that you will not have
   much sail spread, or else the vessel will almost certainly go over. But
   when it floats low, almost down to the Plimsoll line, you may crowd on
   as much sail as you like. If you carry but little ballast and you have
   huge sails up aloft, the first gust of wind will topple you over. But
   if you are well ballasted--that is to say, if you are weighed down with
   a sense of your own unworthiness--you will weather any gale that may
   come upon you, God the Holy Spirit being in the vessel with you and
   holding the helm!

   I pause here a moment just to ask each one--Do you pray? Do you present
   to God prayers that come from your heart? I do not ask whether you use
   a form of prayer, or not, but does your heart really go with the prayer
   you offer? I think I hear someone say, "I always say my prayers." Ah,
   my dear Friend, there is as great a difference between saying prayers
   and really praying as there was between the dead child and the living
   one that were brought before Solomon! Saying prayers is not praying!
   Why, you might as well say your prayers backward as forward unless your
   heart goes with them! It is quite extraordinary how some people can use
   a form of prayer without any thought whatever as to its meaning. Some
   time ago, a man, 70 years of age, was asked if he prayed. He replied
   that he always had prayed, and he would tell the enquirer the prayer he
   used. It turned out that he still persisted in repeating what his
   mother taught him when he was a child, "Pray, God, bless Father and
   Mother, and make me a good boy." He had got those words so deeply
   engraved upon his memory that he still kept to them at his advanced
   age! Naturally, you smile at the story, yet it is very pitiful. It may
   be an extreme instance, but still it is a clear instance of what I
   mean--that there is a way of merely saying prayers which is rather a
   mockery of God than a real approach to Him such as He desires.

   "Well," says one, "I never pray." I question the truth of that
   assertion, but if it is true, there is another thing that I do know and
   that is this--the time will come when you will want to pray. Let me
   explain what I mean when I say that I question your assertion about
   never praying. I have heard men pray who would have thought themselves
   insulted if they had been told that they did. What awful prayers they
   have presented to God when they have imprecated upon their souls,
   bodies, eyes, limbs, children and everything else, the most terrible
   curses from God! There are some men who will do this at the least
   provocation. O Sirs, mind that God does not grant you your wicked
   requests! I am afraid that when an ungodly man prays in that shameless
   way, he does find his prayer in his heart--and I am also afraid that
   his heart must be full of damnation, or he would not find so many oaths
   in it. That which comes out of a man is what is in him, and when you
   hear a man swear, you know that there is a deal of "swear" in his
   heart, for the language in which he dares to imprecate God's vengeance
   proves how alienated his heart must be from God.

   I would remind you, who do not pray, that you will need to pray one
   day. If there were to be a pledge exacted from you that you never would
   pray to God--if you were offered money to never pray--suppose you took
   the money and promised never to pray? I know what you would think--you
   would say to yourself, "What shall I do with this money? It is the
   price of my soul's salvation." It would strike you at once that it was
   an awful thing to never be allowed to pray and you would feel that you
   had sold yourself to the devil--body and soul--and you would be in dire
   trouble. Well, but as you say that you never pray, you might as well
   take the money that is offered to you. As you do not pray, I do not see
   what use the privilege of prayer is to you. "If it is of any use to
   pray to God," you say, "I shall pray at the last." Then pray now, for
   you never know what may be your last moment! Who knows how close you
   may be to your grave even while you are sitting in your pew? You saw
   one friend faint, just now, and we have seen hearers fall back dead
   even while gathered in the congregation! God grant that we may not see
   it again! Still, the fact that it has happened is a loud call to all of
   us bidding us begin to pray!

   Thus I have shown you where David found his prayer. He found it in his
   heart. II. Now, secondly, HOW CAME DAVID'S PRAYER TO BE IN HIS HEART?

   I answer that he found it in his heart because the Lord put it there.
   Every true heart-prayer that is accepted of God, first came from God.
   The Lord Jesus passed by David's heart and threw this prayer in at the
   window and then, when the good man went down to look for a prayer, he
   found this prayer lying on the floor of his heart ready for him to use.

   How does God put prayers into a man's heart? I answer, first, He
   instructs us how to pray. We, none of us, know how to pray aright till
   we have been to the school of the Holy Spirit. We know not what we
   should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit comes and shows us our
   need. Thus we see what to pray for. He also shows us what Christ has
   provided for us and thus we see what we may hope to obtain. He shows
   us, too, that the way to God is through the precious blood of Jesus and
   He leads us along that crimson, blood-sprinkled road and so, by His
   instruction, He puts the prayer into our hearts.

   In the next place, He puts it there by inclining us to pray. Benjamin
   Beddome wrote--

   "When God inclines the heart to pray He has an ear to hear"--

   and his short hymn contains a great Truth of God. God bends the heart
   to pray and, oftentimes, He does this by filling us with sorrow and
   then, in the day of our distress, we cry unto Him. But I have also
   known Him do it in the sweeter way, as He did with David, by filling
   the heart with joy till we have been so glad and grateful that we have
   felt that we must pray, as David did on another occasion, when he said,
   "Because He has inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon
   Him as long as I live."

   So, the Lord puts prayer into our heart by instructing us how to pray
   and by inclining us to pray.

   Then He puts prayer into the heart by encouragement. You notice that my
   text begins with, "Therefore." "Therefore has Your servant found in his
   heart to pray this prayer unto You." What does David mean by that,
   "therefore"? Why, God had promised to do great things for him and, my
   Brother or Sister, you may always safely ask for that which God has
   promised to give! When He gives you the promise of anything, He does as
   good as say to you, "Come, My child, ask for this. Be not slow to come
   to Me with your requests." If the Lord has said that He will bestow any
   blessing, what greater encouragement to pray can you possibly desire?
   But this promise, according to the Hebrew, had been given to David in a
   very special manner. In our version, it is rendered, "You have revealed
   to Your servant," but the marginal reading is, "You have opened the ear
   of Your servant." A promise in the Bible is often a promise to a deaf
   ear--but the promise, applied by the Spirit of God, goes right through
   the outer organ and penetrates to the ear of the soul! I am sure, dear
   Friends, that you can never be backward in prayer when God opens your
   ear and puts a promise into it. The richness, the sweetness, the
   sureness, the preciousness of the promise, when the Holy Spirit seals
   it home to the heart, makes a man go to his knees--he cannot help doing
   so--and thus the Lord greatly encourages the needy soul to pray.

   I will not keep you longer upon this point when I have just said that I
   believe God puts prayers into our hearts by a sense of His general
   goodness. We see how kind and good He is to the sons of men as a whole
   and, therefore, we pray to Him. By His special goodness to His own
   chosen people, we see still more of His compassion and tenderness, and
   so we are moved to pray to Him. Especially does He put prayer into our
   hearts when He gives us a sight of the Cross. We see there how greatly
   Jesus loved us and, therefore, we pray. We rightly argue that He who
   gave Jesus for us will deny to us nothing that is for our good and,
   therefore, again we pray. Often are we stirred up to pray by the
   recollection of former answers to prayer and, sometimes, by observing
   how God hears other men and other women pray. Anyhow, it is a blessed
   thing when the Lord comes by and scatters the seeds of prayer in our
   hearts so that when we want to pray, we have only to look within our
   own renewed nature and there we find the prayer that we shall do well
   to pray unto God!

   III. Our last question, upon which I must speak but briefly, is this.
   WHAT MUST YOU AND I DO IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO FIND PRAYERS IN OUR
   HEARTS?

   Ah, dear Friends, I am afraid that some of you can do nothing in this
   matter until, first of all, your hearts are renewed by Grace. "Who can
   bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" No one. And who can fetch an
   acceptable prayer out of an unaccepted person? No one. So, Sinner, you
   must first come to Jesus, confessing your sin and looking to His dear
   wounds, and finding a broken heart within you as the result of His
   pierced heart. And when the Lord has looked upon you in His pardoning
   love, then you will find many prayers in your heart!

   I asked a young friend, "Did you pray before conversion?" She answered
   that she did pray "after a sort." I then enquired, "What is the
   difference between your present prayers and those you offered before
   you knew the Lord?" Her answer was, "Then, I said my prayers. But, now,
   I mean them. Then, I said the prayers which other people taught me. But
   now I find them in my heart." There is good reason to cry, "Eureka!"
   when we find prayer in our heart. Holy Bradford would never cease
   praying or praising till he found his heart thoroughly engaged in the
   holy exercise. If it is not in my heart to pray, I must pray till it
   is. But, oh, the delight of pleading with God when the heart casts
   forth mighty jets of supplication like a geyser in full action! How
   mighty is supplication when the whole soul becomes one living,
   hungering, expecting desire!

   But some Christian people often feel as if they could not pray. They
   get into a condition in which they are not able to pray and that is a
   very sad state for any child of God to be in. How much do I personally
   desire to always possess the true spirit of prayer! When I was at Mr.
   Rowland Hill's house at Wotton-Under-Edge, many years ago, I asked,
   "Where did Mr. Hill use to pray?" And the answer of someone who had
   known him when he was there, was, "He used to pray everywhere." I said,
   "Yes, but did he not have a special place for prayer?" The reply was,
   "I do not know. I never saw him when he was not praying." "Well, but,"
   I asked, "did he not study somewhere?" I was told that he was always
   studying,

   wherever he went, yet that he was always in the spirit of prayer. The
   good old man, at last, had got into such a blessed state of mind that
   when he sat down on the sofa, he would be going over a familiar hymn,
   and when he walked in the garden, he would be to-tooting something
   gracious! You know how they found him, in George Clayton's chapel over
   yonder. His carriage had not come, after the service, and he was
   walking up and down the aisles, softly singing to himself--

   "And when I'm to die, 'Receive me,' I'll cry, For Jesus has loved me, I
   cannot tell why. But this I do find, we two are so joined, He'll not be
   in Glory and leave me behind!"

   Good old Soul! He had got to find it in his heart to pray always. He
   used to wander down the Blackfriars Road with his hands under his
   coattails and stop to look in very nearly every shop-window, but, all
   the while, he was talking with God just as much as any man could have
   done who had shut himself up in a cloister! This is a blessed state of
   mind to be in-- to find as many prayers in your soul as there are hairs
   on your head--to pray as often as the clock ticks--to wake up in the
   night and feel that you have been dreaming prayers! And when you rise
   in the morning, to find that your first thought is either that of
   praising God for His many mercies, or else pleading for somebody or
   other who needs your prayers!

   How are you to get into this state? Well, I cannot tell you, except
   this--live near to God. If you live near to God, you must pray. He that
   learns how to live near to God will learn how to pray and to give
   thanks to God. Look into your hearts, also, as David did. You cannot
   find prayer there if you do not look for it. Think much of your own
   needs, for a realization of how many and how great they are will make
   you pray. When you see the falls of others, recollect that you also
   will fall unless God holds you up--so make that a reason and subject
   for prayer. When you see others who are slack in devotion, or who have
   become cold in heart, remember you will be as they are if Grace does
   not prevent. So, let your own needs drive you to prayer.

   Then read the Scriptures very much. Study them--suck the sweetness out
   of them, for they are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. You cannot
   fail to be much in prayer if you spend much time in the reading of the
   Word. If you will let God speak to you, I am sure you will be compelled
   to speak with God. Dwell much upon the Doctrines of the Gospel. Seek to
   understand them. Live upon them and upon the promises, too. If a man
   were to give me a check, I do not think I should be so foolish as not
   to cash it. And if God gives me a promise, which is better than any
   man's check, the most natural thing is for me to go on my knees to
   Heaven's bank to seek to have it changed--to get the blessing God
   really promised He would give me! So, keep hard by the promises, and
   still closer to the faithful Promiser! Live to God. Live for God. Live
   inGod and you will find prayers come out of your soul as sparks come
   out of the chimney of the blacksmith's smithy! If there is a blazing
   fire within and the bellows blowing it up and the smith is hard at work
   in his calling, the sparks will fly. And in this cold weather, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, it is necessary to keep our hearts warm.

   Have you noticed thatched cottages and other houses where the snow lies
   on the roof? You say, "Yes." But have you noticed where there is a good
   fire in the house, anywhere near the roof, how soon the snow is melted?
   And if you want to get warm and stay warm in the midst of a cold,
   graceless world that chills the very marrow in a Believer's bones, keep
   a warm heart inside, for that will tend to make it warm outside, too!
   God grant you this blessing and keep you ever abounding in prayer--and
   He shall have all the praise.

   I do trust that some who never prayed before, will try to pray. Nobody
   ever sneers at prayer but the man who does not pray. And nobody ever
   denies its efficacy but the man who knows nothing at all about it. And
   such men are out of court and have no right to speak upon this matter.
   But men who are honest in other things and who would be believed in a
   court of law, should be believed when they bear their solemn testimony
   that times without number God has heard their prayers! Try it, Friend.
   God help you to try it! Especially begin by believing in Jesus and then
   shall you rightly seek unto the Almighty and He will be found of you.
   Yes, you shall lift up your eyes to Heaven and the Lord will look down
   upon you and accept you, and bless you, both now and forever! So may it
   be, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2SAMUEL 7:18-29;LUKE 18:1-14.

   2 Samuel 7:18. Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD. David
   desired to build a temple for God and the Prophet Nathan, conceiving
   that such a design must be acceptable to the Most High, told the king
   to proceed with it. But God's mind was otherwise and Nathan had to tell
   David that it was well that it was in his heart, but that God intended
   the temple to be built, not by him, but by his son Solomon. However,
   the Lord gave to David very large promises and when he had received
   them, through Nathan, he was so overcome with gratitude that he went in
   and "sat before the Lord." That was his posture in prayer on this
   occasion. Good men have been known to pray kneeling, which seems to be
   the most natural attitude. Some have prayed with their faces between
   their knees, as Elijah did. Some have prayed standing, as the publican
   did. Some have prayed sitting, as David did. Probably he was mingling
   prayer and meditation when he "sat before the Lord."

   18. And he said, Who am I, O Lord GOD? And what is my house, that You
   have brought me here?How often has a similar feeling leaped into our
   heart! Why should the Lord have dealt so well with us?--

   "What was there in you that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator
   delight?"

   19. And this was yet a small thing in Your sight, O Lord GOD; but You
   have spoken also of Your servant's house for a great while to come. And
   is this the manner of man, O Lord GOD?No--man could not have been so
   kind as that! The love of Jesus surpasses the love of women and the
   love of God surpasses all the kindness of men.

   20. And what can David say more unto You? For You, Lord GOD, know Your
   servant ' 'What I cannot utter, You can perceive in my heart, though I
   cannot express it."

   21-25. For Your word's sake, and according to Your own heart, have You
   done all these great things, to make Your servant know them. Therefore
   You are great, O LORD God: for there is none like You, neither is there
   any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
   And what one nation in the earth is like Your people, even like Israel,
   whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself, and to make Him a
   name, and to do for You great things and terrible, for Your land,
   before Your people, which You redeem to You from Egypt, from the
   nations and their gods? For You have confirmed to Yourself Your people
   Israel to be a people unto You forever: and You, LORD, have become
   their God. And now, O LORD God, the word that You have spoken
   concerning Your servant, and concerning his house, establish it
   forever, and do as You have said. That is a very short, but exceedingly
   pithy prayer--"Do as You have said." You do not need any larger
   promises, Brothers and Sisters, than the Lord has already given
   you--could He give you any larger ones?--

   "What more can He say than to you He has said, You who unto Jesus for
   refuge have fled?"

   What you have to do is to take the promises He has given and spread
   them out before the Mercy Seat. And then say to Him, "Do as You have
   said." What strength there is in this plea! Has He said, and shall He
   not do it? "Will He break His promise, or shall His right hand fail to
   perform that which has gone forth from His lips? Far be it from us to
   think so, but let us say to Him, "Do as You have said." That is the
   very essence of prayer! Take care not to forget it.

   26-29. And'let Your name be magnified forever, saying, The LORD of
   Hosts is the God over Israel: and let the house of Your servant David
   be established before You. For You, O LORD of Hosts, God of Israel,
   have revealed to Your servant, saying, I will build You a house:
   therefore has Your servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto
   You. And now, O lord GOD, You are that God, and Your words are true,
   and You have promised this goodness unto Your servant therefore now let
   it please You to bless the house of Your servant, that it may continue
   forever before You. You see how he clings to God's promise--"You have
   promised this goodness unto Your servant." If you get a promise from
   the Lord and cling to it as You wrestle with the angel, You will surely
   prevail. You will win the blessing if you can plead, as David did, "You
   have promised this goodness unto Your servant."

   29. For You, O lord GOD, have spoken it How he dwells on it!

   29. And with Your blessing let the house of Your servant be blessed
   forever Now let us read two of our Lord's parables concerning prayer.

   Luke 18:1-8. And He spoke a parable unto them to this end that men
   ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a
   judge who feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow
   in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary.
   And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself
   Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubles
   me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual com-

   ing she weary me. And thee Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said.
   And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto
   Him, though He bear long with them? I tell You that He will avenge them
   speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith
   on the earth? The whole force of this parable goes to show the
   prevalence of importunity. If You cannot get your desire of God the
   first time, go again and, if necessary, go again seven times. Yes, if
   need be, in submission to His will, go seventy times seven! I am afraid
   there is no fear of our having to be asked the question, "Will you,
   also, weary my God?" Oh, no, we do not pray enough for that, neither
   are we so importunate as this poor widow was! Let us prove the power of
   importunate prayer and rest assured that Heaven's gate must open if we
   do but know how to knock and that the blessing must be given if we do
   but continue to ask for it, for praying breath is never spent in vain.

   9-11. And He spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in
   themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went
   up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a
   publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God I thank
   You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
   or even as this publican. And he drew up his skirts and got upwind, for
   fear lest any breath that should blow from the publican should defile
   his sanctified person!

   12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. It
   was not a prayer at all, as you perceive. It was a thanksgiving, but
   the thanksgiving was merely a veil for self-adulation!

   13. And the publican, standing afar off Not daring to come near to the
   inner shrine--

   13. Would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon
   his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I do not suppose
   that he thought he had really prayed. He scarcely dared to call it
   prayer. Perhaps, as he went home, he said, "I went up to the temple to
   pray, but I was so bowed down with a sense of my guilt that I could not
   pray." But that was not our Lord's verdict!

   14. I tell You, this man went down to his house justified rather than
   the other: for everyone that exalts himself shall be abased; and he
   that humbles himself shall be exalted.
     __________________________________________________________________

Revelation and Conversion

   (No. 2870)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 23, 1876.

   "The Law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul." Psalm 19:7.

   WHEN he spoke of "the Law of the Lord, David did not merely mean the
   Law as it was given in the Ten Commandments, although that also is
   perfect and is used, to some extent, in the conversion of souls. The
   term includes the entire Doctrine of God--the whole Divine Revelation
   and though, in David's day, there was not so full and clear a
   Revelation as we have--for the New Testament was not then given, nor
   much of the Old Testament, yet the text has lost none of its former
   force, but has rather gained more. So I shall use it as applicable to
   the entire Scriptures--to the Law and to the Gospel--and to all that
   God has revealed. And speaking of it in that sense, I may truly say
   that it is perfect and that it converts the soul.

   A tree is known by its fruit and a book must be tested by its effects.
   There are some books which bear their fruit for the hangman and the
   jail--and such books are very widely read nowadays. They are frequently
   embellished with engravings and put into the hands of boys and
   girls--and a crop of criminals is constantly the result of their
   publication and circulation! There have been books written which have
   spread moral contagion throughout centuries. I need not mention them,
   but if it were possible to gather them all together in one heap and
   burn them as the Ephesians burnt their books of magic, it would be one
   of the greatest blessings conceivable! Yet, if that were done, I fear
   that other wicked brains would be set to work to think out similar
   blasphemies and that other hands would be found to scatter their vile
   productions.

   The Word of God must be tested, like other books, by the effect which
   it produces, and I am going to speak upon one of its effects to which
   many of us here present can bear personal witness. The old proverb
   says, "Speak as you find," and I am going to speak of the Bible as I
   have found it--to praise the bridge that has carried me over every
   difficulty until now--and that has carried a great many of you over,
   also. We know that the Law of the Lord is good because it converts the
   soul and, to our mind, the best proof of its purity and power is that
   it has converted oursoul.

   My first objective will be to show how the Word of God converts the
   soul Then to show the excellence of the work of conversion. And,
   therefore, thirdly, the excellence of that Book which produces
   conversion.

   I. First, then, I am to show HOW THE WORD OF GOD CONVERTS THE SOUL.

   Man's face is turned away from his Maker. Ever since the fatal day when
   our first parents broke the Law of God, we have been, all of us, guilty
   of the same great crime. We stand as men who have their backs to the
   light and we are going the downward road, the road which leads to
   destruction. What we need is to be turned around, for that is the
   meaning of the word, "converted"--turned right about. We need to hear
   the command, "Right about face," and to march in the opposite direction
   from any in which we have ever marched before. Our text truly says that
   the Word of God turns us around. It does not mean that the Word alone
   does that apart from the Spirit of God, because a man may read the
   Bible through 50 times and, for 50 years hear sermons that have all
   come out of the Bible, and yet they will never turn him unless the
   Spirit of God makes use of the Word of God or the preacher's sermons.
   But when the Spirit of God goes with the Word, then the Word becomes
   the instrument of the conversion of the souls of men.

   This is how the work of conversion is worked. First, it is by the
   Scriptures of Truth that men are made to see that they are in error.
   There are millions upon millions of men in the world who are going the
   wrong way, yet they do not

   know it. And there are tens of thousands who believe that they are even
   doing God service when they are utterly opposing Him. Some who, as far
   as it is in their power, are even slaying Christ, know not what they
   are doing. One of the pleas that our Savior used upon the Cross was,
   "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." To take my own
   case, I know that for years I was not conscious of having committed any
   great sin. I had been, by God's restraining Grace, kept from outward
   immoralities and from gross transgressions and, therefore, I thought I
   was all right. Did I not pray? Did I not attend a place of worship? Did
   I not do what was right towards my fellow men? Did I not, even as a
   child, have a tender conscience? It seemed to me, for a time, that all
   was well and, perhaps, I am addressing someone else who says, "Well, if
   I am not right, I wonder who is? And if I have gone wrong, where must
   my neighbors be going?"

   Ah, that is often the way we talk! As long as we are blind, we can see
   no faults in ourselves. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and
   reveals to us the Law of God, then we perceive that we have broken the
   whole of the Ten Commandments in the spirit, if not in the letter of
   them. Even the most chaste of men may well tremble when they remember
   that searching word of Christ--"Whoever looks on a woman to lust after
   her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." When you
   understand that the Commandments of God not only forbid wrong actions,
   but also the desires, imaginations and thoughts of the heart--and that,
   consequently, a man may commit murder while he lies in his bed-- may
   rob his neighbor without touching a penny of his money or any of his
   goods--may blaspheme God though he never uttered an oath--and may break
   all the commands of the Law of God, from the first to the last, before
   he has put on his garments in the morning--when you come to examine
   your life in thatlight, you will see that you are in a very different
   condition than you thought you were!

   Think, for instance, of that solemn declaration of our Lord, "I say
   unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
   account thereof in the Day of Judgment." It is by bringing home to the
   heart such Truths of God as these that the Spirit of God, through the
   Word, makes a man see that he is in error and in danger! And this is
   the beginning of his conversion! You cannot turn a man around as long
   as he believes he is going in the right way. While he has that idea in
   his head, he goes straight on, marching, as he supposes, safely. So the
   very first thing to be done to him is to let him see that there is a
   terrible precipice right before him--over which he will fall if he goes
   on as he is going. When he realizes that, he stops and considers his
   position.

   Then the Word of God comes in, in the next place, to take the man off
   from all attempts to get around by wrong ways. When a man knows that he
   is going wrong, his instinct should lead him to seek to get right, but,
   unhappily, many people try to get right by getting wrong in another
   direction! A good man sent me a volume of his poems the other day. As
   soon as I looked into it, I saw that there was one line of the verse
   that was too short. The good Brother evidently felt that it was, so he
   tried to set the matter right by making the next line too long, which,
   as you see at once, made two faults instead of one! In like manner, you
   will find that men who are wrong in one direction with regard to their
   fellow men, often become very superstitious and go a great deal further
   in another directions than God asks them to go and so, practically,
   make a long line towards God in order to make up for the short line
   towards men! And thus they commit two errors instead of one.

   Here is a sheep that has gone astray. It has wandered so far to the
   East that, in order to get right, it tries to go just as far to the
   West--and if convinced that it is on the wrong road, all it does is to
   stray just as far to the North and, by-and-by, to the South! It is
   wandering all the while in a different way with the intent to get back
   to the fold and, in this respect, sinners are just as silly as the
   sheep! Now, the Word of God tells a man that by the works of the Law he
   cannot be justified. It tells him that his heart is defiled, that he,
   himself, is already condemned, that he is shut up under condemnation
   for having broken God's Law. And it indicates to him that whatever he
   may do, or however much he may struggle, if he does not seek salvation
   in God's way, he will only make the bad, worse, and be like a drowning
   man who sinks the faster the more he struggles! When the Word of God
   shows a man that--and makes him feel as though he were hopeless,
   helpless, shut up in the condemned cell--it has done a great deal
   towards turning him around!

   The next thing the Word of God does is to show the man how he might get
   right. And, oh, how perfectly it shows him this! It comes to the man
   and says to him, "Your sin deserves punishment. God has laid that
   punishment upon His only-begotten Son and, therefore, He is ready to
   forgive you freely for Christ's sake--not because of anything good in
   you, or anything you ever can do--but entirely of His free mercy! He
   bids you trust yourself in the hands of Jesus that He may save you."
   Come, then, and rely upon what Christ has done and is still doing for
   you, and believe in the mercy of

   God, in Christ Jesus, to all who trust Him! Oh, how clearly the Word of
   God sets Christ before us! It is a sort of mirror in which He is
   revealed. Christ Himself is up in Heaven and a poor sinner, down here
   on earth, cannot see Him however long he looks. But this Word of the
   Lord is like a huge mirror, better, even, than Solomon's molten
   sea--and Jesus Christ looks down into this mirror and then, if you and
   I come and look into it, we can see the reflection of His face! Blessed
   be His holy name, it is true, as Dr. Watts Sings--

   "Here I behold my Savior's face Almost in every page."

   There is scarcely one chapter in which Christ is not, more or less
   clearly, set forth as the Savior of sinners. So the Word of God, you
   see, shows the man that he is in the wrong, takes him away from wrong
   ways of trying to get right, and then puts him in the way to get right,
   namely, by believing in Jesus!

   But the Word of the Lord does more than that. In the power of the Holy
   Spirit, it helps the man to believe, for, at the first, he is quite
   staggered at the idea of free salvation--instantaneous pardon--the
   blotting out of sin--all for nothing--pardon for the worst and vilest
   freely given and given now! The man says, "Surely, it is too good to be
   true." He is filled with amazement, for God's thoughts are as high
   above him and as far out of his reach as the heavens are above the
   earth! Then the Word comes to him and says, "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." The Word also says to him, "All manner of sin and of
   blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." The Word says, "The mercy of the
   Lord endures forever." "He delights in mercy." "I have blotted out, as
   a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins." I need
   not go on repeating the texts with which I hope many of you have long
   been familiar. There is a great number of them--precious promises,
   gracious invitations and comforting Doctrines--and, as the sinner reads
   them, with trembling gaze, the Spirit of God applies them to his soul
   and he says, "I can and I do believe in Jesus! Lord, I do gladly accept
   Your pardoning mercy. I look unto Him who was nailed to the Cross and I
   find in Him the cure for the serpent bites of sin. I do and I will
   believe in Jesus and venture my soul upon Him." It is thus that the
   Word of God converts the soul--by helping the man to believe in Jesus.

   And when it has done that, the man is converted, for when a man looks
   to Christ, alone, he has turned his face towards God. Now he has
   confidence in God and out of this grows love to God. And now he desires
   to please God because God has been so very gracious in providing such a
   Savior for him. The man is turned right around--from rebelling against
   God he has come to feel intense gratitude to his Redeemer--and he seeks
   to live to God's Glory as he would never have thought of doing before!

   I ask you who are the people of God, whether you have not felt, since
   your conversion, the power of the Word of God in sustaining you in your
   converted condition. Do you not often feel, as you hear the Gospel
   preached, your heart grow warm within you? Some time ago, when I went
   away for a week's holiday, I was more than a little troubled about many
   things. I had been, for a long while, preaching to others and I thought
   I should like to feel the power of the Word in hearing it myself. I
   went to a little chapel in the country and there I heard a lay
   brother--I think he must have been an engineer--preach a sermon. There
   was nothing very grand in it except that it was full of Christ. And as
   I listened to it, my tears began to flow. I wish that, sometimes, some
   of you, my Brothers, would preach and let me take my turn at listening.
   Well, on that occasion, my soul was melted as I heard the Gospel
   proclaimed very simply, and I thought, "After all, I do feel its power!
   I do enjoy its sweetness!" And while I listened to it, my heart
   overflowed with joy and delight-- and I could only sit still and weep
   as I heard the simple story of the Cross.

   And have not you, Beloved, often found it so, in your experience, as
   you have been reading the Word of the Lord? If you ever get dull in the
   things of God, it is not the Bible that has made you so! If ever your
   heart grows cold, it is not the promises of God that have made you
   cold! If ever you cannot sing, and cannot pray, it is not the searching
   of the Scriptures that has brought you into that condition. And if you
   ever have the misery of hearing a sermon that deadens your spiritual
   life, I am quite certain that that sermon is not in harmony with the
   mind of God and not according to the teaching of the Word of God. But
   when you hear the Gospel fully and faithfully preached, if your heart
   is at all capable of feeling its power, it stirs your spirit, it wakes
   you up, it produces holy emotions--love to God, love to your fellow
   men, heart-searching, deep humiliation, ardent zeal and all the
   Christian Graces in full exercise! The Word of the Lord is perfect and
   its effect is continually to restore and revive the soul of the
   Christian.

   This has been to me one of the great evidences of the Truth of
   Inspiration. Standing alone at night and looking up to the starry vault
   of Heaven, I have asked myself, "Is this Gospel which I have believed,
   which I have preached to others for so many years, really true?" Being
   absolutely certain that there is a God--for none but a fool can doubt
   that--I have said, "Well, this Gospel has made me love God. I know I
   love Him with all my heart and soul. And whenever it exerts its
   rightful power over me, it makes me try to please Him. Whenever I am
   under its influence, it makes me hate all wrong, all meanness and all
   falseness. Now, it would be a very strange thing if a lie could lead a
   man to act like that, so it must be true." The moral effect of the Word
   of God upon one's own nature, from day to day, becomes, in the absence
   of all other proof--even if we had no other--the surest and best
   evidence to a man that "the Law of the Lord is perfect," for it
   converts his soul!

   I once heard a charming story about Robert Hall--that mightiest of our
   Baptist orators--perhaps one of the greatest and most eloquent
   ministers who ever lived. He was subject to fits of terrible depression
   of spirits and, one night, he had been snowed up, on his way to a
   certain place where he was going to preach. There was such a great
   depth of snow that he was obliged to stay for the night at the
   farmhouse where he had stopped. But he must preach, he said. He had his
   discourse ready and he must deliver it--so they fetched in the servants
   and the farm people, and he preached the sermon he had prepared--a very
   wonderful one to be delivered in a farmhouse parlor. And after the
   others had all gone, he sat down by the fireside with the good man of
   the house and he said to him--a plain, country farmer, "Now tell me,
   Mr. So-and-So, what do you think is the sure evidence of a man being a
   child of God, for I sometimes am afraid I am not one?"

   "Oh," said the farmer, "my dear Mr. Hall, how can you talk like that?"
   "Well, what do you think is the best evidence that a man is really a
   child of God?" "Oh," replied the farmer, "I feel sure that if a man
   loves God, it must be all right with him." "Then," said the farmer, as
   he told the story, "you should have heard him speak. He said, 'Love
   God, Sir? Love God? If I were damned, I would still love Him! He is
   such a blessed Being--so holy, so true, so gracious, so kind, so just!'
   He went on for an hour praising God, the tears running down his cheeks
   as he kept on saying, 'Love Him? I cannot help loving Him! I must love
   Him! Whatever He does to me, I must love Him!'"

   Well, now, I have felt just like that, sometimes, and then I have said
   to myself, "What made me love the Lord thus? Why, this that I have read
   about Him in this blessed Book! And this that I believe that He has
   done for me, in the Person of His dear Son. And that which brings me
   into such a state that I love Him with all my nature must be a right
   and a true thing."

   The Word of God is perfect, converting the soul. You will find it to be
   so the longer you live and the more you test and try it. Whenever you
   go astray, it is because you get away from the Word of God. And as long
   as you are kept right, it is because you are drinking in the precious
   Truths of God concerning Jesus as they are revealed in the Bible. That
   is the one perfect Book in the whole world and it will also make
   youperfect if you will yield to its gracious influence. Only submit
   yourself to it and you will, one day, become perfect and be taken up to
   dwell where the perfect God, who wrote the perfect Book, will reveal to
   you the perfection of bliss forever and forevermore! God grant to you,
   dear Brothers and Sisters, to know the power of this converting Book!

   If any of you have backslidden, I pray that this same blessed Book may
   bring you back. I had a letter, the other day, from the backwoods of
   America that did my heart good. It was from a man who was one of my
   first converts at New Park Street Chapel. He had been for years a
   member of the Church, but he grew cold and ceased to attend the means
   of Grace and, at last, he had to be excommunicated from the Church. He
   went out to America and there, far away, he began to examine
   himself--and the Spirit of God brought home to his heart the old texts
   which he used to hear. He writes that he was brought to his knees and
   now he is actively engaged in the service of God, endeavoring to bring
   other backsliders and sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ! It is the Word
   of God that will restore you, Backslider! I hope it will do so this
   very hour and that, soon, you will come to us, and say, "Take me into
   the Church again, for the Lord has restored me to fellowship with Him
   through His blessed Word."

   II. I must be very brief upon the second part of my subject, which is,
   THE EXCELLENCE OF THIS WORK OF CONVERSION. That is a boundless theme,
   but I must be content just to touch upon a few points of this
   excellence.

   When the Word of God converts a man, it takes away from him his
   despair, but it does not take from him his repentance. He does not now
   think that his sin will cast him into Hell, but he does not, therefore,
   think that his sin is a trifle. He hates the sin as much as if he
   feared that it would destroy him forever. That is a grand kind of
   conversion--that the

   man, who had been in despair because of his sin, is made to know that
   his sin is forgiven and yet he is not led to trifle or tamper with sin.
   By faith he sees the wounds of Jesus and he knows how Christ bled to
   set him free from the bondage of sin--and that makes him forever hate
   sin. Is not that an excellent conversion?

   True conversion also gives a man pardon, but does not make him
   presumptuous. His past transgression is all forgiven him, but he does
   not, therefore, say, "I will go and transgress in the same fashion
   again. If pardon is so easily obtained, why should I not sin?" If a
   truly converted man ever talked like that, or, if such a thought ever
   occurred to him, he must have said at once, "Get you behind me, Satan,
   for you savor not the things that are of God." Such talks as that would
   be diabolical! "Shall we sin, that Grace may abound? God forbid!"
   Though the man is pardoned, he hates sin as the burnt child dreads the
   fire. He is afraid lest, by any inadvertent step, he should grieve his
   Lord who has blotted out the past.

   Further, true conversion gives a man perfect rest, but does not stop
   his progress. He knows that the work that has saved him is the finished
   work of the Lord Jesus Christ and that he has not to add even one
   thread to the robe of righteousness which has been given to him! Yet he
   desires to grow in Grace, to become holier and holier, more like his
   Lord and Master. While he perfectly rests in Christ, he spreads the
   wings of his soul that he may fly higher and higher towards his Lord
   and Master.

   Again, true conversion gives a man security, but it does not allow him
   to leave off being watchful. He knows that he is safe and that he shall
   never perish, neither shall any pluck him out of Christ's hands--but he
   is always on the watch against every enemy--against the world, the
   flesh, and the devil. One of our hymn-writers puts this double Truth of
   God very sweetly--

   "We have no fear that You should lose One whom eternal love could
   choose But we would ne'er this Grace abuse, Let us not fall. Let us not
   fall."

   True conversion also gives a man strength and holiness, but it never
   lets him boast. He glories, but he glories only in the Lord. He knows
   that a great change has been worked in him, but he still sees so much
   of his own imperfections that he mourns over them before the Lord. He
   has no time for boasting because all his time is taken up with
   repenting for his sins, believing in his Savior and seeking to live to
   the praise and glory of God!

   True conversion, likewise, gives a harmony to all the duties of
   Christian life. It makes a man love his God better and love his fellow
   men better. I have no opinion of that religion which consists in a
   so-called profession of religion which makes a young woman leave her
   father and mother and all her family--and go and shut herself up in a
   convent, or become a sister of misery of some sort or other! If my
   child, when he says that he is converted, leaves off loving his father,
   I have very grave doubts about his conversion! I think it must be a
   conversion worked by the devil, not by God. But wherever there is true
   love to God, there is sure to be love to our fellow men also. The same
   God who wrote on one tablet certain commands in reference to Himself,
   wrote on the other tablet the commands with regard to our fellow men.
   "You shall love the Lord your God," is certainly a Divine Command--and
   so is the other, "and your neighbor as yourself." True conversion
   balances all duties, emotions, hopes and enjoyments.

   True conversion brings a man to live for God. He does everything for
   the Glory of God--whether he eats, or drinks, or whatever he does. True
   conversion makes a man live before God. He used to try to fancy that
   God did not see him. But now he desires to live as in God's sight at
   all times and he is glad to be there--glad even that God should see his
   sin-- that He may blot it out as soon as ever He beholds it. And such a
   man now comes to live with God. He has blessed communion with Him, He
   talks with Him as a man talks with his friend and, by-and-by, he shall
   dwell with God throughout eternity in the palace above! This ought to
   convince you what an excellent thing true and real conversion is.

   III. I have no need to say much, in the third place, concerning THE
   CONSEQUENT EXCELLENCE OF THE WORD OF GOD. The Law of the Lord which
   accomplishes such an excellent work, must itself be excellent. I will,
   therefore, only make one or two brief remarks and then close.

   "The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," right away from
   the beginning of conversion to the end. Whenever we want to have
   converts--and I hope that is always--the best thing for us to do is to
   "preach the Word." There is nothing better! There can be nothing
   more--there must be nothing less! I do not wonder that in some churches
   and chapels, there are no conversions--because the sermons that are
   preached there are not adapted to that end. They

   are like a book I reviewed, the other day, of which I said that there
   was, possibly, one person in the world who understood it, and that was
   the writer of the book. And that if he did not read it through every
   morning, he certainly would not know, the next day, what he meant by
   it. In some such fashion as that, there are sermons that are so
   involved-- perplexing, metaphysical and I know not what besides--that I
   do not see how any souls can ever be converted by them! The people need
   to have a dictionary in the pew, instead of a Bible! They need never
   turn to any Biblical references, but they need someone to explain to
   them the meaning of the hard words which the preacher is so fond of
   using. Have I not also read sermons which were very highly polished,
   and which, I daresay, were preceded by a prayer that God would convert
   souls by them? But it was morally impossible that the Lord should do
   anything of the sort unless He reversed all His usual methods of
   procedure, for there was nothing in the sermon that could have been
   made the means of the conversion of a soul.

   But, my dear Brother, if you preach the Word of God. If you lift up the
   crucified Christ on the pole of the Gospel you need not be very
   particular about the style of your speech! You need not say, "I must be
   a first-class speaker. I must be a brained rhetorician." I believe that
   a great deal of that first-class speaking is simply the means of
   veiling the Cross of Christ--and that fine talk about Jesus Christ is
   about the last thing that poor sinners need! I sat at a hotel table, in
   Men-tone, one evening at dinner, and I wanted to speak to a friend who
   was sitting opposite to me, but someone had put a most magnificent
   bouquet of flowers in a very splendid vase between us. I was grateful
   that those flowers bloomed in the middle of winter, and I was pleased
   to see and to smell them, but, by-and-by, I moved them on one side
   because they stood in the way of my view of my friend's face. So I
   admire fine language--nobody enjoys it more than I do in its proper
   place--I even think that I could manage a little of it myself if I were
   to try. But whenever it stands between a poor soul and Christ, I would
   like to say, "Break that vase into a thousand pieces! Fling those
   flowers into the fire! We do not want them there, for we want the poor
   sinner to see Christ!"

   It is the Word of God that converts the soul--not our pretty figures
   about the Word, not our fine talk about it-- but the Word itself. So,
   dear teachers, and dear Brother-ministers, let us give them the Word!
   Yes, that is a very handsome scabbard, but, if you are going to fight,
   you must pull it off! There is nothing like the naked blade, the sword
   of the Spirit, the Word of God, to cut and hew, and hack and kill, in a
   spiritual sense! That same Word will, by God's almighty Grace, make men
   alive again, so we must "preach the Word" if we want to have
   conversions!

   There is another thing that I feel I must say to you. We must not think
   that in order to have conversions, it is necessary to leave out any
   part of the Gospel. I am afraid that some people think that if you
   stand and shout, "Believe, believe, believe, believe, believe, believe,
   believe, you will convert any number of people--but it is not so. You
   must tell your hearers whatthey have to believe. You must give them the
   Word of God, the Doctrines of the Gospel, for the people who are said
   to be converted without being taught from the Scriptures will very soon
   need to be "converted" again. There must be shot and shell in our guns
   if any real execution is to be done! Blowing off a lot of powder and
   making a great noise may sound very well for a time, but it comes to
   nothing in the end. Just the same Gospel adapted as to its tone and
   method, but the same Gospel--that I preach in this place, I would
   preach in a thieves' kitchen, or to the poorest of the poor--andthe
   most illiterate of mankind! It is the Gospel and only the Gospel that
   will convert the soul.

   Now, dear Friends, you who are not converted, my closing word is to
   you. If you really wish for strength, life, salva-tion--you will get it
   through hearing the Word of God, or through reading this precious Book.
   "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Eye-Gate is
   not usually the way by which Immanuel rides into the city of Man-soul.
   The lifting up of the host, the pretty decorations on the priest's
   robe, the crucifix, the stations of the cross, and all that Roman
   Catholic mummery will save nobody! That is not God's way of salvation!

   Christ comes into Mansoul through Ear-Gate. "Incline your ear, and came
   unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live." Whenever the Gospel is
   preached, dear Hearer, do really hear it. Remember how our Lord Jesus
   Christ said, "He that has ears to hear, let him hear"? Some people do
   not hear. I have often been thankful, when I have heard some people
   talk, that I have two ears, because, though their conversation goes in
   one ear, I thank God I can let it go out the other, and so it does me
   no harm! But if you are hearing the Gospel, mind that you do not act
   like that. Then let your two ears be two entrances for the Word. Do not
   have one for entrance and the other for exit, but, "let the Word of
   Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." Let it go in both ears and
   remain in your memory until it reaches your heart. I do not believe
   that anybody is an earnest and attentive hearer, longing to hear to his
   soul's profit, without his so hearing if the Gospel is

   preached to him. As I have already told you, the promise is, "Hear, and
   your soul shall live." And if you come with a willing mind--willing to
   judge, weigh and then to believe the Word--the moment you do believe
   it, you are saved! That Word of God which leads you to believe has
   already converted you, so, come out and confess what God has done for
   you, and then go on your way rejoicing! May God bless everyone of you
   without a single exception, for His name's sake! Amen.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--551, 658, 561.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM19.

   This Psalm teaches us the excellence of the two Revelations which God
   has made to man. The first is the Revelation which He has made in
   Nature, and the second is that which He has made in His Inspired Word.
   The Psalmist first sings of God as He displays Himself in His works in
   Creation.

   Verse 1. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows
   His handiwork So much is this the case that it has been well said that
   "an undevout astronomer is mad." There are such traces of the Infinite
   and the Omnipotent in the stars, that the more thoroughly they are
   studied, and the science of mathematics is brought to bear upon them,
   in order, in some degree, to guess at the incalculable distances and
   mighty weights of the starry orbs, that a man must perceive in them
   traces of the Divine handiwork if he is only willing to do so! "The
   heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His
   handiwork."

   2. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge.
   Every day speaks to the following one, even as the day that went before
   it spoke to it, and each day has its own message. Its history is an
   echo of the Voice of God and if man had but ears to hear, he would
   perceive that the things which happen from day to day proclaim the
   Presence and power of God. And even night, with her impressive silence,
   reveals the Most High in the solemn hush and stillness. In the great
   primeval forests, the winds seem with songs without words to declare
   the Presence of the Most High. There is a something there, in the
   stillness of the night, as weird-like and so solemn, which has made
   Unbelief retreat and caused Faith to lift up her eyes and see more in
   the heavens at night than she had seen by day--"Night unto night shows
   knowledge."

   3, 4. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
   Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the
   end of the world. Though Nature does not speak, yet its words go to the
   ends of the earth and, silently, they sing the praises of God. To the
   inner ears of an enlightened man, there is a measure of spiritual
   teaching always going on.

   4-6. In them has He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a
   bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to
   run a race. Its rising from one end of Heaven, and its circuit to the
   other end: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. All this is
   emblematical of the spread of the Gospel--so Paul tells us in the
   Epistle to the Romans, "Their souls went into all the earth, and their
   words unto the ends of the world." Our Lord Jesus, springing up from
   the couch where He slept awhile, has sent His Light even to the ends of
   the earth--

   "Nor shall His spreading Gospel rest Till through the world His Truth
   has run-- Till Christ has all the nations blest, That see the light, or
   feel the sun." There are brighter days yet to come to us! The strength
   of Christ, as He daily runs the Gospel race, has not diminished.
   Indeed, He puts it out yet more and more, and the day shall come when,
   as the full sunlight makes the perfect day, so shall the full
   Revelation of the Gospel to the eyes of all men fill the whole earth
   with the praises of God! Now let us read concerning the Book of God. We
   have read about His works, now let us read about His words. 7. The law
   of the LORD is perfect. "The Doctrine of the Lord (as it may be read)
   is perfect." 7. Converting [or, restoring] the soul the testimony of
   the LORD is sure. Oh, what a mercy that is! What could our souls do
   with ifs and buts and perhapses? But the teachings of God's Word are
   certain, positive, Infallible!

   7. Making wise the simple. No matter how foolish, how childlike we may
   be to begin with, so long as our minds are free from cunning and
   craftiness, and so are simple and sincere, this Book will make us truly
   wise.

   8. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart. You know
   they do. Oftentimes has your heart leaped for joy when the statutes of
   the Lord have been made known to you.

   8-11. The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The
   fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the LORD
   are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than
   gold, yes, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the
   honeycomb. Moreover by them is Your servant warned. Do you not find it
   so--that oftentimes a text of Scripture comes to your mind just at the
   moment when you were about to suffer spiritual shipwreck? When you
   would have done something that would have caused you lifelong grief and
   vast damage, the Word of God has stepped before you with the flaming
   danger signal and you have been stopped in time!

   11. And in keeping of them there is great reward. Not forkeeping of
   them, for it is not of debt, but, "in keeping of them." It is always
   best to do as God bids you. You never forget a duty, or refuse to do it
   without suffering loss, and every mistake you make, with regard to your
   Lord's will, is a damage to yourselves. The keeping of His commands is
   most soul-enriching. The most profitable business that a child of God
   can carry on is the business of obedience to his Lord's commands. "In
   keeping of them there is great reward."

   12. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. The
   man who searches his heart most will yet leave some sin undiscovered
   and he who says, "I have no sin. I am living without sin," has surely
   never seen into his own heart at all! He must be an utter stranger to
   the condition it is in. Let this be the prayer of each one of
   us--"Cleanse me from secret faults."

   13. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins. "Let me never
   dare to do what I know to be wrong. Let me not say, 'I will go just so
   far and then stop.' Let me not tempt the Holy Spirit of God. Oh, let me
   never tempt the devil to tempt me and put myself into a dangerous
   position under the notion that God will keep me if I am His child!
   'Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins.'"

   13. Let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I
   shall be innocent from the great transgression. You will never go into
   apostasy if you are watchful against presumption. Those men who, like
   Judas, commit the great transgression and utterly perish, are men who
   knew nothing about watching their own hearts, but who presumed, and
   were sinfully bold and self-confident--and so came to an ill end. You
   know where John Bunyan says Heedless and Too-Bold went--and there are
   many like them.

   14. Let the word of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be
   acceptable in Your sight; O LORD, my strength, and my Redeemer.
     __________________________________________________________________

Anxiety, Ambition, Indecision

   (No. 2871)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY
   27, 1876.

   "Neither be you of a doubtful mind." Luke 12:29.

   THE chief concern of a man should be to see that his own soul is right
   in the sight of God. Solomon said, "Keep your heart with all diligence;
   for out of it are the issues of life." Many persons think a great deal
   about the adorning of the body, but do not think anything about the
   ornaments of the soul. The feeding of the physical frame engrosses much
   care, but the supply of spiritual food is often neglected. Yet, O Man,
   you yourself are better than your body! Your immortal soul is worth far
   more than that poor carcass of yours which will soon become food for
   worms! And all the things that you have, what are they compared with
   your inner self--your real self--your heart, your soul, your spirit?

   In our text, our Savior bids us see to the condition of our
   mind--"Neither be you of a doubtful mind." He thus calls our attention
   to the higher and nobler part of our mind and bids us see to it that it
   is in a right state. No doubt there are some people who are in easier
   circumstances than others--some who are in positions where they enjoy
   many comforts, while others are in places where they suffer many
   hardships. But, after all, happiness lies more in the mind than it does
   in the circumstances in which any individual is found and the man
   within has far more to do with his own joy or sorrow than anything
   outside of him has. There have been some who have been perfectly free
   in a prison, while others have been in absolute bondage with wide
   estates to roam over. We have known some whose spirits have triumphed
   when all around has tended to depress them. And we have seen others who
   were wretched and desponding when they had, apparently, all that heart
   could wish.

   It is the mindwhich is the main thing--it will bring you daylight or
   midnight, wealth or poverty, peace or war. I wish, dear Friends, that
   half the time we spend in trying to better our circumstances were spent
   in bettering ourselves after the right fashion and that even a tenth of
   the trouble we take to fit our circumstances to our desires were used
   in fitting our desires to our circumstances. If we did that, how much
   happier men and women we would be! Try as you may, you cannot alter the
   world in which your lot is cast and you cannot alter God's Providential
   arrangements. So, would it not be better that you should be altered so
   as to suit the Providence and be resigned to the will of God?

   It is beautiful to see how often the Inspired writers of Holy Scripture
   were busy with what I may call indoor work-- the work that has to be
   done within one's own heart. "Bless the Lord, O my Soul," says David,
   in the 103rd Psalm, "and all that is within me, bless His holy name."
   This indoor work, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, will always pay us
   best. And our Lord Jesus, in His exhortations, often bids us attend to
   it. Did He not say to His disciples, "Let not your heart be troubled"?
   A little later, He said to them, "In the world you shall have
   tribulation." And He says the same to His disciples in every age. It is
   no use for you to try to avoid it, for you will have tribulation, yet,
   "Let not your heart be troubled." All the water in the sea will not
   hurt your vessel as long as you keep it outside--the danger begins when
   it gets inside the ship. So it matters little what is outside you, if
   all is right within. Have that little bird in your bosom that sings
   sweetly of the love of God! Wear the flower called heart's-ease in your
   buttonhole and you may go merrily through a perfect wilderness of
   trouble and a desert of care! A hurricane of afflictions may beat about
   you, yet you shall be a blessed man--for all the elements of
   blessedness are within your own heart. God has given them to you and
   the devil himself cannot take them away!

   In speaking upon this text, I mean to preach a good part of the sermon
   to myself, for I need it as much as anybody does. But I ask each
   Brother and Sister to take home to themselves any part that suits them.
   And before I have done, I shall have a word for you unconverted
   people--and I pray God that that word may do you good and that you may
   cease to be of a doubtful mind. The original of the text is not easy to
   explain, for the word translated, "doubtful," is not used anywhere else
   in the New Testament. It appears to have something to do with meteors,
   so that the passage might be rendered, "Neither be you of a meteoric
   mind."

   As the word is so unusual, there have been a great many different
   opinions as to its meaning. Some have said that it relates to high
   things that float above, such as the clouds. If they are right, our
   text says to us, "Do not be like the clouds--do not have cloudy minds,
   blown about with every wind of Doctrine." Others render it, "Do not be
   like the birds, high up in the air, always on the wing, unsettled and
   uncertain, ever flying about and never at rest." Others find an
   allusion to the ship that is far out upon the sea--and the text says to
   them, "Do not always be at sea, tossed up and down. Have some
   anchorage. Do not be always drifting to and fro." The word, "doubtful,"
   means so much that I do not expect to be able to tell you all that it
   means, but shall rather give you a few practical thoughts concerning
   it.

   I. "Neither be you of a doubtful mind." That is, first, CHILDREN OF
   GOD, BE NOT ANXIOUS. Be not tossed up and down by your outward
   circumstances. If God prospers you, do not ride high, as the vessel
   does when the tide lifts it up. And if He does not prosper you, do not
   sink down as the vessel does when the tide ebbs away again. Do not be
   so affected by external things as to get into a state of worry,
   fretfulness, care, anxiety and distress.

   Our Savior's injunction means, "Do not be anxious about your temporal
   affairs." Be prudent. You have no right to spend the money of other
   people, nor yet your own, in wastefulness. You are to be careful and
   discreet, for every Christian should remember that he is only a steward
   and that he is accountable to his Master for whatever he has and the
   use he makes of it. But when you have done your best with your little,
   do not worry because you cannot make it more. And when you have done
   your best to meet your expenses, do not sit down and wring your hands
   because you cannot lessen them. You cannot make a shilling into a
   sovereign, but be thankful if you have the shilling! And if you
   sometimes find that you must live from hand to mouth, remember that you
   are not the first child of God who has had his manna every morning, nor
   the first of God's servants to have bread and flesh in the morning, and
   bread and flesh in the evening with nothing to lay by for the morrow.
   If this is your case, be not staggered and astonished, as though some
   new thing had happened to you! And do not begin to fret, and fume, and
   worry and trouble yourself about what you cannot help. Can you alter it
   with all your worrying?

   Have you--you who are in the habit of worrying and fretting--ever made
   any profit by doing so? How much a year do you think that anybody would
   give you for all your fretting? How much has it brought you? Come,
   Brother, if it is a good business, I would like to go into partnership
   with you! But I should like first to know something about your profits.
   As I look at your face, I notice that it is care-worn and anxious. That
   does not seem to indicate that the business is a profitable one. If I
   listen to your speech, I hear you murmuring a great deal instead of
   praising God. That does not seem to me to be a profitable concern. In
   fact, as far as I have ascertained, either by my own experience or by
   the observation of others, I have never discovered that anxiety has
   comforted anybody, or that it has brought any grist to the mill, or any
   meal to the barrel! Well, if a thing does not pay, what is the good of
   it?

   But perhaps you say, "I cannot help fretting and worrying." No, my good
   Brother or Sister, but do you not think that the Lord can help you to
   help it and that your faith in Him, if it were what it ought to be,
   would soon be the end of your distress and trouble? Have you not found
   out yet--I have--that the very anxiety which arises through your being
   in a difficulty, unfits you to meet that difficulty? You are in a great
   hurry to do something or other and that something or other does more
   mischief than could possibly have happened if you had kept still,
   resting in the Lord and waiting patiently for Him! Instead of doing so,
   you rush this way and that way, and so add to your worries instead of
   decreasing them. You are like the servant with the basket of eggs on
   her head, who shakes her head because she is afraid her eggs will
   fall--and makes them fall by the very process of her trembling!

   So, you go and make ten troubles in endeavoring to get out of one.
   There is a text that is very easy to repeat, but not always so easy to
   obey--"Stand still, and see the salvation of God." But you want to see
   your own salvation, so you cannot stand still! There is many a man who
   has run before God's cloud and who has been very glad to run or even to
   crawl back again. Some people are so anxious to carve for themselves
   that they cut their own fingers! They had better leave the

   carving in the hands of God and take what He gives them, for He knows
   far better than they do what is good for them-- and His hand is
   infinitely wiser than theirs can possibly be.

   "Oh, but," says one, "I feel that I must be doing something." That,
   "doing," will just be your undoing unless you stop and consider what
   God would have you do! The probability is that your action will be
   unwise and hasty while you are in your present feverish condition. Wait
   till you get quite cool, Brother--you will see your way far better
   then. At the present moment you are in such a fidget and flutter that
   you are very apt to mistake your right hand for your left and to put
   bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

   You say again that you cannot help being anxious. Then, my dear Friend,
   I must very solemnly ask you what is the difference between you and the
   man of the world? There is an orphan child and it is afraid it will not
   be fed--but you have a Father in Heaven--and if you are afraid, surely,
   it is of little use for you to have such a Father! Are you not
   dishonoring His holy name by such conduct as that? Do you not think
   that others who see you in this condition will say, "There is not much
   power in religion, for these people, who profess to be Christians, are
   not comforted by it in their time of trouble--and it will not be of
   much use to them in the hour of their death." Remember Jeremiah's
   questions, "If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied
   you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace,
   wherein you trust, they wearied you, then how will you do in the
   swelling of Jordan?" Surely it is time that we plucked up courage and
   were not so easily disheartened, for we have worse trials on ahead than
   any we have yet been called to endure!

   "That is just what I dread," says one. What would you do, then,
   Brother? "I have been thinking that perhaps I had better turn back."
   But you have no armor for your back--and the perils of going back are
   far worse than the perils of going forward! Therefore I charge you, if
   you are, indeed, a Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, to play the man
   and let your faith overcome your fear! Obey that gracious word,
   "Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you." Do you not
   believe that "all things work together for good to them that love God,
   to them who are the called according to His purpose"? You say that you
   do. Do you not believe that?--

   "He sits a Sovereign on His Throne And rules all things well"?

   You say that you do. Do you not believe He loves you with an
   everlasting love? Do you not know that He spared not His only-begotten
   Son, but delivered Him up for you? And do you think that, after having
   done so much for you, He will withhold from you anything that is
   necessary for your well-being? You must not think so. Brother, Sister,
   it would be unkind, ungenerous, ungrateful to think so! Therefore, be
   not of an anxious or doubtful mind concerning temporal things.

   "Well," says one, "as far as temporal supplies are concerned, I can
   leave them entirely in the hands of God, but my anxieties arise from
   quite another form of trouble. There is a Christian Brother who is at
   enmity against me and he has been spreading an ill report about me,
   although I have earnestly sought to walk before God in holy fear and
   have watched every step that I have taken. And I feel so worried that I
   do not know what to do." Well, dear Friend, there is one rule which you
   will generally find to be applicable in such a case as yours. When you
   do not know what to do, do not do anything at all! And, usually, if the
   trouble has arisen through false reports about your own character, "the
   least said, the soonest mended." I believe that if there is anything
   you want to have well done, you had better do it yourself, but there is
   one exception to that rule and that is the matter of defending
   yourself. No defense is needed for a good man who can say, "By the
   Grace of God I am what I am." Therefore you may leave that matter of
   your own character and, as to the good Brother not getting on with you,
   if you have done anything that has grieved him, confess the wrong.
   "Well, perhaps if I did, he might not meet me in the same spirit." You
   have nothing to do with that, dear Friend--that is his business and
   God's. You go and do the right thing and then be no longer anxious
   about it, but leave the result with God.

   I hear another Brother say, "My anxiety has nothing to do with my
   personal affairs. I am anxious about the cause of God--the Church over
   which I preside--the Bible class that I conduct--the mission field that
   I try to cultivate. Somehow, things do not go as I wish and I am
   greatly concerned that they are not more prosperous." And what are you
   doing, good Friend, to bring about that result? Are you telling the
   Lord about it and agonizing before Him in prayer? That is right, but if
   you are telling yourself.about it and your anxiety is confined to
   yourself, no good will come of that. "But, Sir, all things seem to be
   going amiss." Yes, I am constantly hearing that. There are some of our
   friends who believe that

   we have fallen upon the worst days that have ever been known in this
   world! Well, it may be so. I cannot say much about that. But I will say
   this, my dear Friends--that you and I are not of anything like so much
   importance to the Church of God as we may have imagined! And the
   particular department of work which has been entrusted to us, though we
   ought to think well of it, and to do it well, it is not, after all, the
   hinge upon which the whole universe turns! God managed the world very
   well before we were born and He will manage it quite as well when we
   are dead! His Church will not die, for the Lord still lives and His
   Spirit still abides in the Church and, therefore, it must live.

   But there will be trouble for us if we begin to think that everything
   depends upon us. Uzza was well intentioned, no doubt, yet God killed
   him for putting forth his hand to stop the Ark of the Lord from
   falling. Let none of us become guilty of Uzza's sin! It is our business
   to serve the Lord with all our heart and soul, just as Martha, with all
   her energy, sought to prepare a supper for Jesus. But when we begin to
   be cumbered about our service, then we may expect the Master to say to
   us, as He did to Martha, "You are careful and troubled about many
   things: but one thing is necessary; and Mary has chosen that good part,
   which shall not be taken away from her." It is not well that we should
   be cumbered about our service! No, Brothers and Sisters; the Lord loves
   His Church far better than we do and He knows far better than we do how
   to manage her affairs, so we must--

   "Just do the little we can do, And leave the rest with Him." May His
   blessed Spirit help us so to get rid of all improper anxieties!

   II. Another meaning of the text will make a second division of our
   subject. "BE NOT AMBITIOUS." That is, do not fly high. Do not be as the
   clouds and the meteors, that not only move about and are uncertain in
   their movements, but are also high and lofty.

   Some people are troubled because they are aiming at amassing great
   wealth. Years ago if anybody had told them they would one day possess
   what they have already obtained, they would have thought it was an
   amazing sum, more than sufficient to satisfy all their desires. If
   somebody had asked them, "Will you retire from business then, and be
   quite happy and content?" they would have answered, "Oh, yes,
   certainly!" Well, they have already gathered far more than that, yet
   they are as grasping as ever and they want more, and more, and more and
   they are by no means content with what they have, much as it is. We
   should all be happier than we are if we were more contented with what
   is really all that we need, namely having food and clothes, having
   neither poverty nor riches. Many men have been like that dog in the
   fable that had meat in his mouth, but did not eat it because he saw the
   reflection of it in the water and was so anxious to get that reflection
   as well as the substance that he already had that he lost the piece
   that he might have eaten! Such people are always trying to grasp the
   reflection instead of enjoying what God has given them. Let us not be
   of such a mind as that.

   There are others who are ambitious to attain a higher position. They
   might be very well content with the kind, good friends they have, but
   there was a lord who once looked at them--and ever since that time they
   have thought it a very wonderful thing to know a real, live lord. I
   have heard of a man who used to boast that the king once spoke to him
   and though his majesty only told him to get out of the way, he was very
   proud of having been addressed by the king! And there are many people
   who think a great deal of that sort of thing. They are only shillings
   now, but they are anxious to get among the sovereigns. I have no
   sympathy with that desire--the best society in the world for me is a
   company of the Lord's people and whether they are poor or rich, so long
   as they are God's saints, I feel myself at home with them! If a Brother
   spoils the Queen's English and makes a great many mistakes in
   pronunciation, that does not matter to me. The real piety that is in
   the man--the Grace of God that is in his soul--that is the thing which
   ought to please us! To be proud of our association with the great ones
   of the earth is both a folly and a sin on the part of any child of God.

   Sometimes we are ambitious in the service of God beyond what we ought
   to be. You are doing well in that little Chapel, my Brother--the place
   is full and God is blessing you--but you want a bigger place, or you
   want to get away from those poor people whom the Lord has helped
   through your ministry. Possibly, my Friend, you are a Sunday school
   teacher and you have charge of the infants, and they love you. And you
   are fitted for the work, yet you are not content to be an infant class
   teacher, you would like a senior class--and a great stupid you would
   make of yourself if you had such a class, for you are not adapted for
   it! It is always well to be seeking to do more for the Lord Jesus
   Christ, but I would earnestly discourage you from endeavoring to attain
   to a higher position merely for the sake of occupying it. Dear Brothers
   and Sisters, be not ambitious in this sense, for, after all, what is
   human greatness?

   Have you ever met with a really great man who would have given a penny
   for his own greatness? Do you not know that the higher you rise, even
   in the Church of Christ, the more responsibility you have and the
   heavier burdens you have to carry? Do you not also know that the way to
   be really great is to be little--and that he who is greatest of all is
   the one who has learned to be least of all? He who is chief in the
   Church of Christ is he who serves the Church most and who is willing to
   go lowest for Christ's sake! Cultivate thatkind of greatness as much as
   you like, but put aside the other, and be not of ambitious mind even in
   your Lord's service!

   I meet, every now and then, people who are, I hope, God's children, but
   they seem to me to have got into a very curious state of mind. They
   have notions that are not at all according to the realities of everyday
   life--flighty notions-- romantic notions about their own rights,
   dignities, importance and so on. Ah, dear Brothers and Sisters, some of
   us were, in our own estimation, very important individuals, were we
   not, before the Grace of God came into us? But when the Grace of God
   works in us, we are made to feel that the very lowest and meanest place
   is a better position than we have any right to take. When we are in our
   right senses, we never give ourselves those high and mighty airs. A
   truly humble Believer does not say, "So-and-So did not treat me with
   proper respect." Oh, dear me, what is the proper respect to which you
   and I are entitled? May the Lord preserve us from such a spirit as
   that!

   But there are some people--professing Christians, too--whose heads are
   always being filled with that kind of nonsense. They do not seem to
   have learned that the spirit of Christ is a spirit of meekness which
   teaches us to bear and forbear, to forgive until seventy times seven,
   to expect to have our rights trampled on and to be willing to lay them
   all down for any who please to tread upon them. It is blessed to feel,
   "I will be content to take any place, so long as I can love others and
   do them good by loving them. As long as I can but love them to Christ
   and help them to love Christ and manifest the love of Christ to them, I
   will, by His Grace, be content." O Brothers and Sisters, we all need to
   go to school to our dear Lord and Master! You have never read that He
   said anything about His rights, or about defending His dignity. No, He
   who is the King of kings, and Lord of lords, was the Servant of
   servants when He was here upon earth! And, truly, he that serves most
   is the most royal of all. Therefore, "let this mind be in you, which
   was also in Christ Jesus," and then you will not be anxious or
   ambitious to be great.

   III. A third meaning of the text is this, "BE YOU NOT OF AN IRRESOLUTE
   MIND, WITHOUT DECISION OF

   CHARACTER."

   If you look at the connection of the passage, you will see that this
   meaning fits in exceedingly well. There are persons in the world who
   may be described as time-servers. The main consideration with them is
   what they shall eat, or what they shall drink, or how they shall be
   clothed--so they are always watching to see which is the best way to go
   in reference to those matters. As the old proverb has it, they know on
   which side their bread is buttered, or, according to another familiar
   saying, they are waiting to see which way the cat jumps! And when they
   have ascertained that, their "principles" will lead them to jump in
   that particular direction.

   Mr. John Bunyan, in The Pilgrim's Progress, has well described just
   such persons--Mr. By-Ends and Mr. Fair-Speech--and some of us have
   known their descendants. You remember hearing of the waterman who got
   his living by looking one way, and pulling another. And that waterman
   has had a great many sons of very much the same character as
   himself--and they have made a certain kind of progress in the world by
   that sort of scheming. But you and I, Beloved, are not to be of an
   irresolute mind. Every Christian should say, "By the Grace of God my
   mind is made up to serve Him, cost what it may. Does my Lord desire me
   to keep the Sabbath holy? Sunday is the best day in my particular line
   of business, but that does not matter to me. My mind is made up to
   serve the Lord--and whatever it costs will make no difference to me.
   There is a party to be held tonight and I know that if I go to it, I
   shall have to witness the utmost frivolity, and I shall have to be a
   partaker in what will be, to me, a good deal of sin. Uncle Jonas will
   be angry if I don't go, but I mean to do the right thing--whether Uncle
   Jonas is pleased, or not." That is the way all you who have the love of
   God shed abroad in your hearts ought to speak. The question, "What is
   right?" being answered, you have only to do the right, whatever
   happens. This is what our Lord meant when He said to His disciples,
   "Neither be you of a doubtful

   mind."

   "Oh, but," some say, "we really must look at both sides of that
   question. There may come a time when we know that a certain course is
   right, but, if we take it, we may bring ruin upon ourselves and upon
   others, too." Let me read the 4th and 5th verses of this chapter--and
   when I have done so, there will be no need for you to say anything--"Be
   not afraid of

   them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
   But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear Him, which after He
   has killed, has power to cast into Hell; yes, I say unto you, Fear
   Him." And the 8th and 9th verses-- "Whoever shall confess Me before
   men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God:
   but he that denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of
   God." Does not that decide you? God grant that it may and that you may
   henceforth say, "I will confess Christ and act for the right and the
   true and, by the aid of His blessed Spirit I will never hesitate to do
   as He bids me--

   "'Through floods and flames, if Jesus leads, I'll follow where He
   goes'-- "neither will I be of a doubtful mind."

   IV. A fourth meaning of the text is, BE YOU NOT AT SEA SO FAR AS YOUR
   OWN PERSONAL SALVATION

   IS CONCERNED.

   Brothers and Sisters, there are some who are not saved, who yet imagine
   that they are. There are many who know nothing of vital godliness, yet
   who sing as joyfully as the brightest of saints, never suspecting their
   real condition in the sight of God. Whenever I meet with a man who
   never has had a doubt about his own condition, I feel inclined to quote
   to him those lines of Cowper--

   "He has no hope who never had a fear And he that never doubted of his
   state, He may perhaps--perhaps he may--too late."

   Beware of all presumption! There are some who even decry anything like
   self-examination. They cannot bear for us to look for the signs and
   tokens of the Holy Spirit's work within them. And if we talk about
   practical holiness, they say that we are getting upon legal ground and
   turning aside to the "beggarly elements" of the Law of God. From all
   such turn away, for they can do you no good! You are exhorted in the
   Scriptures to examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith,
   and to prove yourselves. No, self-examination alone is not
   sufficient--you must cry with the Psalmist, "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."

   But, on the other hand, there are some who think that doubts and fears
   are necessary to a child of God. I draw a very grave distinction
   between doubting the Truth of God's promise and questioning whether
   that promise is made to me-- they are two very different things. To
   doubt the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse from all sin is
   one thing, but, sometimes, to question whether I really have trusted in
   that blood is quite another thing. The first is sinful. The second is
   only proper and discreet. I would advise everyone to often look to the
   foundation of their faith, to see whether they really have believed in
   Jesus and have in their heart the true life which grows out of such
   faith. But, Brothers and Sisters, there is really no reason in a man
   saying, "Whether I am a child of God, or not, I am sure I do not know.
   I sometimes hope I am," and so on.

   I suppose there are few men who have not, at some time or other
   suffered pain, but it is not necessary for us to always have a
   toothache in order to prove that we really are men. And, in like
   manner, there are few Christians who have never had any doubts, yet it
   is not necessary to be always doubting in order to prove that we are
   Christians! But, as we are glad enough to get rid of pain, so are we to
   be glad to get rid of doubt by fully trusting our Lord who is so worthy
   of our trust! Dear Brothers and Sisters, you oughtto know, you canknow,
   you can know now, whether you are saved or not! At any rate, if I did
   not know myself to be saved, I would give no sleep to my eyes, nor
   slumber to my eyelids, till I had found the Savior. If a shadow of a
   doubt about my being washed in the blood of Christ were on my soul, I
   would get to my knees and not rise from them until I did really know
   that Christ had saved me!

   If you are in doubt and yet are content about your condition, I fear
   that you know nothing at all about the matter, for the true child of
   God, if he is in any doubt about his salvation, is uneasy till that
   doubt is gone. He cannot rest till he knows that he is saved and, after
   all, that is not a very difficult thing to know, for we are told, over
   and over again in this blessed Book, that he that believes in Christ is
   not condemned, but has everlasting life! If you have believed in Him,
   you are not condemned--you have His word for it. He who trusts to Jesus
   only, builds on a sure foundation! So, if you are trusting in Him, you
   may have the full assurance that you have passed from death unto life
   and shall never come into condemnation. Do not, Brothers and Sisters,
   go limping along all your life when you might run in the way of God's
   commandments! A good old minister of my acquaintance, when people used
   to say to him that they hoped, and hoped,

   and never got any further than that, was in the habit of replying, "You
   are always hoping and hopping. I hope you will learn to run one of
   these days--to run without weariness in the ways of God."

   The last thing I have to do is to bid all here present who have not
   believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, to do so at once. My dear Friends,
   my text says, "Neither be you of a doubtful mind." But you cannot help
   being of a doubtful mind while you remain as you are and I really wish
   that your conscience would trouble you even more than it now does--that
   your uneasiness might become even greater and your unrest yet more
   unrestful! Look at yourself, my dear Hearer. You have not believed in
   Christ, so you are in debt to Divine Justice and you are hopelessly
   bankrupt, for you cannot meet one in a million of the claims that are
   recorded against you! How can you rest as long as you are thus indebted
   to God? You are a prisoner, too. When Marshal Bazaine had many of the
   comforts of life on the Isle of St. Marguerite, off the coast of the
   South of France, he could not rest till he had regained his liberty.
   And I marvel how you can be so happy, even with the joys of this world,
   while you are without the great blessing of spiritual liberty! I wish
   you felt that you could not rest till you had become emancipated from
   the bondage of sin and been made the Lord's freeman. How would you like
   be in a condemned cell and not to know when your execution was to take
   place? I am sure that you would pity any poor creature, whatever his
   crime, if you could see him under such circumstances. Perhaps you say
   that you are living in a wide world and not in a prison. Yet you are
   condemned already! It was said of the old Roman Empire that if a man
   once broke the law, the whole world was a prison for him, for Caesar
   had almost universal sway. And God sees you wherever you are and
   everywhere you are in the condemned cell and, perhaps, before the sun
   shall rise again, your execution will have taken place.

   I have been told that some years ago there went into the chamber of
   horrors at Madame Tussaud's exhibition, a young gentleman who was
   foolish enough to put himself under the guillotine--in the place which
   had been occupied by criminals. And as he lay there, with his bare neck
   exposed to the terrible knife, he was so struck with horror that he was
   unable to move--and people who went by thought he was one of the wax
   figures and he could not stir until someone took him away! And, oh, if
   you did but know where you really are, with that dreadful axe of Divine
   Justice just above your head, you might well be paralyzed with horror!
   Only let your breath fail, or your pulse stop and down it descends to
   your utter destruction! But alas, you are insensible to these things.
   May the Spirit of God awaken you! May He make you feel your true
   position and then, I am sure, you will not be content to remain a
   moment longer of a doubtful and undecided mind!

   Listen, my Friend! That sin of yours can be forgiven, for Jesus died
   for sinners! That heart of yours can be renewed by Grace, for Jesus
   lives again! You can be delivered from the wrath to come, for Jesus has
   gone up on high to plead for just such sinners as you are! What are you
   to do in order that you may have Christ as your Savior? Why, as the
   hymn says--

   "Only trust Him, only trust Him, Only trust Him now!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM571-6.

   Verse 1. Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul
   trusts in You: yes, in the shadow of Your wings will I make my refuge,
   until these calamities pass. The heading of this Psalm--"To the chief
   musician, Al-Taschith, Michtam of David, when he fled from Saul in the
   cave"--tells us when it was written. It is one of David's "Golden
   Psalms." What a mixture of feebleness and strength there is in this
   first verse--the feebleness so beautified by being clothed with the
   strength of faith! What a turning away from man and what a turning
   wholly unto the Lord! And, in coming to the Lord, what humility and
   what pleading for mercy, and for mercy only! "Be merciful unto me, O
   God, be merciful unto me." Yet what holy boldness also! "For my soul
   trusts in You." And what joyous confidence and what sweet repose in
   God! "Yes, in the shadow of Your wings, will I make my refuge." "If I
   cannot see the brightness of Your face, the shadow of Your wings shall
   be enough for me. Only let me get near You--only permit me humbly to
   trust You, and it shall be enough for me, 'until these calamities
   pass.'"

   2. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performs all things for
   me. Do you pray like that, my Brother, my Sister? I hope you do "cry
   unto God most high." But do you pray to Him as the One "that performs
   all things" for you--not merely who canperform all things for you, but
   who is actually doingit at the present moment--working out your lasting
   good by everything that is transpiring around you?

   3. He shall send from Heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that
   would swallow me up. Selah. If all the forces on earth are not
   sufficient to save His saint, God will send sufficient reserves from
   the ranks of the heavenly host to preserve His people. Or if He does
   not determine to preserve them on earth, He will take them away from
   the earth, to be with Him in Glory. But, in one way or another, they
   shall be eternally secure!

   Mark what the Psalmist says of the voracity of his enemy--he speaks of
   Saul as "him that would swallow me up." And the Believer in Jesus is,
   at times, such an objective of the unbeliever's detestation that he
   would annihilate him if he could. But God will sooner send help from
   Heaven for His people than that such a calamity should ever happen.

   3, 4. God shall send forth His mercy and His truth My soul is among
   lions. What peril David was in and what dangers often surround the best
   of the men--if not from arrows, swords and spears--from the hellish
   artillery of unbridled tongues! A human tongue is soft, but it can cut
   to the very quick. And the wounds from a cruel tongue are not easily
   healed. Many a man will bear, as long as he lives, the scars that were
   made by a slanderous tongue. God can save us, however, even from this
   great trial, and enable us to actually rejoice in this sharp
   affliction. It is no strange thing that has happened unto us, for so
   evil men persecuted the Prophets that were before us--as they said all
   manner of evil against them falsely. God Himself was slandered by the
   old serpent in the Garden of Eden, so it is not surprising that His
   children should be still slandered by the serpent's seed.

   5. And I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men
   whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Be
   You exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Your glory be above all the
   earth A grand burst of praise and all the grander because of the
   condition of the man from whom it came! "My soul is among lions," he
   says, "but, 'be You exalted, O God,'" as if he would say, "It does not
   matter what becomes of me. I shall be content even in this den of
   lions, so long as You are exalted above the heavens and Your glory
   above all the earth."

   6. They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they
   have dug a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen
   themselves. Selah. He knew that it would be so and he looked upon it as
   already accomplished--their nets and pits would only injure themselves.

   Now look at the next verse in the light of the prayer David had been
   praying. See what a marvelous act of faith and what a grand result of
   unwavering confidence in God it is, for a man to be able to sing as
   David does even when his soul is among lions and fierce and powerful
   enemies are all round him, seeking his harm!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lord's Supper

   (No. 2872)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25,1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING IN
   THE AUTUMN OF 1861.

   "For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you proclaim
   the Lord's death till He comes." 1 Corinthians 11:26.

   This solemn ordinance has been instituted and perpetuated to
   commemorate the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, but there is no
   ordinance to commemorate His life. One reason for this is because His
   death implies His life--when you commemorate His death, you testify
   that He lived. Another reason is that the Christian's life, better than
   any ordinance, is the proof that Christ lived and the testimony to this
   world how He lived. A Christian should so act that worldlings would be
   compelled to ask, "By what power, by what energy, is he actuated to
   live in a style so superior to that of his fellows?" The answer he
   should always be prepared to give is something like this, "I live thus
   because Christ so lived and it is no more I who live, but Christ who
   lives in me. The love of Christ compels me, so that I am sweetly and
   blessedly compelled to live, not unto myself, but unto Him who loved me
   and gave Himself for me." The proof that Christ came into the world
   should be that His followers are holy! Let their character be blameless
   and harmless, their conduct so devoted and so full of self-sacrifice
   that it shall be a constant memorial of that Redeemer whose name they
   profess. If the mind of Christ is in His people, it will make them so
   far superior to other men that it must be inferred that some superior
   energy is in them and that superior energy is none other than the love
   of Christ.

   They should also so live that if any ask them how Christ lived, they
   may be able to say--not in words, for that might encourage pride, but
   in effect--"He lived as I live." It has been well said that ungodly men
   do not read the Bible, but they read it as it is translated into the
   lives of Christians. The actions of Believers are, to the worldling,
   the means of judging what our religion really is. Men of the world do
   not sit down and study our creeds, but they trade with us in the common
   business of life--and if we trade dishonestly, they judge that our
   creed is wrong and that our religion is not true. They do not wade
   through our Bodies of Divinity to balance our arguments and test their
   value by the rules of logic--they have a shorter and more practical
   test than that. If our religion makes us upright in our conduct towards
   others and compels us to fear God in all that we do, then they
   pronounce our religion to be good. But if, on the contrary, we profess
   that we believe in Christ and yet can habituate ourselves to foul and
   degenerate behavior, they at once conclude that our religion is a thing
   of nothing. Brothers and Sisters, I repeat it, that Christ did not
   institute a memorial of His life because He would have yoube the living
   memorials of Himself. He has not left us any ordinance in which His
   acts, His words, His thoughts can be set forth before the eyes of men
   in visible signs--He has done better than that for He has made you to
   be His signs and ordinances! "You are My witnesses," says the Lord. If
   the Spirit of God is in you, you are the testifiers to the world of the
   holiness and the purity of the Character of your Lord!

   Our text tells us that the Lord's Supper was instituted by Christ as a
   memorial of His death. I am going to speak, first, concerning that of
   which the ordinance is a memorial--Christ's death. Then, to point out
   how the ordinance itself shows forth the Lord's death till He comes.
   And then, thirdly, to show how we, in this ordinance, rather than the
   ordinance itself--that we, in the ordinance, do show the Lord's death
   till He comes.

   Allow me to observe, however, that the retrospect gives us only one
   aspect of this ordinance, for it also distinctly holds out a very
   blessed prospect. We are taught, as often as we celebrate it, to look
   for our Lord's Second Coming. Our text contains a very strong and a
   very lively anticipation of His Second Advent and of His
   Personal'advent, too. Many

   persons say that Christ is certainly coming again, but that He is
   coming spiritually. This way of putting the matter seems to me to be a
   subterfuge. A man who is already here cannot be said to be expected to
   come. And it is certain that Christ is, at this moment,
   spiritually-present with His people. His own declaration is, "Where two
   or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of
   them." He is never absent, spiritually, from His Church. He still walks
   among the golden candlesticks. I cannot see, therefore, how it can be
   consistent with the ordinary meaning of language to say that He is to
   come spiritually.

   My Brother, you believe that Christ is to come spiritually. Suppose
   that is true, what will be the result? Why, the Gospel will be better
   preached, more sinners will be converted and may I not also add that
   the ordinances will be better observed? Do you think that if Christ
   should come spiritually into this world, as you say He will, this
   ordinance would be taken away? "No," I think I hear you say, "certainly
   not. If Christ shall come spiritually, Believers will be more attentive
   to His commands than they ever have been--they will be still more
   strictly obedient to His Word and will." Just so, but my text says they
   are to show His death, "till He comes." That seems to me to infer that,
   when He comes, the ordinance will be no longer observed. When He is
   here in Person, I can see adequate reasons why the memorial of His
   First Advent should be dispensed with. But if His Second Advent is not
   an absolute reality, I can see neither Scriptural nor logical reasons
   why this ordinance should cease to be observed at His spiritual coming,
   whatever that expression may mean!

   It is well for us to always be "looking for that blessed hope and the
   glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." There
   are some who say that Dr. Watts did not believe this Doctrine, but he
   has expressed it most triumphantly in his paraphrase of Scripture where
   he writes--

   "Nor does it yet appear

   How great we must be made.

   But when we see our Savior here,

   We shall be like our Head.

   A hope so much Divine

   May trials well endure,

   May purge our souls from sense and sin

   As Christ the Lord is pure."

   I. First, I have to try to show you WHAT THE LORD'S SUPPER SETS FORTH.
   It sets forth "the Lord's death."

   There is no ordinance to set forth His birth. The Roman Catholic Church
   invented a feast day and called it Christ-Mass and other churches have
   imitated the custom--but there is no ordinance, delivered unto us by
   the Lord Jesus, or His Apostles, to commemorate His Nativity! Nor do I
   find, in the Scriptures, any record of an ordinance to commemorate His
   circumcision, or His first preaching, or His riding in triumph into
   Jerusalem, or even any ordinance to commemorate His Ascension into
   Glory. We generally regard the keeping of the first day of the week as
   a commemoration of Christ's Resurrection and of His appearance to His
   disciples when He showed them His pierced hands, feet and side. But
   even that can scarcely be called an ordinance. So, of all that Christ
   did or suffered, there is no ordinance enjoined upon us but that which
   relates to His death. Now, why is this?

   It is, first, because it was for His death that Christ was most
   despised. Therefore, for His death let Him be most honored! It was the
   Cross of Christ that was His shame--it was to the Jews a stumbling
   block and to the Greeks foolishness. And it is here that the enemies of
   Christ always begin their attacks. They deny His Divinity because He
   died. They mistrust His power to save on the very ground for which we
   are able to trust to it--because He died. Usually, the battle against
   Christ and His Church rages most fiercely around His Cross. His
   adversaries, led by the great master-spirit of evil, all seem to say,
   "Fight neither with small nor great, save only with that great Doctrine
   of the Atonement, for that is as a king in the hosts of Israel." Those
   who preach the accursed crusade against Christ have, for their
   watchword and rallying cry, "Against His Cross! Against His Cross!"
   Therefore it is, most blessed Master, that You have provided this
   ordinance to be, as it were, a shield to Your own Cross, so that, if
   every minister should cease to preach Your atoning death, the silent
   bread and the voiceless wine should, louder than a thousand thunders,
   tell the world that Jesus died and that only through His broken body
   and His poured-out blood, sinners receive eternal life!

   Christ's death, too, is chosen for special celebration because it is
   the most important part of all that He did or suffered. We would not
   depreciate His life, His Baptism, His work, or His Resurrection, but
   His death is the center of all.

   All the Doctrines of the Gospel revolve around Christ's death as the
   planets revolve around the sun! Take away the sun from the solar system
   and you have dislocated everything. All the stupendous wheels would
   cease to move. Remove Your Cross, O Christ, and the keystone of the
   arch of the Truth of God is gone! Take away Your death, O Jesus, and it
   is death to all that You have taught, for all that You teach derives
   life from the fact that You have died! O my dear Brothers and Sisters,
   whatever errors may creep into the Church, they will be important only
   as they mar the luster of the Cross! I think it is the bounden duty of
   every Christian to be ready to die for the Truth of God. You know that
   our forefathers readily gave their lives for the defense of Believers'
   Baptism. Still, not in the least depreciating Believers' Baptism, I say
   that if it is worthwhile for one to die for that, it is worthwhile for
   tens of thousands to die, in one tremendous hecatomb, in defense of the
   fact that Jesus died! As this is the chief point of the adversaries'
   attack, so must we always regard it as the most important bastion of
   defense! Here, Christian, turn your eyes the most frequently. Here let
   your thoughts dwell the most intensely. Here lies the source of all
   your hopes! Here you shall find the wellspring of all your joys! Think
   it not unimportant, then, that Christ has given to His death so solemn
   and yet so simple a memorial.

   I think the Master also appointed this ordinance because His death is,
   after all, the most comforting thing in the whole Gospel system. Where
   do you go, you of the weeping eyes, when your heart is breaking--where
   do you go for comfort but to the place where comfort was not--namely,
   to the Cross of the dying Savior? Where do you go, poor breaking Heart,
   when the woes of this life swell and gather till your soul is near to
   bursting--where do you go but to that spot where misery reached its
   climax? It is strange that the masterpiece of misery is also the
   masterpiece of comfort. The darkest spot in the whole world is yet the
   source of all our light! The dying of the Savior gives us life! His
   wounds heal us! His agonies bring us peace! His tortures yield us ease!
   The Good Shepherd knew that if His sheep desired to have green
   pastures, they would find them at the Cross, so He appointed this
   ordinance to bring them there. Well did He understand that if they
   would lie down beside the still waters, they must come to that place
   where the blood flowed from His blessed brow, and hands and feet, and
   side.

   You have said with the spouse, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His
   mouth," and He does it in this ordinance. You have sometimes asked Him
   to bring you into His banqueting house and that His banner over you
   might be love. But that banner has never floated from any mast but the
   Cross and, therefore, He has brought you there. You have asked that you
   may sit under His shadow with great delight and that His fruit may be
   sweet to your taste. This is His fruit--His broken body and His shed
   blood--so He brings you here. You have said, "I will go up to the palm
   tree, I will take hold of the boughs there." Your Lord knows that you
   cannot do this except you view His Cross as that palm tree, springing
   up in a desert land and bearing all manner of delightful fruits. You
   will need no further arguments, Brothers and Sisters, to convince you
   of the wisdom and tenderness of Christ in bequeathing to you this most
   comforting ordinance that so His death may be held in perpetual
   remembrance!

   II. Now I go on, in the second place, to show you HOW THE BREAD AND
   WINE IN THIS ORDINANCE SET

   FORTH THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

   You can hardly fail to notice how the ordinance is adapted universally
   to keep in memory the fact it commemorates. You recollect what happened
   to the woman who looked back after she came out of Sodom. The Lord
   would have us "Remember Lot's wife," so He turned her into a pillar of
   salt. But that memorial is only to be seen by those who pass that
   particular spot. Now, suppose that the Master had said to His
   disciples, "Erect for Me a bronze column. Let it be in the form of a
   cross and write upon it that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary,
   suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried"? It
   would not have appealed to our observation anything like so forcibly as
   this ordinance, which is not restricted to any time or place. This
   memorial has been seen in the darkness of the catacombs of Rome, where
   only a tiny taper afforded light to the worshipping assembly. This
   memorial has been seen among the heather on the Scottish hillside where
   the lightning flash lent its kindly beam to the minister as he read the
   Sacred Word. This memorial is seen, today, in the far-off isles of the
   sea. From North to South, from East to West, this is the standing
   memorial of Him who died! Better than storied urn, or animated bust, or
   rare marble, or precious metals, or jewels unrivalled for their worth
   is this blessed memorial because it can be seen everywhere, in every
   land!

   This is also an admirable memorial seeing that it is perpetual
   Monuments of brass wear out. The teeth of Time devour the rugged
   granite, itself. Though you build, for a king, a monument like the
   pyramids of Egypt, yet shall his name be forgotten and even Pharaoh may
   lack a wise man to decipher the inscriptions on his tomb and recount
   the story of his

   mighty acts. Not so is it with this blessed ordinance--it can never
   wear away, it is always new. I may say to it, "O sacred Eucharist, you
   have the dew of your youth!" This memorial is as fresh, more than 1,800
   years after its institution, as it was when, in the upper room, the
   disciples first celebrated it in anticipation of their Master's
   approaching death! So, when centuries have followed centuries, and Time
   himself shall have become bald and his scythe shall have lost its
   edge-- when yon sun shall have grown dim with age and the moon shall be
   pale with fading weakness--even then shall this ordinance be as fresh
   and as new as ever! It is perpetual because the command of our King
   cannot be repealed! It is never to be set aside till the need of
   testimony shall have passed away--till Christ Himself shall come to
   reign among men!

   And, oh, what a simple memorial this is! Priest of Rome, go to your
   sacristy and put on your millinery--your red, your blue, your silver,
   your scarlet and your fair white linen--play the harlot, for such you
   are before the eyes of men in all your wanton fineries! Prove yourself
   to be the true descendant of her of Babylon by the gaudiness of your
   apparel! But know, O priest, that we need none of your enchantments for
   the right observance of this ordinance! You sons of toil, you can come
   here with your garments still covered with the dust of your labor. What
   need we to fulfill to the letter our dear Master's own injunctions?
   What but a piece of bread and a cup of wine? Oh, how shamefully have
   men mimicked this ordinance! How they have invented strange devices to
   make that appear wonderful which was wonderful enough in itself,
   because, like everything sublime, it was simple and majestic in its own
   simplicity!

   This simple ordinance has sometimes made me smile at the useless
   artifices of the foes of Christ. I have smiled at the thought that our
   Master has given us a memorial so simple that we can observe it even
   when our adversaries are most opposed to us. I have broken the memorial
   bread and sipped the wine in Venice, beneath the Austrian sway, where,
   to have held a public Protestant service would have involved
   imprisonment! But how could they have stopped us? There were four of us
   in our own inn--might we not do there as we pleased? No one knew why we
   needed a small piece of bread and a cup of wine--and we four sat around
   the table and I avow that it was as much the Lord's Supper as it is
   when thousands of us assemble here to keep the sacred feast!

   If we were in Rome itself, in a room at the Vatican, though the Pope
   himself were in the next room, we might observe this blessed ordinance
   and he would never know that we had done so unless we chose to tell
   him! How could he deny us bread? That would be scant hospitality! And
   how could he deny us wine? And having bread and wine, we need no altar
   and we need no priest. Wherever two or three Christians are met
   together, there may they celebrate the Supper of their Lord! It is as
   valid without a minister as with one and just as really the Lord's
   Supper though there are no ordained presbyters or learned Doctors of
   Divinity to preside at the table! Blessed memorial of the death of
   Jesus, they cannot put an end to you! We can laugh to scorn all the
   priests and the soldiers of Rome. If we had built a memorial pillar,
   they might have pulled it down. The sons of Moab might have stopped up
   our wells and cast down our towers, but who can destroy this simple
   ordinance? Persecution would no more avail to put an end to the Lord's
   Supper than would the swords of Pharaoh's soldiers have availed to put
   an end to the plague of flies! The craft or skill of man can never put
   an end to the simple memorial of bread and wine--all that he can do is
   but to parody or pervert it.

   I think, too, that this is a very blessed memorial. The broken bread
   sets forth the broken body of our Lord and the wine, being separate
   from the bread, shows how His blood flowed from His body. The sign
   itself most touchingly sets forth the refreshing qualities of the blood
   which flowed from His head, hands, feet and side. The point I want to
   emphasize is that Christ has instituted a memorial of His death which
   requires, to carry it out, Christian hearts and, therefore, hearts full
   of love to Him and faith in Him. If you wish your name to be
   remembered, you may say, "It is my desire that men should keep my
   birthday." So they may and, in a hundred years' time, the recollection
   of the fact of your birth will have dwindled down into a mere fable!
   How many institutions we still have, the origin of which we do not
   know? But suppose you could have an institution kept up only by those
   who love you and suppose, in addition, that you had the power to always
   preserve in the world some hearts that would love you? What a blessed
   memorial that would be! In coming to the Table of our Lord, we meet not
   as a company of men who have no regard for Christ, no compelling love
   to kindle our passions to a flame! Why, His very name makes our hearts
   leap for joy!--

   "Sweeter sounds than music knows Charm me in Immanuel's name."

   His death is, to us, the most delightful topic of meditation. We come
   not to the Table of our Lord as the slaves of Pharaoh were flogged to
   build the pyramids, but we come cheerfully, joyfully, delighted to
   remember Him, feeling it to

   be less a duty than a privilege and far more a pleasure than merely a
   service. This Supper is, virtually, the outward and visible sign of ten
   thousand times ten thousand broken hearts that have been bound up,
   tearful eyes that have been made to flash with holy joy, aching
   consciences that have been eased and hearts that could sooner cease to
   beat than cease to love! So it is, indeed, a blessed and choice
   memorial of our Savior's death which can never be forgotten by His
   loved ones. III. Now I come to my last point, and that is, perhaps, the
   most practical--HOW YOU AND I ARE TO SHOW

   OUR REDEEMER'S DEATH IN THIS SUPPER.

   Some people are very particular about the way in which the Lord's
   Supper is administered, but, as long as everything is done decently and
   in order, I think that should be enough for us. I was staying, once,
   with a gentleman--a Dissenter--who had become more than a little
   formal. He was telling me that he had done a great deal of good in his
   parish and, among other excellent things, he recounted one with an air
   of enthusiasm which made me laugh. He said, "When I came here, these
   people used to bring the wine for the sacrament in a black bottle and,
   as I am sure that I could not celebrate the Lord's Supper if the wine
   came from a black bottle, I have provided something better." I thought
   it would have been a great deal better if he had asked the people
   whether they had brought black hearts, for a black bottle does not
   signify much--but a heart that is not right in the sight of God is the
   thing that needs to be taken away. If you and I have our hearts right,
   we need not mind how simple the mode in which the ordinance is
   administered!

   But now, what are you and I to do in observing this ordinance? We are
   to show the Lord's death. Then, if we are to show it, we must show it
   to somebody. To whom? Why, first, to ourselves. My soul, be not content
   unless, in the bread, you discern the Lord's body for yourself. Do not
   eat and drink, as the Apostle says, "unworthily, not discerning the
   Lord's body." Take heed, O my Soul, that you are not satisfied with
   eating the bread unless, by faith, you realize that the body of Christ
   was offered up for you--unless your faith can so participate in the
   merit of that Sacrifice that the eating of the bread becomes to you a
   lively picture of your participation in the results of Christ's death!
   Mind, too, that the wine sets forth His blood to you. Brothers and
   Sisters, these symbols are but as the veil before the Holy of
   Holies--you must look beyond the symbols to that which is within the
   veil--or else, of what use are the signs to you? The bread is nothing,
   the wine is nothing--that which the bread sets forth is everything/Feed
   on that! That which the wine portrays is everything--see to it that you
   are a partaker of that!

   What multitudes of professors are quite content with the outward sign!
   I fear that the Lord's Supper, through being so grossly misused, has
   deceived many. See how eagerly they send for a clergyman when they lie
   dying! Men who have scarcely ever entered a church or chapel in their
   lives--men who fear not God and have no saving interest in the death of
   Christ--desire to have this bread in their mouths at the last! Let that
   dying impenitent know this bread shall be a swift witness against him!
   Not being born of God and having no right whatever to this ordinance,
   he ate and drank unworthily and so ate and drank condemnation to
   himself! If any of you have imagined that this ordinance can save your
   souls, let me correct that error at once! It may ruin them, but it
   cannot save them! You must get right away to Christ, right away from
   this ordinance. It is not as unrenewed sinners, but as saints--as
   Christ's disciples, as His saved ones--that you are to partake of this
   feast! You must come to Christ first, as a sinner, just as you are.

   I have read, or heard, sermons which proved that the minister was not
   at all clear which was Christ--the bread upon the Communion Table or
   the Savior upon the Cross. There is a sermon upon this text--"Come unto
   Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you
   rest"--in which the preacher invites his hearers to come to the Lord's
   Table. That is the very worst place to which they could come! They must
   first come to Christand then, after they have found acceptance in Him,
   they may come to His Table. But they must not be invited to His Table
   until they have come to Him and trusted in His atoning Sacrifice! The
   Lord's Supper is a curse, not a blessing, to unbelievers, so let none
   of us think of feeding upon Christ in the sign until we have Christ in
   reality in our hearts.

   Next, we are to show Christ's death to others. Some of you will be
   spectators while the rest of us are observing this ordinance. As we
   shall, in one great host, break bread together, we shall say to you,
   "We do, each of us, believe that Jesus died for our sins, according to
   the Scriptures. We have put our confidence in His death as making
   reconciliation for us before God. We personally avow our own vital
   faith in Him and we declare to you, whatever may be your judgment
   concerning Him, that He is all our salvation and our desire." The very
   poorest among the communicants will be a preacher. When you, dear
   Friend, take the bread and the wine, you will preach a sermon. I
   believe that the word used here has in it, in the Greek, the idea of
   preaching. You will say, by partaking of this ordinance, "I believe in
   Jesus Christ, in His broken

   body and His poured-out blood." I hope that will be an appeal to the
   consciences of you who will be looking on at the ordinance, asking you
   whether you also believe in Christ--and though the appeal will be a
   silent one, I pray you to answer, "Yes," or, "No," to it. As you see us
   partake of the bread and the wine, imagine that you hear a voice coming
   up from the Communion Table and saying to each one of you, "Soul, Soul,
   when will you, too, believe in Jesus? When will you cast yourself on
   Him, that He may be your All-in-All?"

   Nor, by this ordinance, do we set forth Christ's death only to
   ourselves and to others, but also to God Himself. We do, as it were,
   plead the merit of Christ's broken body and shed blood every time we
   observe this ordinance. We bring before God, not a sacrifice, as though
   the one Offering needed to be repeated--but a memorial of the finished
   and perfect Sacrifice which was once and for all offered for the sins
   of men. Brothers and Sisters, it is a solemn thing to think that every
   time we come to the Communion Table, we bring before the Eternal Father
   the memorial of the death of His only-begotten and well-beloved Son!

   We bring that memorial, too, before the holy angels hovering, as they
   undoubtedly are, over every Christian assembly. We say to each of them,
   "He who was seen of angels" is our hope! Tell the glad tidings through
   all the golden streets that the death of Christ is still remembered in
   this lower world! Speed on your swift wings to Heaven and let it be
   known in your glorious dwelling place that there are men and women,
   saved by the precious blood of Jesus, meeting to commemorate His
   death."

   And, Brothers and Sisters, in this ordinance we show Christ's death
   even to the devils in Hell. There is nothing which they fear so much as
   the death of Christ. The breaking of the bread and the pouring out of
   the wine are like the flaunting of a victorious banner in the face of
   the beaten foe. It is the flashing before the eyes of Satan of the
   sword that smote him in the days of old and that will make him tremble
   again even now! Earth and Heaven and Hell are gathered around us as we
   meet at the Table of our Lord and we poor, puny men become a spectacle
   unto the three worlds. We are said to be men wondered at, but how much
   more wonderful is that which is visibly set forth in this
   ordinance--the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ!

   O my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I pray you to see to it that you
   now show His death to your own conscience. Does it accuse you? Then,
   show it the wounds of Christ and it shall be well with you. Does the
   Law of God condemn you? Show it your bleeding Master and it will at
   once absolve you. Show Christ's death to your unbelief and, surely, it
   will vanish away. Show Christ's death to your heart and, surely, it
   must melt with love to Him. Show Christ's death to the weeping eyes of
   your repentance and the tears shall be wiped away and you shall see
   your pardon bought with blood! Show Christ's death to the weak,
   Leah-like eyes of your faith and it shall strengthen them till they
   shall see even the hidden mystery and discern the substance which, by
   mortal eyes, cannot be seen. Show Christ's death to your wretched and
   miserable spirit that has been troubled and burdened with the cares of
   this world and it must leap for joy, and cast all its burdens away!
   Show the death of Christ to your old sins which have been coming back
   to you, today, and it will drive them all away. Show Christ's death, in
   fact, to the eyes of your heart, the eyes of your emotions, the eyes of
   all your powers of body and soul--and thus you shall be like he who
   said, "I shall see Him," though you shall not need to add, as he did,
   "but not now." You may say, "I shall behold Him," but you will not need
   to spoil it by adding, as Balaam did, "but not near," for Christ shall
   bring you into His banqueting house and His banner over you shall be
   love!

   Sinner, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and remember that He said, "He
   that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Saint, come to the Table
   of your Lord and feast upon the emblems of His dying love, remembering
   that blessed are they who believe on Him, for there shall be a
   performance of those things which were told them by the Lord.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 8:18-39.

   Verse 18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
   worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
   Paul made "the sufferings of this present time" into a matter of simple
   arithmetic and careful reckoning. He added them all up and saw what the
   total was. He seemed to be about to state a proportion sum, but he gave
   it up and said that the sufferings were "not worthy to be compared with
   the glory which shall be revealed." Did they stand as one to a
   thousand? No, otherwise they had been worthy to be compared! Did they
   stand as one to ten thou-

   sand--or one to a million--or one to a million of millions? If so, they
   would still have been worthy to be compared-- but Paul saw that there
   was no proportion whatever between them. The sufferings seemed to be
   but as a single drop and the glory to be as a boundless ocean!

   "Not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
   us." That glory is not yet fully revealed. It is revealed tous, but not
   yet inus. What, then, shall we do in the meantime? Why, wait with
   patience and bear our appointed burden until the time comes for us to
   be relieved of it--wait, however, with hope--wait, too, as we must,
   quietly enduring the pains and pangs which precede so glorious a birth!
   In this respect, we are not alone, as the Apostle goes on to say--

   19-22. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the
   manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to
   vanity, not willingly, but by reason ofHim who has subjected the same
   in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the
   bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
   For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain
   together until now. We live in a world that is under a curse--a world
   that was made subject to bondage through human sin. What does this cold
   mean? What do these fogs mean? What do the general mourning and sighing
   of the air all through the winter mean? What do the disturbances,
   convulsions and catastrophes that we hear about on all hands mean? It
   is the creation groaning, travailing, waiting--waiting till there shall
   be a new Heaven and a new earth, because the former things shall have
   passed away.

   23. And not only they, but ourselves, also, which have the first fruits
   of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for
   the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Our soul has been
   delivered from the Curse. The redemption of the soul is complete, but
   not yet that of the body. That must suffer pain and weariness and even
   descend into the tomb, but its day of manifestation shall surely come!
   At the appearing of our Lord from Heaven, then shall the body itself be
   delivered and the whole creation shall also be delivered, so we wait in
   a travailing condition--and we may well be content to wait, for these
   pangs within us and around us all signify the glorious birth for which
   we may wait in hope.

   24, 25. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope for
   what a man sees, why does he yet hope for it? But if we hope for that
   we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. This is our attitude
   and our condition now-- waiting for the glory which is to be revealed
   in us and accepting the sorrow which is appointed to us as an
   introduction to the joy which is to come to us, mysteriously, through
   it. But while we are waiting, we are not without present comfort.

   26. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities for we know not what
   we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit Himself makes
   intercession for us with groans which cannot be uttered. You must, I am
   sure, as children of God, often have felt that Spirit within you
   groaning in prayer what you could not express. How often have you risen
   from your knees feeling the utter inadequacy of words to express the
   desires of your heart! And you have felt that you had larger desires
   than you have been able to interpret. There have been mighty pangs
   within you telling of the Presence of this wrestling Spirit.

   27. And He who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit
   When you do not know your own mind, God knows the mind of the Spirit
   and that is the very essence of prayer. He "knows what is the mind of
   the Spirit,"

   27. Because He makes intercession for (or, in) the saints according to
   the will of God. Whatever the Spirit of God prompts us to pray for, is
   according to the mind of God, for it is not possible that the Holy
   Spirit should ever be otherwise than in perfect accord with the Divine
   Father. The eternal degrees, if we could read them, would convey to us
   the same Truth as the impulses of the Spirit in our heart. And this is
   the true explanation of prayer--that what God intends to do, His Spirit
   leads His people to ask Him to do and thus there is no conflict between
   the eternal Predestination of God and the earnest entreaties of His
   people. They are, in fact, the outcome of that very Predestination.

   28-30. And we know that all things work together for good to them that
   love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom
   He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
   of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren.
   Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He
   called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also
   glorified. These great Truths of God must never be separated. Any one
   of these things being true of us, it is most certain that the rest are
   also true. Now, my dear Brothers and Sisters, you cannot read God's
   foreknowledge, neither can you enter into the secrets of
   Predestination, but

   you can tell whether you are called, or not. You can know whether you
   are justified by faith, or not. And if you get hold of those links, you
   have got a grip of that endless chain which is firmly fastened to the
   granite rock of eternity past and which is also fastened to the rock of
   the glorious eternity which is yet to be revealed!

   31-33. What shall we then say to these things? If God is for us, who
   can be against us? He that spareddnot His own Son, but delivered Him up
   for us all, how shall He not, with Him, also freely give us all things?
   "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? God that
   justifies?For so we think it ought to be read. That is another
   question. Can God lay anything to our charge after having justified us?
   Will He contradict Himself?

   34. Who is he that condemns?There is only One who can, for there is
   only one Judge, and that Judge is Jesus. So, the Apostle puts it again
   in the form of a question--shall He condemn us?

   34. It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is
   even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
   Shall He condemn us? It is altogether impossible!

   35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
   or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
   orswordl What a long list of ills! They seem to make up a Jeremiah's
   roll of sorrow. Can they separate us from the love of Christ? They have
   all been tried--have they ever succeeded?

   36. As it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long, we
   are accounted as sheep for the slaughter But did they succeed in
   separating saints from the love of Christ even in the days of
   martyrdom?

   37-39. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him
   that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
   angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
   to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able
   to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
   "Therefore, comfort one another with these words."
     __________________________________________________________________

Who Loves Christ More?

   (No. 2873)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 3,1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 3, 1876.

   "There was a certain creditor who had two debtors: the one owed five
   hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay,
   he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will
   love him more? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he
   forgave more. And He said unto him, You have rightly judged." Luke
   7:41-43.

   When we commence the Christian life, it is very natural that we should
   say to ourselves, "We do not wish to be second-rate Christians, or
   ordinary Christians--much less to prove like the Laodicean professors,
   neither cold nor hot, or, like those of whom the Apostle John wrote,
   "They went out from us, but they were not of us." I like to see the
   holy ambition of the young convert who desires to bring forth much
   fruit to the Glory of God--to love Christ much and manifest that love
   by every possible act of devotion to Him. Truly, my dear Friends, you
   need not be as your fathers have been, for we have often provoked the
   Lord and have many times done what we ought not to have done. There is
   plenty of room for improvement upon the past generation and we would
   earnestly urge those of you who are commencing the heavenly race to run
   faster than we have run--to keep your eyes more steadfastly fixed upon
   the goal--and to continue more resolutely in the right way than we have
   done. We do not desire that you should imitate our mistakes, or that
   you should fall into our backslidings. We wish that yours might be the
   highest conceivable form of Christian life and we know that if it is to
   be so, there must be in you intense love to Christ.

   My objective, at this time, is to give some directions which, perhaps,
   the Spirit of God will bless, especially to beginners, that they may be
   taught to love Christ much and manifest that love as this woman did. It
   may be that some of us who have been for years on the right road, may
   also get stirred up to greater zeal and devotion to our Lord. Possibly,
   we may hear our Master saying to us, as He said to the angel of the
   church of Ephesus, "I have somewhat against you, because you have left
   your first love." If His Spirit shall make our love to burn more
   vehemently, we may be able to start anew and after a better fashion in
   the work and service of our Lord. This were "a consummation devoutly to
   be wished."

   With this end in view, I shall begin by speaking upon the fact that we
   must all be saved in the same manner. Whatever our desires may be to
   outrun others in the Christian race, we must begin by being saved in
   exactly the same manner as others are. Then, secondly, I shall try to
   show that it will help to increase our love if we have a deep sense of
   our own sinfulness. And then, thirdly, provided we have this deep sense
   of sin and, in consequence, possess a burning love to Christ, this will
   lead us to show our love very much as this woman did.

   I. First, then, whatever our desires may be to serve our Master to the
   utmost--to be in the front rank of His servitors--yet we MUST BEGIN
   WHERE OTHERS BEGIN.

   There is the same door of entrance for us as that which was opened to
   the very chief of sinners, for there is no difference between one
   sinner and another in the sight of God, as far as the plan of salvation
   is concerned. There may be many differences in other matters but, in
   the matter of salvation, there is nothing which places one man in a
   different position from another, or which allows him to be saved in any
   other way than the one way which God has laid down for a sinner's
   salvation.

   You notice, in the parable before us, that both the parties were in
   debt--"the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty"--but they
   were both in debt. So, if some men have plunged into the grossest vice
   and defiled themselves, and polluted their lives, they are certainly in
   debt five hundred pence. But if others have been kept from overt acts
   of transgression, yet, since their hearts have gone astray from God and
   since, with their desires, and with their lips, and in many respects
   even in their actions, they have broken His holy Law, they also are in
   debt. Fifty pence, it may be, but still, they are in debt. There is not
   one among us who can stand before the Most High and say to Him, "I owe
   nothing to Your justice for I have never infringed Your righteous
   Laws." Any man who would say that would be a liar, and the truth would
   not be in him. If we say that we have no sin, or that we have not
   sinned, we lie in the face of the living God and in the teeth of our
   own conscience, too! So, we are all in debt, even if the amount differs
   in each case.

   We also learn from the parable that, although both the parties were in
   debt, neither of them had anything with which to meet the
   liability--"they had nothing to pay." One only owed fifty pence, but,
   then, he had not the fifty pence. No, he had not even one penny out of
   the fifty required to meet the amount. The other debtor owed five
   hundred pence and his plight was just the same, for he had nothing to
   pay. It sometimes happens that the man who owes the most, has the most
   to pay, but it is not so here. He has nothingto pay. And sometimes the
   man who owes but very little, may be the one who has something with
   which to meet his obligations. He has pulled up just at the right time
   and though he is insolvent, yet he can almost meet the debt.

   But it is not so here. He has nothing to pay. Neither of them could
   produce so much as a single penny and that is your case and mine, dear
   Brothers and Sisters--we have nothing to pay. All that we have, or ever
   shall have, is already due to God. If there were any assets, they would
   not belong to us and there is nothing in reserve--nothing that we can
   look for, that will drop in, towards the close of life, with which all
   our old scores can be wiped out. Under the Law of God, there is nothing
   for us but debt, debt, debt! And even if we had the power to pay our
   old debts, new ones would soon swallow up all our capital. But we have
   nothing with which to meet our old debts. "You shall love the Lord your
   God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
   strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself," is
   still God's daily demand upon us. And if we were able to meet it, it
   would not in any way make up for the deficiencies of the years that
   have gone by. Here we all stand upon an equality--we are all in debt
   and we have, none of us, anything with which to pay that debt.

   And here is the glory of God's mercy in dealing with sinners who
   believe in Jesus. In the parable of the two debtors, we are told that
   the creditor freely forgave them both He did not say to either of them,
   "I will set you a certain time and you shall pay me so much a week
   until you clear it off." Oh, no, he forgave them both--wiped the score
   out altogether! He did not ask anything of them, for he knew that they
   had nothing. He forgave them, says the text, frankly, that is, freely.
   He did not forgive one of them because his debt was a misfortune which
   he could not avoid, but he frankly forgave them both. He did not look
   for any worthiness in either of them, or expect anything from either of
   them, but, as an act of pure gratuitous favor, because he delighted to
   show kindness to his poor debtors, he said, "There, go home, both of
   you. I shall never ask you for the amount of your debts again. I have
   crossed it off my book though I have received nothing whatever from
   you."

   Now, this is just what the Lord, in His infinite mercy, does for all
   poor sinners who come and trust His Son. He gives them a receipt in
   full, for there is One who has paid the debt for them! All glory be to
   His name--it has been paid in full! But, as far as we are concerned,
   the Lord does not give us pardon because of our tears, or prayers, or
   repentances, or even because of any merit in our believing, for our
   very believing is marred by unbelief--but He forgives us freely. And He
   does not forgive us because He thinks that in the future we shall
   improve upon the past. Oh no, we are His workmanship when we do improve
   and it is He who must have the credit of our improvement. But He
   forgives us freely, "according to the riches of His Grace," passing by
   iniquity, transgression, and sin, and remembering not the wickedness of
   His people, "because He delights in mercy."

   Here, then, we are all on the same level and if any young Christian
   thinks that he starts with an advantage over others, he makes a great
   mistake--and he had better go back and start where all pilgrims to Zion
   must start--at that wicket gate which John Bunyan describes, or, better
   still, at that Cross where Christian lost his load and from where he
   went on his way rejoicing! You must come down from that high horse,
   young man--your birthright is not worth a farthing to you, your church
   attendance and your chapel attendance are not worth a single penny to
   you--you must trust in Chr-

   ist just as a harlot or as a thief must! It is true that you have been
   moral and I thank God for it. It is true that you have been preserved
   from contamination with an ungodly world and I thank God for it. But,
   still, in the matter of the soul's salvation, "other foundation can no
   man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Faith in the atoning
   Sacrifice of Christ is the way of salvation for the most immoral and
   for the most moral, too! You and I, dear Friend, must go together to
   the Lord Jesus and see in Him the full Atonement made and the utmost
   ransom paid--and then we must accept, as poor bankrupt sinners, the
   free gift of a full discharge through the Sovereign Mercy of God whom
   we have offended.

   It is absolutely essential for us to begin here, for, if we do not
   start our Christian life rightly, we shall never make progress in it.
   If there is a mistake in the first course of bricks laid, or if the
   foundation is not well dug out, or if things are done improperly at the
   beginning, there are sure to be all sorts of mischief in the rest of
   the building. Therefore, I charge you, begin by coming to Christ as
   naked sinners needing to be clothed. Do not come to Him in the filthy
   rags of your self-righteousness, seeking to have a piece of His
   spotless robe of righteousness tacked on, for that can never be! If you
   think of passing your counterfeit coin with Christ's pure gold, you are
   making a fatal mistake. I charge you to begin as lost, ruined and
   condemned sinners--for that is what you really are. Coming to Christ
   like that and trusting in Him, you shall be saved, you shall be adopted
   into the Divine family, you shall be sanctified in Christ Jesus and, in
   due time, you shall be glorified through Him, and through Him alone!

   II. Now, secondly, I want to show you how our lives may become more
   intense than the lives of many other professing Christians are through
   our love being more fervent than theirs. In order to attain that end,
   WE MUST HAVE A DEEP SENSE OF OUR OWN SIN. "Which of them will love him
   more?" "I suppose he to whom he forgave most."

   I can imagine someone saying, "I was never, in very deed, as great a
   sinner as some have been. Must I, therefore, love Christ less than
   those who have been greater sinners than I have? Will this morality of
   mine--in which I do not trust for a moment and concerning which I do
   not speak boastingly--will this put me at a disadvantage in comparison
   with others? Shall I never attain to such love as that woman had who
   was a sinner?" Listen, my Friend. Suppose that the man who owed 500
   pence only thought that he owed fifty. He would not love the creditor,
   who forgave him, any better than the one who really did owe the 50
   pence, would he? It was not the amount forgiven, as you will readily
   see, which was the cause of the greater or lesser love--it was the
   consciousness of the amount--the realization of its greatness, which
   would be the cause of the greater love! I do not doubt that there are
   some very great sinners who have been forgiven, who yet do not love
   Christ much and, on the other hand, there are some who, in the judgment
   of men and, perhaps, in the judgment of God, are nothing like such
   great sinners, who, nevertheless, love Christ more--the reason being
   that these greater sinners never had such a deep sense of the enormity
   of sin as these, comparatively speaking, lesser sinners have had. The
   question turns, you see, not so much upon the actual amount of debt, as
   upon the consciousness of the magnitude of that debt--not so much, in
   the matter of love, upon the indebtedness, as upon the senseof that
   indebtedness, so that you who have been kept in the ways of morality
   before you were converted, may rightly place yourselves among the
   greatest debtors and, perhaps, may love Christ even more than some
   others do who have actually been grosser offenders, but who have never
   been awakened to such a full sense of their sinfulness as you have had,
   and, consequently, do not think themselves to be the greatest debtors
   to God. It is, dear Friends, a deep sense of our sinfulness, coupled
   with the perfect consciousness of our forgiveness, that will work in us
   intense love to Christ.

   Let me further say that anyone who has been forgiven very great open
   sin ought, certainly, to have the greatest and strongest motive for
   love to Christ. You cannot always tell how love comes into the heart. I
   do not deny the duty of love, but love does not come merely as a duty.
   You love your mother, or you love your wife and it is your duty to do
   so, but you could not be made to love either of them simply by being
   told that it was a duty! You do it because of the natural impulse
   within your heart which moves you to love. In like manner, love to our
   Heavenly Father and love to Christ is, no doubt, a duty, but it is much
   more than a mere matter of duty. That is a cold sphere for love to live
   in and she soon gets away from the polar regions of duty to the more
   tropical climate of the Garden of Gethsemane and the place called
   Calvary. She loves because she cannot help loving--because she must
   love! The gratitude within her heart is so great that she cannot help
   loving the Lord who has done so much for her!

   I hope that is the case with any of you who were once drunkards, or who
   had lost your character, or who had sinned against God in an open way
   and even dared, perhaps, to blaspheme His holy name. As you think that
   over, oh, how your heart ought to burn with love to your Lord! You
   remember how Paul writes concerning adulterers, drunks and all sorts

   of grossly sinful people--and then says, "Such were some of you, but
   you are washed." This should bring tears to the eyes of all whom it
   concerns--"But you are washed"--you are singing your Savior's praises,
   though once a profane or licentious song would have suited you better!
   You are now bowing your knees in prayer, though once those knees never
   knew what it was to make an obeisance before the Most High! You are
   loving Him, now, with all your heart, though once you saw no beauty in
   Him that you should desire Him. Brothers and Sisters, I will not say
   that you ought to love Christ much--rather will I say that I feel sure
   that you do! If you realize what He has done for you, you cannot help
   loving Him much! And I trust that in the outpouring and manifestation
   of love, yours will be a life as vigorously good as once it was
   shamefully bad--a life as full of the fire of Heaven as once it was
   full of the fire of Hell--a life as much above the common life of men
   as once it was below what the life of men really ought to be. God grant
   that it may be so with you!

   Now I will address myself to those who thank God--without any of the
   Pharisaic spirit--but very humbly thank God that they were not allowed
   to run into the same excess of riot as others, but were early brought
   to a knowledge of the Savior. I say to you, dear Friends, that you,
   also, may be among those who love Christ much if you have a very deep
   sense of sin. A venerable servant of God whom most of you know and
   respect, has made a remark which I fully endorse. He says that he has
   noticed that the deepest convictions of sin do not come, as a rule, to
   men of coarse life, but to those who have been of upright moral
   character. My own observation has taught me that, very often, drunks
   and other persons who have lived openly evil lives, when they are
   converted, are brought all of a sudden to Christ and made to rejoice in
   Him--while some of us who were kept from such sins as they have
   committed, have had a far greater sense of horror and terror indicted
   upon us than they have ever experienced! I have many times found that
   the deepest sense of sin has been felt where the actual sin has been
   the least. There are, no doubt, exceptions to this rule, but I believe
   it is the rule--and the explanation is that the ungodly man, by a long
   life of sin, has so seared his conscience that even when the Spirit of
   God comes to him, he has not that delicate, acute sense of sin which
   another man has, who, by God's Grace, has never been permitted to blunt
   the edge of his conscience.

   I will tell you another thing. I believe that in many Christians, the
   sense of sin is much stronger 10 years after they have been saved than
   it is at the time of their conversion. There is not any despair mixed
   with it and the fear of punishment has gone--but a sense of horror at
   the terrible guilt of sin will sometimes come over a Christian who is
   far advanced in the Divine life. No, the further he is advanced in the
   Divine life, the more will horror take hold of him whenever he sees
   sin, even in others, but still more in himself! Some glib professors
   talk of having got out of the 7th of Romans-- I hope they will grow in
   Grace until they get into the 7th of Romans! It seems to me as if they
   were in the 1st of Romans, so they have a long way to travel before
   they will get into the 7th of Romans. The nearer you get to perfection,
   the more horrified you feel because of the sin that still remains in
   you! And the more horror you feel at your sin, the more intense will be
   your gratitude to the bleeding Savior who has put that sin away. And,
   in consequence, the more intense will be your love to Him.

   I charge you, Christian people, if you want your piety to be increased,
   never to blunt your sensibility of sin. Do not begin to look at sin in
   any light which takes away any of it blackness. The devil himself is
   not as bad as sin is, for it is sin that made the devil. Satan was a
   holy angel until sin came into him, but sin itself was never anything
   else but sin--a horrible thing, and it never will be anything else but
   sin, look at it in whatever way you may! Some have spoken of sin as
   being merely a failure, or a slight slip. God keep you, Beloved, from
   ever using such language as that! Sin, in a child of God, is a damnable
   thing--as damnable as it is most atrociously wicked--and if it were not
   for the Grace of God, which takes it away, the brightest saint would
   soon be banished from God's Presence. Sin is always an evil thing, but
   in a child of God it is a worse thing than in worldlings, for he sins
   against greater light and knowledge than they possess.

   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if you desire to cultivate, as I trust
   you do, the feeling that you owe your Lord 500 pence which He has
   freely forgiven you, you must often think of the spirituality of the
   Law of God. We think, at first, that the Ten Commandments only mean
   what we see on the surface. And if we have not broken them, we feel
   happy. Or if we have broken them, then we feel some conviction of sin.
   But the longer we live and the more the Spirit of God deals with us,
   the more we discover that the Law contains the condemnation of every
   evil thought, temper and imagination. Think, for instance, when we come
   to discover, in connection with the command, "You shall not kill," that
   he who is angry with his brother without a cause is a murderer! Who
   among us has completely escaped that sin? Do angry thoughts

   ever arise in our heart? Ah, then we begin to discover that we have
   broken that Commandment and that, in this sense, we are murderers! And
   we find that there are more men who have broken that Law than have been
   put to death by their fellow men. It is just the same with each of the
   Commandments. I need not go into the details of them, but may the
   Spirit of God make you often go into the details till you look into
   your own life and are horrified and say, "Why, where we fancied we saw
   righteousness, we see ourselves altogether condemned before the
   all-seeing eyes of God."

   If you would have a sense of sin, in the next place, endeavor more and
   more to appreciate the excellency of God. O You holy, holy, holy, Lord
   God of Hosts, when I think of some of Your creatures and compare myself
   with them, self-conceit may set my mind at ease--but when I look up to
   You and remember that the heavens are not clean in Your sight, and that
   You charge Your angels with folly, I feel afraid to come into Your
   Presence! In the visions of the night, when we have thought upon the
   purity and spirituality of God, our hair has been ready to stand on end
   as we have realized how far we are from such perfection as His--and we
   have been ready to cry with Job, "I have heard of You by the hearing of
   the ear: but now my eyes see You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent
   in dust and ashes." If the Holy Spirit will teach you to feel like
   that, then you will love Jesus Christ for having had pity upon you and
   provided a way by which all your sinfulness could be taken away!

   Another blessed sharpener of our sense of sin is a consciousness of
   sin's tendency--knowing what sin really is and what it would do if it
   could have its way without those blessed checks which Omnipotence put
   upon it. What would sin do if it could? What didit do when God gave it
   liberty? It took God Himself and accused Him, brought Him before its
   bar and there the sinner dared to sit and judge his God--yes, and to
   condemn his God and even to slay his God! This is what sin always does
   whenever it can. "The fool"--that is, the ungodly man--has said in his
   heart, "There is no God." He means, "No God for me. I do not need any
   God. If I could have my own way, there would not be any God." And every
   offense against God's Law is a wish, on our part, to be greater than
   God--to have our way instead of God having His way--in a word, to push
   God off His Throne that we might sit there in His place! O Sin, I
   cannot but hate you, now that I see you red with the blood of the Son
   of God! I cannot but abhor you, now that I see that you would let Hell
   loose into this world if you could do so! A Christian cannot help
   hating sin in proportion as He loves God who has forgiven Him all His
   trespasses.

   One thing which has often made me feel great tenderness of soul is a
   sense of the Divine Love. If you ever offend a person and that person,
   instead of being in the slightest degree angry, lets fall a tear, but
   says nothing. And if you hear afterwards that he has been laying
   himself out for your good and that the very thing about which you were
   angry was really intended to be a blessing to you, oh, you feel as if
   you could never forgive yourself! To do a wrong thing is bad at any
   time, but to do a wrong to the One who is so good and so kind as God
   is--oh, have you not often said to yourself, "How could I have done
   this? I am one of God's chosen people. He loved me before the
   foundation of the world, though I did not know it. Christ wrote my name
   on His hands and on His heart--and shed His blood to redeem me--yet I
   did not know it. I even ridiculed His name and yet, all the while, He
   had prepared a place in Heaven for me and He had made up His mind that
   He would save me, that His Grace would seek me! I did not know anything
   about it and I went on in the frivolity and foolishness of my heart
   against Him." This thought makes sin appear exceedingly sinful, as
   being committed against a God who is all goodness and altogether love
   and mercy--and so we feel ourselves to be indebted 500 pence-- not
   merely fifty.

   Above all, dear Friends, I know of nothing that can make us more
   sensitive about our guilt, and conscious of it, than the realization of
   what Jesus Christ is to us. I think this poor woman was helped to weep
   by the sight of His feet. They had not been pierced, then, but I know
   that it helps us to weep in penitence when we can see His dear, His
   blessed feet that were pierced for our sins, and look upon His hands
   and remember His words, "These are the wounds that I received in the
   house of My friends." And then look into His side and see that the gash
   goes right to His heart and, all the while, realize that each of our
   sins became a nail and unbelief the spear to pierce His hands, and
   feet, and side. That wonderful love of Jesus Christ to us has never
   changed. It has never been repressed by our ingratitude, or made to
   cease even by our forget-fulness of Him. He loved us even to the death
   and, after death, He has continued to love us still! He loves us so
   that He cannot be content even in Heaven until He gets us there with
   Him. Being Himself there as our Head, He is determined to bring all His
   members there.

   Just look at Jesus Christ a minute, and then look at sin. Oh, what a
   loathsome thing, what a monster it then appears! I am sure, dear
   Friends, if you are beginning to think little of sin, it must be
   because you have been thinking little of Jesus Christ. You cannot have
   met your best Friend lately, or else you would never parley with His
   enemy. O Beloved, lie in Christ's bosom where all the sweetest perfumes
   are! Rest your head upon His breast where the myrrh, and aloes, and
   cassia are to be found and you will never crave the leeks and garlic of
   Egypt! After having been with Him and eaten of the heavenly manna, you
   would not be able to eat the dust and ashes of this foul world! So, in
   proportion as you get near to Jesus, you will hate sin and you will
   love Him who bore your sin, and carried it all away that you might be
   free from it forever!

   There are many other topics I might mention so as to sharpen your sense
   of sin, but I pray the ever-blessed Spirit to keep your mind and heart
   sensitive towards sin, for you can be sure of this--that you can never
   exaggerate your own guiltiness in God's sight. When you have the lowest
   notion of yourself, you are getting the nearest to the truth. When you
   feel your sin to be exceedingly sinful, you do not even yet know how
   sinful it is, for--

   "God only knows the love of God"-- and God only knows the sinfulness of
   man! Perhaps, if any man among us could see his sin as it really is, he
   would go mad. I am persuaded that, sometimes, God spares men who have
   been great sinners, the horrible revelations which He gives to others
   because they could not bear them! If they did ever see themselves as
   they are, they might be driven to despair. So He sometimes leads them
   by easier ways than He does some others and He thus gives to others the
   opportunity of putting themselves down among the 500 pence debtors and
   to love Him more because, after all, they are conscious of having had
   the most forgiven.

   III. My time has fled, so I must only say very briefly, in the third
   place, that IF WE GET A BURNING LOVE FOR JESUS CHRIST, IT WILL BE WELL
   FOR US TO SHOW IT AS THIS WOMAN DID. How shall we do it?

   First, by desiring to be near Him. This woman, in her desire to be near
   Christ, came right up to His feet. Augustine admires the gracious
   audacity of this woman. She had been very bold when she was a
   sinner--her shamefacedness was gone when she was a sinner and it was
   also gone when she was a saint. May we, too, love Christ so much that
   we cannot be content to live at a distance from Him, but may we be
   among those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes and abide close beside
   Him!

   The next point in her for us to imitate is the boldness of her
   confession. Some of Christ's disciples came to Him by night, but this
   woman came to Him by day. They dared not approach Him when anybody saw
   them, but she cared not who saw her. I would that you who love Jesus
   much were as bold as she was in the acknowledgment of your faith. Come
   out and confess Christ, saying, "I have had much forgiven--therefore I
   will tell the whole world of what the Lord has done for me."

   Then, next, this woman had deep humility, for, bold as she was, she
   rendered the lowliest service that she could to Christ. May you be such
   willing slaves to Him that washing His feet will be the work in which
   you delight! If I may but wash His feet--help His poor people--look
   after a few infants in the Sunday school--do any little thing for
   Him--if I can only have some smiles from Him, though they are only such
   as come to menials, I will be glad to get them.

   Then, imitate this woman's penitence. She bathed His feet with her
   tears--so you show Him how deep and true is your repentance. It is well
   not to make a show of repentance to men except by your actions. But let
   your whole life and your inmost soul make a show of it before Christ.
   Wash His feet with your tears. Refresh Him with your contrition.

   After washing His feet with her tears, this woman wiped them with the
   hairs of her head. Imitate her self-denying service. Show your love to
   Jesus in some special way. I do not know what particular form your
   service may take, but let it be some loving, tender, self-denying work
   for your dear Lord and Savior. Make a perfect consecration of yourself
   to Him, as this woman did. May the Holy Spirit help you to do so! But
   you will never do it unless you have a deep sense of sin, so, Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, I come back to that point because that is the
   chief thought I want to leave in your mind. Do you feel sin to be a
   bitter and hideous thing? And do you feel yourself to be a great
   sinner? You will never pray so well as when you have a tear in your
   eye. You will never serve God so well as when you have been standing in
   the publican's place and saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner."

   I am persuaded that we, ministers, do not preach with effect if we
   preach as if we were wonderful saints looking down on you, poor
   sinners. Oh, no! When we are, ourselves, tender in spirit, God helps us
   to be tender to the humble and con-

   trite among our hearers! Out of our hearts, by the gracious working of
   the Holy Spirit, comes power that helps others to be humble and
   contrite before God. We are nothing to boast of, so let us never boast.
   Though we are accepted in the Beloved, and perfect in Christ Jesus,
   forgiven, saved forever, (blessed be His name!), yet this is no reason
   for us to lift ourselves up, but to lift Christ up! It is a cause for
   gratitude, but not for conceit. So we will feel that we have had much
   forgiven, and will love Him much who has freely forgiven us all our
   trespasses. May He help us to do so, and His shall be the praise
   forever and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM116.

   In this Psalm, David tells us his experience with regard to God and
   with regard to men.

   Verse 1. Ilove the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my
   supplications. Answered prayer is a good reason for loving God. David
   was in his right senses and he was, by no means, a fool, yet he
   declared that God had answered his prayers and, therefore, he loved
   Him. And this is not only David's experience, but there are thousands
   of us who can say that God has heard our prayers and, therefore, we
   love Him. How can we help doing so?

   2. Because He has inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon
   Him as long as I live. If a beggar in the street were to say to us,
   "Because you have relieved me once, I will beg of you as long as I
   live," we would not be pleased to hear him say that--but God loves to
   hear us say that to Him! He wishes us to resolve that because we have
   been successful in prayer once, we will call upon Him as long as we
   live! Now David explains the circumstances which led him to pray.

   3. The sorrows of death compassed me. "I seemed to be shut
   in--surrounded by a circle of difficulties and terrors! 'The sorrows of
   death compassed me.'"

   3. And the pains of Hell got hold upon me. They seemed to seize him as
   a lion seizes his prey.

   3, 4. I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the
   LORD; O LORD, I beseech You, deliver my soul His prayer was a very
   short one, but very much to the point. Words make not prayer--they
   often burden it, and prevent it from flying--

   "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire"

   and David, in a few earnest words, expressed that desire--"O Lord, I
   beseech You, deliver my soul."

   5. Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. All
   who have ever tried Him have proved Him to be so--merciful to forgive
   our sin--merciful to help us in the time of trouble--merciful to
   strengthen us in the performance of our duty. "Our God is merciful."

   6. The LORD preserves the simple. Those who are of a single mind--who
   have no double meanings and concealed motives--those who know their own
   ignorance and weakness and who, therefore, dare not trust in
   themselves.

   6. I was brought low, and He helped me. David could speak for himself
   and he did so without the slightest hesitation. Can you, dear Friends,
   after making trial of God's love and Grace, say of Him, "I was brought
   low, and He helped me"? If you can, then bear this testimony to His
   praise and glory!

   7. Return unto your rest, O my soul; for the LORD has dealt bountifully
   with you. Man's soul is like the dove that Noah sent out from the ark.
   It flew over the wide waste of waters, seeking rest, but finding none,
   so, at last, with weary wings, it made its way back to the ark. And,
   Soul, you will never rest till you come back to your Creator and
   Redeemer! You may fly to the pleasures and follies of this world but
   they can furnish no real rest for you. If you would rest, you must come
   back to your God.

   8. 9. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears,
   and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD in the land of
   the living. "Let my fellow creatures think what they will of me, I will
   not care about their judgments, I will only think of God." This is the
   highest, noblest, happiest style of living--to "walk before the Lord."
   Why, there are some men who dare not even call their souls their own!
   They are afraid of their next-door neighbors, or of some great kinsman
   who sets the fashion for them. But the man who walks before the Lord
   will think only of the verdict of the Most High and will care nothing
   about what men will say.

   10, 11. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted: I
   said in my haste, all men are liars. He felt that he could not trust
   them. He had come into such trouble that men would be deceivers even
   against their own will, for, even

   when they would have helped him, he found that they could not. He had
   looked to them as worthy of his confidence and had found them fail him.
   Therefore he said that as far as reliance upon them was concerned, "All
   men are liars." Well, what then?

   12. What shall I render unto the LORD for all His benefits toward me?
   "Though men have failed me, the Lord has not. If friends all prove to
   be false, He is still true. 'What shall I render unto the Lord for all
   His benefits toward me?'"

   13-15. I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the
   LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all His
   people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.
   It matters not where they die--in the dungeons of the Inquisition, or
   on the sickbed of poverty and obscurity--God is always with them. The
   deathbed of a saint is one of the places where God often makes His
   Glory to be best seen. From the lips of dying men and women some of us
   have heard strange sayings--sweeter than any that ever fell from poet's
   tongue or pen! We have heard words which it was almost unlawful for a
   man to utter, save only for those who were in the very suburbs of
   Heaven-- almost in Glory--even while they spoke with us on earth.
   "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Will
   yours be a saintly death, dear Friend, or will it, on the other hand,
   be a death of gloom and sorrow? God grant that you may die the death of
   His people because you have lived the life of His people!

   16. O LORD, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of
   Your handmaid: You have loosed my bonds. How pleased David was to be
   God's servant! Yet he says, "You have loosed my bonds." To serve God is
   to be free! We are never truly free until we bow our willing necks to
   the yoke of the Most High. Then we break every chain and snap every
   fetter. He is the free man whom our God makes free--all the rest are
   slaves.

   17-19. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call
   upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the
   presence of all His people, in the courts of the LORD'S house, in the
   midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise you the LORD.
     __________________________________________________________________

Precepts and Promises

   (No. 2874)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 13, 1876.

   "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall
   also My servant be: if anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor."
   John 12:26.

   I HAVE already said, in expounding the chapter from which my text is
   taken, that the sight of these Greeks who desired to see Jesus seems to
   have very greatly affected our Savior's mind. [See Exposition at end of
   sermon.] He had not had much to do with Gentiles, for, as far as His
   personal ministry upon the earth was concerned, He was not sent to the
   Gentiles, but only "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But now
   He sees, in those enquiring Greeks, the advance guard of that mighty
   host of Gentiles who, for these 1,800 years and more, have continued to
   seek Him out and to call Him their Leader, Friend and Savior! The
   thought of this great result of His life's work naturally led Him to
   also think of the Cross from which that result would spring. "These are
   the redeemed," He seemed to say to Himself, "then it is time for Me to
   think of the Redemption which I have yet to present on their behalf.
   These are the first fruits of My great harvest. Then I must see to the
   sowing of the Seed and I must set my mind steadfastly to think of that
   sowing, for unless the grain of wheat is cast into the ground, and die,
   it abides alone." So He began to feel the throes of desire for that
   Baptism wherewith He was to be baptized, for the joy that was set
   before Him was, just then, clearer than usual--the joy of winning souls
   and, especially, the joy of winning Gentile nations unto God and,
   therefore, His mind fixed itself more than ever upon the plan by which
   His people's redemption was to be achieved. Hence, I think, arose the
   words to which I called your attention while we were reading the
   chapter.

   The sight of these Greeks also led the Savior to feel that He must
   again explain the conditions upon which He could receive disciples.
   There have been religious teachers who have been content to gather
   followers through falsehood or error. They have never properly
   explained what allegiance to them meant, or they have caught men by
   craft and guile. Our Lord Jesus Christ never did that. He said to any
   who proposed to follow Him, "Have you counted the cost?" He bade them
   not to begin to build their house if they were not able to finish it,
   nor to commence a warfare in which they could not reasonably expect
   victory. It seemed, sometimes, to be rather repelling men, than
   attracting them, to say to would-be disciples, "If you will follow Me,
   do this and do that"--perhaps some very trying ordeal--yet that was the
   Savior's usual habit. So, now, lest these Greeks should say that they
   would become His disciples without knowing what disciple-ship involved,
   He said to them, "I, Myself, will have to die in order that I may
   produce others like Myself, and you, if you become My disciples, will
   have to follow Me in this respect as well as in all other things. You
   will have to deny yourselves and to undergo self-sacrifice, for,
   otherwise, if you will not do this, it is no use for you to pretend to
   be My servants, for My servants you cannot be. If any man would serve
   Me, He must follow Me." It was the coming of these Greeks to Christ
   which led to the utterance of these words--and that incident, in a
   measure, explains them. Now may the Spirit of God impress the Savior's
   words upon your hearts as I try to speak to you about them!

   Our text is divided into three sentences. The first is a sentence of
   precept--"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me." The second is a
   sentence of precept and promise, for, to this day, no scholar can tell
   whether it ought to be rendered, "Where I am, there let My servant be,"
   or, "Where I am, there shall also My servant be." Either may be a
   correct inter-

   pretation of the original and, therefore, I take it in both senses as a
   sentence of precept and promise. Then the third is a sentence of pure
   promise--"If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor."

   I. First, then, we have A SENTENCE OF PRECEPT. "If anyone serves Me,
   let him follow Me."

   The Greek term used here might be translated, "If anyone will become a
   deacon--do a deacon's work, be My minister, My servant and wait upon
   Me--then let him follow Me." By which is intended, first, that, if you
   become Christ's servant, you must obey Him. This does not seem to occur
   to many professing Christians. They say they are Christians and,
   therefore, Christ's servants--yet they dare to sit in judgment upon Him
   and upon His precepts! They are a law unto themselves--they obey this
   precept because they like it and they disobey that other precept
   because they do not like it! They call Him Master and Lord, but He is
   not really their Master and Lord, for they do not obey Him. Paul
   rightly says, "To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his
   servants you are to whom you obey." But if you simply take the name of
   Christ upon you and call yourself His servant, yet do not obey Him, but
   follow your own whim, or your own hereditary prejudice, or the custom
   of some erroneous church--you are no servant of Christ. If you really
   are a servant of Christ, your first duty is to obey Him.

   In the Church of Christ, He is the only Legislator. Not all the bishops
   and clergy, nor the whole Church, if it could be summoned in one solemn
   conclave, could pass an ordinance that would have even the slightest
   force upon a Christian's conscience if it were contrary to the
   teachings of Christ, Himself! There is but one Head of the Church--one
   spiritual Rabbi and Infallible Teacher--and that is the Lord Jesus
   Christ, Himself, and we are to understand, when we enter His Church and
   enlist under His banner, that we are to serve Him, and Him alone! We
   may serve others, as far as they are commissioned by Him, and as far as
   what they say is in harmony with His teaching, but no farther, for,
   "One is your Master, even Christ, and all you are brethren." Did you
   understand that, young Man, when you became a Christian? Did you
   understand that, my Sister, when you professed to be a follower of
   Christ? I am afraid some professing Christians did not.

   I bless God that this was one of the things which I learned when I
   first trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. I felt, "Now I am
   going to be Christ's disciple, through His Grace, and I am going to do,
   as far as the Holy Spirit will help me, everything that I believe He
   commands me to do." I turned to the New Testament and read it for
   myself. I did not enquire of this teacher or that, but said to myself,
   "What does Jesus say? I will find out what He has revealed as His will
   concerning me." This way of acting gives a man independence of mind
   towards his fellow men and, at the same time, humble yet firm
   confidence in what he does in the sight of God. When he knows that he
   has submitted himself to the teaching of Christ and that he would not
   knowingly hold anything that Christ would not endorse, and would not
   willingly, either himself learn, or impart to others anything that
   Jesus Christ does not teach, it gives him a firm footing in the things
   of God.

   Christian men and women, do you stand thus firmly? You know that many
   of you do not. You have another book, besides the Bible, which is your
   guide. The Bible alone is not the religion of many professing
   Christians. It is to some, but there are many who have another book to
   which they bow with almost equal reverence--and courts of law have to
   decide as to the shape of this garment or the other, or whether they
   shall turn their noses to the East or to the West, for they cannot do
   anything without calling in lawyers and judges! Yet God knows the Bible
   alone is quite enough. And if we did but follow its guidance, it would
   lead us rightly enough. I call you back, Christian men and women, to
   your allegiance to God's Holy Word! You owe none to any book except the
   one that He has given--and you are to regard no teaching but the
   teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and that which comes to you upon His
   sole authority. In this respect, He says to you, "If anyone serves Me,
   let Him follow Me"--that is, by obedience to His commands.

   The next teaching of the text is this. If any man serves Christ, his
   service will be most like his Lord's when he does, as nearly as he can,
   what Christ did. He is your Master, but He is also your Exemplar.
   Suppose that you say to Him, "Blessed Lord Jesus, I am willing to obey
   You, but what is Your Law?" He replies, "I am My own Law. Imitate Me.
   Follow Me." If you want to obey Jesus instead of merely keeping the Law
   written upon stones, you can see the Law written out in His life--

   "My dear Redeemer and my Lord, I read my duty in Your Word, But in Your
   life the Law appears Drawn out in living characters."

   If you would obey Christ and so serve Him, be like He, for the sum and
   substance of His teaching is, "Follow Me." Watch, then, His every
   footstep, and ask for Grace to put your foot down where He put His.
   Whatever you see to be His temper under any circumstances, cultivate
   that temper when you are in similar circumstances. If you want to know
   what you should do at any special time, think what He would have done
   if He had been in your place, for what He would have done is what you
   should do. And if you know that any course that you are pursuing would
   not have been pursued by Christ and would not have been according to
   His mind, do not follow it any longer. If it is not in harmony with
   Christ's life, it is not the way for you to walk. If it is not that
   which you would have done if Christ stood by you and looked at you with
   His tender but piercing eyes of everlasting love--if it is not what you
   would have done in His immediate Presence, do not do it, for it is
   clearly not what you ought to do. You are His servant, so you are to
   obey Him and, in order to obey Him, you are to imitate Him.

   I must, however, warn you, dear Friends, that if you do this--and you
   must if you mean to be His faithful follower, for this is the only way
   of being Christ's servant, indeed and of a truth--this following of
   Christ will bring you into very much the same condition as that in
   which your Lord was, that is, you will become a marked man! In the
   midst of the company that you frequent, you will be a speckled bird!
   You will not need to adopt any different mode of dress, for Jesus did
   not. He wore the common garb of the country and dressed just like any
   other man of His class. He affected no singularity in meat, or drink,
   or language, but He was singular, essentially, because the greatest
   singularity under Heaven is holiness. If you will just do the right and
   be the right before God, men will soon find you out--and you will first
   become the subject of their observation--by-and-by, of their
   reproach--perhaps, also, of persecution. But, whatever the consequences
   are, this is what you have to do. Hear what your Lord says--"If anyone
   serves Me, let him follow Me."

   "But, Lord, You had to go outside the camp." "Then follow Me there."
   "But, Lord, You had to endure the Cross." "And he who would be My
   disciple must take up his cross daily and come and follow Me." You
   cannot be Christ's servant if you are not willing to follow Him, cross
   and all! What do you crave? A crown? Then it must be a crown of thorns
   if you are to be like He!! Do you want to be lifted up? So you shall,
   but it will be upon a cross! In following Christ, you must be prepared
   to suffer persecution, loss and, if necessary, even death itself! Will
   you have Christ as your Lord and Master on these terms? If not, you
   cannot have Him at all! He does not want, as His followers, cowards who
   will sneak away from Him as soon as the first shot in the battle is
   fired. He does not want another Judas who will sell Him for the price
   of a slave. He wants true-hearted men who are determined, out of love
   to His glorious Character, and devotion to His Divine mission, that
   they will follow Him because they desire to serve Him.

   Our Lord would also have us understand that if we mean to be His
   servants, we must follow Him even to the extent of being put into the
   ground to die--that is, self-sacrifice, self-abnegation and even
   self-annihilation. Our Lord Jesus Christ is at His best when He makes
   Himself of no reputation. I do not know any time when Christ seems so
   glorious as when He lays aside all His Glory and takes upon Himself all
   our shame. So, Brothers and Sisters, if you would follow Christ, you
   are not to bargain to be honored. On the contrary, you are to commence
   to strip off from yourself the garments of honor. You are not to
   bargain for ease, but are to put on the harness of a warrior who will
   get but little rest and who must constantly be on the watch. You are
   not to stipulate for this indulgence or that. What indulgence had your
   Lord? He had not where to lay His head! His life was spent amidst
   poverty and hardship! He kept nothing back from the sons of men--He
   emptied Himself that we might be filled.

   There was not a grain of self-seeking in Him. He saved others--Himself
   He could not save. Oh, that we had even a few Christians who were like
   their Master in this respect! Few are there, in these evil days, who
   seem willing to sacrifice all for Christ's sake. The brave Covenanters
   could give up house, home and everything--and die for King Jesus on
   Scotland's bleak mountains. But we, in these easier times, are content
   to make money, as other people do--to live in ease and luxury, as other
   people do--to contribute our cheese-parings and our candle-ends to the
   cause of Christ and to think that we have done a great deal if we have
   done even as much as that! But where is the self-sacrifice? Where is
   the burying of one's self in the ground to die, like a grain of wheat?
   Where is the wish--the willingness--to lose reputation, to sever
   friendships, to sacrifice respect, to endure hardness so that we may be
   true to our conscience, faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ? May the Lord
   soon raise up among us more men and women of noble principle who will
   count God, and Christ, and truth, and eternity to be worth living
   for--and worth dying for--and who will count all things else but loss
   for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord!

   I will leave that first sentence of my text when I have made one more
   observation upon it. Perhaps somebody says, "I want to serve Christ and
   I am willing to make some self-denial for His sake. I have been
   thinking about saving my money and building a church or a chapel."
   Possibly another friend says, "I want to serve Christ, so I should like
   to give a painted window in His honor." Yes, but Christ Himself says to
   you, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me." The very best way of
   serving Christ is to do just what Christ was accustomed to do, as far
   as that is possible to you. This is a very blessed text for a poor man,
   for a sick man, for an illiterate man--in fact, for every man who
   really wants to serve Christ. If I want to serve Christ, what have I to
   do? To follow Him. If I am very ill, how am I to follow Him? Why, by
   bearing the affliction as patiently as He would have borne it! If I am
   very poor, how am I to follow Him? Why, by trusting in God, as He did!
   Suppose that I am very much maligned and slandered, what am I to do? I
   am to try to bear it as meekly as He would have borne it! You can
   accomplish a great deal, in that way, if you really try to do it. You
   nursery maids and you other servants who have to work hard to earn your
   daily bread--and you boys and girls, who are still at school--there is
   something that you can be, or do, or suffer by which you may prove your
   love to Christ--and that something is the best way in which you can
   follow Him.

   It is sometimes the case that a person says, "I want to serve Christ,
   so I shall go into a nunnery, or into a monastery." Now, let me just
   ask this question--Did our Lord Jesus Christ ever act like that? He
   said, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me." Can you imagine Christ
   shutting Himself up in a monastery? What? The great battle of the ages
   to be fought and the Captain of our salvation concealing Himself and so
   setting us an example of how to be cowardly? You know He did not do
   that! So fight it out, man, even as He did, and do not go sneaking away
   and hiding yourself under the pretence of so serving the Lord Jesus
   Christ! That is sheer selfishness--there is a far better course than
   that for you to take! Give yourself up wholly to Jesus and do as Jesus
   would have done if He had been in your place, for so you will serve Him
   in the best possible fashion.

   II. Now I turn to the second clause of my text which seems to me to be
   both A PRECEPT AND A PROMISE.

   First, read it as a precept--"Where I am, there let My servant be."
   Wherever Jesus was and is, there you are to be if you are really His
   servant. In His relationship to God, how did Jesus stand? Well, He was
   wholehearted in His consecration--be you likewise. He began His public
   life by being baptized in Jordan, saying to John, "Thus it becomes us
   to fulfill all righteousness." If you are really His servant--you act
   in the same way. He came out into the midst of mankind to bear witness
   for God's Truth and He kept on bearing that witness. And He was content
   to be found in His place, as the faithful Witness, when the time came
   for Him to seal His testimony with His blood. Be you a witness-bearer
   for Him, whatever that witness bearing may cost you--

   "Cold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the fervor of His
   prayer"-- so let midnight witness the fervor of your prayer, too. The
   attitude of Jesus towards God is shown by His saying in the Garden of
   Gethsemane, "Not as I will, but as You will." Servant of Christ, be you
   also found in the same attitude--bow before the Lord in the spirit of
   resignation to His holy will even though it should bring the
   death-sweat to your brow! Whatever it involves, mind that you say to
   God, "Your will be done." Wherever you see the Lord Jesus Christ in His
   relationship towards God--with the one exception of His substitutionary
   Sacrifice for sinners, in which you cannot follow Him--in everything
   else, if you would really serve Him, follow Him! Where the Master is,
   there let His servant be.

   Then, next, what was Christ's position with regard to men? He was in
   the midst of them and in all His relationships He was always the
   example of what His servants should be. As a child, He was subject to
   His parents. Godly children, that is what Christ would have you, also,
   to be. As a child, He grew in the knowledge and understanding of the
   Word, and in favor with God and with men. So seek, dear young people,
   to be always making progress in the Divine Life and to be growing up,
   as Christ did, well-pleasing unto God. When He had reached maturity,
   what was His attitude towards men? Why, He was the Lover of men! He was
   seldom angry with them, but often bearing their reproach. He was never
   selfish, but always ignoring Himself and living entirely for others.
   Someone has called Him "the great Philanthropist." I hardly like such a
   title for Him, for He rises far above all ordinary philanthropy--yet is
   it true that no one else ever loved men as He loved them and no one
   else ever made such sacrifices for them. Be you like Jesus in this
   respect, also, and wherever you see His footprint, seek to set your
   feet there.

   Wherever there was a battle to be fought for truth and right, Christ
   was always to the front. And wherever there was reproach to be borne
   for God's sake, Christ was ready to bear it. The Pharisees could not
   silence Him, the Herodians could not make Him seek His escape. He was
   ready for every emergency that arose. Did God want a Witness? There was
   Christ. Did man need a Teacher? There was Christ. Were men sick? He was
   their Physician. Were they hungry? He was their Provider. Were His
   disciples liable to sink in a storm? He walked on the waters and
   rescued the frightened men. He was always giving Himself to the service
   of men and, Beloved, wherever your Master was in relation to men, there
   should you be. If you can conceive of a place where Christ would not
   go--do not go there. If you know of any company where Christ would not
   be found, do not be found there. But if you know of a place where
   Christ would go, there you also can go with safety, for it is your
   business to be where your Master would have been if He had been in your
   place--and never to be where your Master would not have gone!

   We have thus looked at this sentence as a precept. Now let us regard it
   as a promise--"Where I am, there shall also My servant be." This is a
   very blessed promise. I do not recollect one that has more sweetness in
   it to my heart. We expect, Brothers and Sisters--unless Christ shall
   speedily come--we expect to die. When we fall asleep in Jesus, we shall
   be carried to the grave, even as Jesus was. We shall be in good
   company! It is, to my mind, a beautiful thought that when our Lord rose
   from the dead, He took off the grave clothes and left them in His
   sepulcher. And He unwound the napkin that was about His head and laid
   it by itself. So the grave is not an empty tenement without furniture.
   Christ has left the linen in which He slept to wrap His followers
   in--and He has put the napkin by itself for those who are left behind
   to wipe their eyes with. We rightly sing, with good Dr. Watts--

   "The graves of all His saints He blessed, And softened every bed--
   Where should the dying members rest, But with the dying Head?"

   Where will our spirits be when we have left the body behind? We do not
   know much about the unseen world, but we are content with what Richard
   Baxter sings--

   "My knowledge of that life is small,

   The eye of faith is dim,

   But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,

   And I shall be with Him."

   Our Savior's words are certainly true, "Where I am, there shall also My
   servant be." Some people are anxious to know more concerning the
   condition of the redeemed between death and the Resurrection, but, my
   dear Brothers and Sisters, I am satisfied to know that I shall be with
   Jesus where He is! I feel like the little child who had been a long
   while away from its mother and who was told that it should soon go home
   to her. That was all the child wanted, to be in mother's bosom--and all
   I want is to be with Jesus. This He has promised us and this is our
   comfort, "Where I am, there shall also My servant be." As soon as ever
   we fall asleep in Him, absent from the body, we are present with the
   Lord!

   What about the Resurrection? Well, Jesus rose and so, in due time, our
   bodies shall also rise. These very bodies of ours--for Christ has
   redeemed not a part of our manhood, but the whole of it--and these
   bodies of ours are the temple of the Holy Spirit--they shall rise again
   and in our flesh we shall see God. And so shall we be "forever with the
   Lord."

   But what is Heaven, Brothers and Sisters, and what will eternal Glory
   be? Although eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor heart of man
   conceived what God has prepared for them that love Him, He has revealed
   it unto us by His Spirit, at least, in part. But it is enough for us to
   know that we shall be with Jesus, where He is--that we may behold His
   Glory. It is wonderful what new discoveries are constantly being made.
   Many books have come out, lately, filled with what I believe to be
   nothing but rubbish, but, for my part, I do not care about where I am
   going to be in the millennium or afterwards, for I know that I shall be
   with my Lord--and I want nothing else. I do not stipulate for a golden
   harp, or a place by the sea of glass. I do not ask, even, to be among
   the angels. I am quite content with my Lord's promise, "Where I am,
   there shall also My servant be." My Lord and I shall fare alike and it
   will do for me if it will do for Him! Are you not of the same mind,
   Beloved, and is not this all you wish to know about the future--that
   you shall be with Him, where He is, and behold His Glory?

   III. Now, thirdly, we have A SENTENCE WHICH IS ALTOGETHER A
   PROMISE--"If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor."

   Brothers and Sisters, if you serve Christ in the way I have feebly
   tried to describe, that is, by an out-and-out consecration of yourself
   to Him and to His service, you will not get much honor among men. You
   know what many want, at the present day, in a minister. He must have no
   principles at all, or, if he has any, he must keep them to himself and
   never say anything about them. Above all, he must be perfectly neutral
   and never say a word against any error. Do you not know that it is
   uncharitable to attack what others believe? Preach always what
   everybody would like you to preach. If you see anything wrong, put the
   telescope up to your blind eye, as Nelson did--then you will find all
   the brethren will praise you because you praise them! Pat them on the
   back and they will pat you on the back! And you will get through the
   world very smoothly. I know that path and I know how many friends we
   might have if we would but follow it-- wriggle in and out and be
   anything and everything, or nothing--just to suit the tastes of others!
   Brothers and Sisters, if you believe anything to be true and stick to
   it, some will call you sectarian and others will be offended with you,
   but, mark this, if you do not get any praise from men for clinging to
   the right, you will have an easy conscience! I would sooner have all
   the demons in Hell enraged against me and all the dogs on earth howling
   at me, than feel that I had kept back anything I believed to be true!

   If we do what our conscience tells us is right. If we serve Christ
   outright and follow Him fully, God will honor us by setting His seal
   upon our work. If you preach Christ and not the fancies of men, God
   will give you souls, make you useful and help you to build up His
   people. That is the honor which you will receive. Faithfulness will not
   be without its reward. "In due season, you shall reap, if you faint
   not."

   Then, by-and-by, it will come to pass that even those who censured you
   as too strict, too punctilious and, perhaps, litigious, will come round
   to see that you are truthful and right. And, so, God will give you
   honor in their sight It is wonderful how even bad men are compelled to
   honor consistency and uprightness. They may hate it, but they respect
   it. Whereas if you do not fully follow Christ and do not act as His
   servants should, God will not honor you, neither will men do so long,
   for they will find you out and then they will drive you from them in
   derision.

   The best honor that comes from God will come to His people, by-and-by.
   I have been thinking over those words, "If anyone serves Me, him My
   Father will honor," and I feel that I cannot preach from them at all.
   What would some people think if the Queen were to honor them? But what
   is thatcompared with our Father, who is in Heaven, honoring us? I do
   not know whether you can conceive what it means. I cannot. God makes
   His creature love Him, but for Him to honor that creature--to put honor
   upon him--is something so amazing that I am lost in contemplation of
   it! Yet He will do it. If you faithfully serve Jesus Christ on earth,
   God will bid the angels make way for you in Heaven. While you live
   here, they will be your servants and when you ascend to Heaven, you
   shall have a place nearer to the Eternal Throne than even they have.
   And then, in the presence of all the holy angels, God will do you honor
   and your spirit shall be known among them as one that God loves. "What
   shall be done unto the man whom the king delights to honor?" was the
   question asked of old, but I put another question, "What shall be done
   unto the man whom the eternal God, the Creator, the Possessor of Heaven
   and earth, delights to honor?" Do you aspire to that honor? Are you
   ambitious to share it? Then you have only to do this--serve Christ
   faithfully, follow Christ fully.

   Some of you cannot do this--you who are not renewed in heart and life.
   I might as well urge the dead to dance as bid you attempt this, for you
   cannot do it. You must believe in Jesus! You must be born again and
   receive the new life. But, oh, you who have believed in Him, remember
   that this is your road to honor--willingness to be dishonored,
   willingness to be counted as the mud in the street for Christ's sake
   and for His Truth's sake! Then let this be your strong resolution that
   come what may, Christ's life shall be your rule--Christ's Word shall be
   your marching orders and whether you have to die a martyr's death, or
   not--to Him who loved you and bought you with His blood, you consecrate
   yourself entirely, henceforth and forever!

   May God raise up many who will feel the power of these words! If we
   only get a few of such men who will follow the Lord fully, happy will
   be the churches to which they belong, blessed will be the age in which
   they live, highly privileged will be the land in which they dwell--for
   such men are God's heroes! These are the soldiers who will stand firm
   in the day of battle and who will help to save our country from ever
   becoming Roman Catholic again! May we have many such men and many such
   women in every age till Jesus comes, and glory dawns! May this be your
   happy lot, my dear Brothers and Sisters, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 12:20-41.

   Our Lord had raised Lazarus from the dead and this miracle had excited
   great attention in Jerusalem. In consequence of this, the people had
   led Him in triumph through the streets, and everywhere there was great
   excitement. Everybody was speaking of the wonderful miracle which He
   had worked.

   Verses 20, 21. And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to
   worship at the feast: the same came therefore to Philip, which was
   ofBethsaida ofGalilee and desiredhim, saying, Sir, we wouldsee Jesus.
   There is no doubt that these men were Gentiles--probably proselytes.
   They had come up to worship at the feast and their curiosity had been
   excited and their interest had been awakened by what they had seen and
   heard about Jesus. There appears to have been at least some measure of
   reverence for Him in their minds. Hence they addressed one of His
   disciples, whose purely Greek name may lead us to suppose that he had
   some Greek relatives. They said to Philip, "Sir, we would see Jesus."

   22, 23. Philip came and told Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip told
   Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son
   of Man should be glorified. They did not expect Him to say that!
   Surely, the coming of a few Greeks to see Him was not very much in the
   way of glorification! But, to Him, the coming of these Greeks was a
   sort of prophecy of the myriads of other Gentiles who would, by-and-by,
   come to His feet and, therefore, He looked forward to that death which
   would be the means of their salvation. Christ came into the world to
   preach the Gospel, but He came on a greater errand than that, namely,
   to provide a Gospel that could be preached--and He knew that the time
   was approaching when He must provide that Gospel by dying upon the
   Cross. See how He proceeds--

   24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into
   the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth
   much fruit The preservation of the grain is the prevention of its
   increase, but the putting of it into the ground, the losing of it, the
   burial of it is the very means of its multiplication. So our Lord Jesus
   Christ must not care for Himself and He did not. He surrendered Himself
   to all the ignominy of the death of the Cross. He died and was buried
   in the heart of the earth but He sprang up again from the grave and,
   ever since then myriads have come to Him through His death, even as
   these Greeks came to Him in His life. Now, as it was with Christ, so is
   it to be with us--at least, in our measure.

   25. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in
   this world shall keep it unto life eternal His love is ruinous to his
   true life, but to destroy self-love, to make a sacrifice of ourselves,
   is the truest way to really preserve ourselves.

   26. 27. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where Iam, there
   shallalso My servant be: if anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
   Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father save Me from this
   hour? But for this came I unto this hour. This seems to be a sort of
   rehearsal of the dread scene soon to be enacted in Gethsemane. At the
   sight of these Greeks, our Savior seems to have been led especially to
   think, as we have already said, of that death by which they and
   multitudes like they, were to be redeemed. Thinking of it, He enters so
   fully into it, by a sort of foretaste, that He feels something of the
   same shiver and throe of anguish which came upon Him in Gethsemane. He
   seems to say here, "Father, save Me from this hour," just as He said
   there, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." Yet He says
   here, "But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Your
   name"--just as He afterwards said in the garden, "Nevertheless, not as
   I will, but as You will."

   28, 29. Father, glorify Your name. Then came there a voice from Heaven,
   saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people
   therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others
   said an angel spoke to Him. This was the third time that that
   mysterious Voice had been heard--first, at His Baptism. The second time
   on the Mount of Transfiguration. And now a few days before He died upon
   the Cross. The voice of God had been heard on a much earlier
   occasion--at Sinai--and then it was attended with thunder, as it was
   here. Those who had not ears to understand the voice of God only
   perceived the loudness of its thunder peals. But there were others,
   like John, who understood what the Lord said--"I have both glorified
   it, and will glorify it again."

   30, 31. Jesus answered and said, This Voice came not because of Me but
   for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince
   of this world be cast out The old Roman empire seemed to stand as fast
   as the eternal hills, but God had come to judge the whole state of
   affairs as it was then in the world and, inasmuch as Christ the pure
   and

   perfect Son of God was condemned to die, that action condemned the
   society of that period! Yes, the whole of the ungodly world, in taking
   its part in crucifying Christ, bore evidence against itself and
   pronounced sentence upon itself as being guilty of the death of the
   Christ of God. "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out." The
   overthrow of the usurper began from that time--and that overthrow of
   the devil is still going on--and, blessed be God, it will reach its
   completion one of these days and we shall yet rejoice in a new Heaven
   and a new earth on which the trail of the serpent shall never be
   traced!

   32. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.
   Christ on the Cross draws all men up to Himself. I have heard this text
   quoted as if it referred to Christ being extolled in preaching. Well,
   it is true that when Christ is lifted up in the ministry, there is an
   attractive power--but that is not the first meaning of the text. Let us
   read on.

   33. This Hie said, signifying what death Hie should die. He alluded to
   His Crucifixion which is the great attractive center of mankind.

   34-36. The people answered Him, We have heard out of the Law that
   Christ abides forever: and how can You say, The Son of Man must be
   lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a
   little while is the light with you. Walk while you have the light, lest
   darkness come upon you: for he that walks in darkness knows not where
   he goes. While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be
   the children of light It is always well to use the Light of God that we
   already have. If any man will use the Light he already has, God will be
   sure to give him more. That is a good saying of an old Puritan, "If you
   have starlight, thank God for it and He will give you moonlight. And
   when you have moonlight, give thanks to God for it and He will give you
   sunlight." And so it shall be. Nothing is worse than sinning against
   the Light of Good. If it is only the light of conscience, even if you
   know it is not perfect, yet, nevertheless, never sin against it, for,
   if you do, you will quench it, and to quench the Light you have, is the
   way to effectually prevent your having any more. "While you have light,
   believe in the light, that you may be the children of light."

   36-41. These things spoke Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself
   from them. But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet
   they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the Prophet might
   be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report? And to
   whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not
   believe, because that Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes, and
   hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor
   understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
   These things said Isaiah, when he saw His Glory, and spoke of Him.
   There is such a thing as judicial blindness. If men can see and yet
   will not see, God is at last so provoked by their wickedness that He
   takes away the Light of God altogether and removes from them the very
   faculty of sight. It is not surprising that it should be so, for it was
   so with the generation in which Christ lived. They had so long rejected
   the true Prophet--so long refused to listen to the voice of God, that,
   at last, He abandoned them to their own ways--and nothing worse can
   happen to a man than to be abandoned of God! If God casts you off, you
   are lost indeed.
     __________________________________________________________________

Confirming the Witness of Christ

   (No. 2875)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK.

   "Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you." 1 Corinthians
   1:6.

   IT is not always the most gifted church which is in the most healthy
   state. A church may have many rich, influential, or learned
   members--many that have the gift of utterance and understand all
   sciences--yet that church may be in an unhealthy condition. Such was
   the case with the church at Corinth. Paul, in the opening of his
   Epistle, tells them that he thanks God always on their behalf for the
   Grace of God given unto them by Christ Jesus, that in everything they
   were enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge, so that they were
   behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
   Corinthians were what we would call, nowadays, judging them by the
   usual standard, a first-class church. They had many who understood much
   of the learning of the Greeks. They were men of classic taste and men
   of good understanding, men of profound knowledge and yet, in spiritual
   health, that church was one of the worst in all Greece and, perhaps, in
   the world! Among the whole of them, you could not find another church
   sunk so low as this one, although it was the most gifted.

   What should this teach us? Should it not show us that gifts are nothing
   unless they are laid on the altar of God? That it is nothing to have
   the gift of oratory? That it is nothing to have the power of eloquence?
   That it is nothing to have learning, that it is nothing to have
   influence unless they all be dedicated to God and consecrated to His
   service? I said, "it is nothing"--I mean, it is nothing good. Alas, it
   is worse than nothing good--it is something evil, it is something
   dreadful, it is something terrible for a man to have these gifts and
   yet to misuse them, for they shall only furnish fuel for a fiercer
   flame than he would have endured had he not possessed such abilities!
   He who buries his ten talents may well expect to be given over to the
   tormentor.

   This is the next lesson that is taught us--let us never judge men by
   their talents--but by the use which they make of their powers, by the
   end to which they devote their talents, by the interest which they
   bring to those pounds which their Master has entrusted to them. Paul,
   in the commencement of his Epistle, very gently hints at the right use
   of gifts and talents. And he tells us that they are sent to us that we
   may "confirm the testimony of Christ." If we do not use them for this
   purpose, we misuse them! If we do not turn them to this account, we
   abuse them! We ought to use our endowments as the Corinthians did not
   use theirs, but as they ought to have done--in confirming the testimony
   of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   The Corinthians had more powers than any of us have. Many of them could
   work miracles--they could heal the sick, they could restore the lepers,
   they could work wonders by the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.
   Some of them could talk several languages and, wherever they went, they
   were able to speak the language of the people among whom they abode.
   This was because they were not able to spend much time in learning
   languages and there needed something special to support the infant
   Church. It was then but a sapling--it required a stake in the ground by
   its side, that it might lean upon it, and might grow and be strong. It
   was a little plant that needed to be sustained and, therefore, God
   worked miracles. But now it is the stalwart oak and has its roots bent
   round the staunchest rocks in creation--now it needs not any support by
   miracle and, therefore, God has left us without extraordinary gifts.
   But whatever gifts we have, we are to use them for the purpose
   mentioned in the text--that is, for the confirmation of the testimony
   of Christ Jesus.

   There are two points which we shall speak of as the Holy Spirit may
   enable us. First, The testimony of Christ And, secondly, What is meant
   by our confirming it?

   I. First, then, THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. We are told, in the text, that
   there was a "testimony of Christ" which was "confirmed in you." Our
   first enquiry is, What is meant by the "testimony of Christ"?

   That this world is fallen is the first Truth of God in all theology.
   "We have gone astray like lost sheep," and had there not been mercy in
   the mind of God, He might justly have left this world to perish without
   ever calling it to repentance. But He, in His wondrous long-suffering
   and His mighty patience was not pleased to do so. Being full of tender
   mercies and loving kindness, He determined on sending the Mediator into
   the world, whereby He might restore it to its pristine glory and might
   save for Himself a people whom "no man could number," who are to be
   called the elect of God, loved with His everlasting love! In order that
   He might rescue the world and save those elect ones, the Lord of Hosts
   has constantly ordained and sent forth a perpetual priesthood of
   testifiers. What was Abel with his lamb, but the first martyred witness
   of the Truth of God? Did not Enoch wear his mantle when he walked with
   God and prophesied concerning the Second Advent of Christ? Was not Noah
   a preacher of righteousness among a gainsaying generation? The glorious
   succession never fails! Abraham comes from Ur of the Chaldees and from
   the hour of his call till the day when he slept in Machpelah, he was a
   faithful witness. Then we might mention Lot in Sodom, Melchisedec in
   Salem, Isaac and Jacob in their tents and Joseph in Egypt. Read the
   Scripture history and can you fail to observe a golden chain of united
   links, hanging over a sea of darkness, but yet uniting Abel with the
   last of the Patriarchs?

   We are now arrived at a new era in the history of the Church, but it is
   not destitute of light. See there the son of Amram, the honored Moses.
   That man was a very sun of brightness, for he had been where darkness
   veiled the unutterable light of the skirts of Jehovah. He climbed the
   steep sides of Sinai. He went up where the lightning blazed and the
   thunders lifted up their awful voice. He stood upon the
   mountain-burning summit and there, in that secret chamber of the Most
   High, he learned, in forty days, the witness of forty years and was the
   constant enunciator of justice and righteousness. But he died, as the
   best men must. Sleep on in peace, O Moses, in your secret grave. Fear
   not for the Truth of God, for God will be with Joshua as He was with
   you!

   The times of the judges and kings were sometimes densely darkened, but
   amid their civil wars, their idolatry, their persecutions and their
   visitations, the chosen people still had a remnant according to the
   Election of Grace. There were always some who walked through the earth,
   like the ancient Druids in the woods, wrapped in white garments of
   holiness and crowned with the glories of the Most High. The river of
   the Truth of God might run in a shallow stream, but it was never
   utterly dry. Next, come to the times of the Prophets and there, after
   traversing a dreary period when the world was only illumined here and
   there by such lamps as Nathan, Abijah, Gad, or Elijah, you find that
   you have come to the light of meridian day, or rather to a cloudless
   sky crowded with stars! There is the eloquent Isaiah, the lamenting
   Jeremiah, the soaring Ezekiel, the well-beloved Daniel and lo, behind
   these four high priests of prophecy, there follow twelve, clothed in
   the same garb, performing the same service! I might style Isaiah the
   pole star of prophecy. Jeremiah resembled the rainy Hyades of Horace.
   Ezekiel was the burning Sirius. And as for Daniel, he resembles a
   flaming comet, flashing on our vision but for a moment and then lost in
   obscurity.

   I am not at a loss to find a constellation for the minor prophets. They
   are a sweet group, of intense brilliance, even though but small--they
   are the Pleiades of the Bible. Perhaps, at no former season, were the
   stars of God marshaled in greater numbers, but yet, amid all preceding
   and succeeding gloom, the sky of time was never in total darkness!
   There was always a watcher and a shining one there. God has never
   abandoned the world, He has never quenched its lamp of Testimony, He
   has never said, "Go, you vile thing," and spurned it from His Presence.
   He might deluge it once with water. He might rain fire and brimstone
   upon Sodom. He might drown a nation in the sea. He might destroy a
   generation in the wilderness. He might devour kingdoms and root them
   up--but never, never would He extinguish the perpetual flame of the
   Testimony of His Truth!

   I was thinking, just now, of a picture which I saw, a few days ago--a
   beautiful painting of a brook with stepping-stones in the water, upon
   which the traveler crossed. And the idea has just flashed upon my
   mind--surely the stream of man's wickedness and the stream of time may
   be crossed by those steppingstones of Testimony. There you have Noah,
   and he is a steppingstone, to step on to Abraham. And from him to
   Moses, and from Moses to Elijah and so on--from Elijah to Isaiah, from
   Isaiah to Daniel, and from Daniel down to the brave Maccabees. And what
   is the last steppingstone? It is

   Jesus Christ, the faithful and true Witness, the Prince of the kings of
   the earth! Jesus was, in one sense, the last Testifier of the Truth of
   God. We are left to confirm it to others and we shall, just for a few
   moments, enlarge on what the testimony of Jesus Christ was.

   First of all, in order to justify me in calling Jesus Christ a
   Testifier, I want to refer to one or two passages of Scripture where
   you will see that He came into the world to be a Testifier and Witness
   to the Truth. Turn to the 3rd chapter of John, and the 31st verse. John
   the Baptist says, "He that comes from above is above all: he that is of
   the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth: He that comes from Heaven
   is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies, and no
   man receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has set
   to His seal that God is true." There we find John, who was the
   harbinger of our Savior, speaking of Christ as giving a testimony,
   speaking of Him as One who came into the world for the special purpose
   of testifying to the Truth of God.

   Turn further on in the same Gospel and you will find, in the 8th
   chapter and 18th verse, our Savior says this of Himself, "I am One that
   bear witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me bears witness of
   Me." I refer you, also, to the 18th chapter of John and the 37th verse
   where Pilate says to Jesus, "Are You a king then?" And He replies, "For
   this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
   truth." There, again, you find our Savior speaking of Himself as a
   Witness. I might refer you to some passages in Isaiah where he speaks
   of Christ as a Witness, but I will only keep to the writings of our
   friend, John, so we will now turn to the Book of Revelation. In the
   first chapter, at the 5th verse, you find him saying, "Jesus Christ,
   who is the faithful Witness." In the third chapter of the same Book, at
   the 14th verse, "And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans
   write, These things says the Amen, the faithful and true Witness." Now,
   then, I think I am not dishonoring my Master by calling Him a
   "Witness." I have placed Him side by side with a glorious cloud of
   witnesses and I have said He is the last Witness. And I think I have
   not dishonored His blessed name when I find He calls Himself a
   "Witness." Let us enlarge upon this head for a moment or two. Christ is
   the very King of witnesses! He is the greatest of all witnesses and
   superior to every other! He does not differ from any other in the
   things He testifies, for they all testify to the same Truth of God
   which this glorious Witness is superior to every other!

   First, let me remark that Christ witnesses directly from Himself and
   that is one thing in which He is superior to all the Prophets and the
   other holy men who testified to the Truth. What did Isaiah say? What
   did Elijah say? Or Jeremiah? Or Daniel? They only said second-hand
   things--they spoke what God had revealed to them. But when Christ
   spoke, He always spoke directly from Himself. All the rest only spoke
   that which they had received from God. They had to tarry till the
   winged seraph brought the live coal. They had to gird on the ephod, the
   curious girdle and the Urim and Thum-mim--they must stand listening
   till the Voice said, "Son of man, I have a message for you." They were
   but instruments blown by the breath of God and giving forth sounds only
   at His pleasure. But Christ was a Fountain of living water. He opened
   His mouth and the Truth of God gushed forth and it came directly from
   Himself. In this, as a faithful Witness, He was superior to every
   other. He could say, "What I have seen, and heard, that do I testify. I
   have been inside the veil. I have entered into the sanctum sanctorum. I
   have dived into the depths, I have soared into the heights--there is
   not a place where I have not been, there is not a Truth of God which I
   cannot call My own. I am no voice of another." In this respect, He
   surpassed every other witness!

   Secondly, Christ was superior to every other witness from the fact that
   His testimony was uniform. It was always the same testimony--we cannot
   say that of any other witness. Look at Noah. He was a very good
   testifier to the Truth of God, except once, when he was intoxicated--he
   was a sorry testifier to the Truth then. David was a testifier to the
   Truth, but he sinned against God and put Uriah to death. What shall we
   say of Elijah, that man in shaggy garments? He was a testifier to the
   Truth, but he was not so when he fled from Jezebel and God sent an
   angel to say to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Abraham was
   another witness, but he was not so when he said his wife was his
   sister. The same might be said of Isaac. And if you go through the
   whole list of holy men, you will find some fault in them and you will
   be obliged to say, "They were very good testifiers, certainly, but
   their testimony is not uniform. There is a plague-spot which sin has
   left upon them all. There was something to show that man is nothing but
   an earthen vessel, after all."

   But Christ's testimony was uniform. There never was a time when He
   contradicted Himself. There never was an instance in which it could be
   said, "What You have said, You now contradict." See Him everywhere,
   whether on the cold mountaintop at midnight in prayer, or in the midst
   of the city. Observe Him when He walked through the cornfields on the
   Sabbath, or when on the lake He bade the waves, "Be still." Wherever He
   was, His testimony was uniform. This can not be said of any other
   witness. The best men have their faults. They say that the sun has
   spots and so I suppose that the most glorious of men, whoever they are,
   who will shine most brightly in the firmament forever and ever, will
   have their spots while on earth. Christ's testimony was like His own
   coat, woven from the top throughout--there was not any seam in it at
   all.

   Yet, further, Christ's testimony was perfect in testifying to all the
   Truth of God. Other men only gave testimony to parts of the Truth, but
   Christ manifested it all. Other men had the threads of Truth, but
   Christ took the threads and wove them into a glorious robe, put it on,
   and came forth clothed with every Truth of God. There was more of God
   revealed by Christ than in the works of Creation, or in all the
   Prophets. Christ was a Testifier to all God's attributes and He left
   none of them unmentioned. Do you ask me whether Christ bore testimony
   to the Justice of God, I tell you, "Yes." See Him hanging there,
   languishing on Calvary, His bones all dislocated. Did He bear testimony
   to God's Mercy? Yes. See those poor creatures who were limping just
   now--the lame man is leaping like a hare, the poor blind man is
   beholding the sun and rejoicing! Did Jesus witness to the Power of God?
   I say, "Yes." You see Him standing in the little boat and saying to the
   winds, "Be still!" and holding them in the hollow of His hand. Has He
   not borne testimony to everything in God? His testimony was perfect!
   Nothing was left out--everything was there.

   We could not say that of any mere man. I believe we cannot say that of
   any modern preacher. Some people say that they can hear Mr. So-and-So
   because he preaches so much Doctrine. Another likes all experience and
   some want all practice. Very well, you do not expect that God has made
   one man to say everything, do you? Certainly not. One class of men
   defends one class of Truths and another, another. I bless God that
   there are so many denominations. If there were not men who differed a
   little in their creeds, we would never get so much Gospel as we do. One
   man loves high Doctrine and he thinks he is bound to defend it every
   Sabbath--so much the better! Some do not speak of it at all, so that he
   helps to make up for other people's deficiencies. Some men are fond of
   fiery exhortations--they give them every Sabbath and they cannot preach
   a sermon without them. But, then, others do not give them at all, so
   that the lack of one is supplied by the superabundance of the other.
   God has sent different men to defend different kinds of Truth, but
   Christ defended and preached all! He took them, bound them in one
   bundle and said, "Here is myrrh, aloes, cassia and all precious spices
   altogether--here is the whole Truth of God." Christ's testimony was
   perfect.

   Mark, once more, before I come to the confirmation of this testimony,
   Christ's testimony was final. His was the last testimony, the last
   Revelation that will ever be given to man. After Christ, nothing.
   Christ comes last--He is the last steppingstone across the brook of
   time. All who come after Him are only confirmers of the testimony of
   Christ. Our Au-gustines, our Ambroses, our Chrysostoms, or any other of
   the mighty preachers of olden times, never pretended to say anything
   fresh. They only revived the Gospel--the same old-fashioned Gospel
   which Christ used to preach. And Luther, and Calvin, and Zwingli, and
   Knox--they only came to confirm the Truth of God. Christ said "finis"
   to the canon of Revelation and it was closed forever! No one can add a
   single word to it and no one can take a word from it. We Dissenters are
   sometimes charged with inventing a new Gospel. We deny it. We say that
   our Owen, Howe, Henry, Charnock, Bunyan, Baxter, or Janeway and all
   that galaxy of stars of the pulpit did not pretend to say anything
   new--they only revived the things that Christ said, they only professed
   to be confirmers of the Witness. So has it been with the great men we
   have lost during the last century. Whitefield and his brother
   evangelists and men who stood in the same position as Gill, or Booth,
   or Rippon, or Carey, or Ryland or some of those who have just been
   taken away--they did not pretend to say anything new. They only said,
   "Brothers and Sisters, we come to tell you the same old story. We are
   not testifiers of new things--we are only confirmers of the Witness,
   Christ Jesus."

   II. Now we come to the second part of our subject and that is THE
   TESTIMONY OF CHRIST IS TO BE CONFIRMED IN YOU. There are two points
   here. First, the testimony of Christ needs to be confirmed in
   ourselves. And, secondly, it needs to be confirmed in others.

   First, then, to every Christian the testimony of Christ needs to be
   confirmed in his own heart. O Beloved, that is the best confirmation of
   Gospel Truth which every Christian carries about within him! I love
   Butler's Analogy--it is a very powerful book. I love Paley's Evidences,
   but I never need them myself, for my own use. I do not need any proof
   that the Bible is true. Why? Because it is confirmed in me! There is a
   Witness, which dwells in me, which makes me bid defiance to all
   infidelity, so that I can say--

   "Shouldall the forms that men devise

   Assault my faith with treacherous art, I'd call them vanity and lies,
   And bind the Gospel to my heart."

   I do not care to read books opposing the Truths of the Bible, I never
   need to wade through mud for the sake of washing myself afterwards.
   When I am asked to read an heretical book, I think of good John Newton.
   Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, said to him, "Have you read my Key to the
   Romans?" "I have turned it over," said the Doctor. "And is this the
   treatment a book must meet with which has cost me so many years hard
   study? You ought to have read it carefully, and weighed deliberately
   what is said on so serious a subject." "Hold," said Newton, "you have
   cut me out full employment for a life as long as Methuselah's! My life
   is too short to be spent in reading contradictions of my religion. If
   the first page tells me the man is undermining the faith, it is enough
   for me. If I had the first mouthful of a roast tainted, I do not need
   to eat it through to be convinced--I ought to send it away." Having the
   truth confirmed in us, we can laugh all arguments to scorn! We are
   placed in a sheet of mail when we have a witness to God's Truth within
   us. All the men in this world cannot make us alter one single iota of
   what God has written within us! Ah, Brothers and Sisters, we need to
   have the Truth confirmed within us! Let me tell you a few things that
   will do this.

   First, the very fact of our conversion tends to confirm us in the
   Truth. "Oh," says the Christian, "do not tell me there is no power in
   religion, for I have felt it! I was thoughtless like others, laughed
   religion to scorn and those who attended to it. My language was, 'Let
   us eat and drink, and enjoy the sunshine of life.' But now, through
   Christ Jesus, I find the Bible a honeycomb which hardly needs to be
   pressed to let the drops of honey run out it is so sweet and precious
   to my taste that I wish I could sit down and feast on my Bible forever!
   What has made this alteration?" That is how the Christian reasons. He
   says, "There must be a power in Grace, otherwise I never should be so
   changed as I am. There must be the Truth of God in the Christian
   religion, otherwise this change would never have come over me." Some
   men have ridiculed religion and its followers and yet Divine Grace has
   been so mighty that those very men have become converted and
   experienced the new birth! Such men cannot be argued out of the truth
   of religion. You may stand and talk to them from dewy morn to the
   setting of the sun, but you can never get them to believe that there is
   no Truth in God's Word, for they have the Truth of God confirmed in
   them.

   Then, again, another thing confirms the Christian in the Truth and that
   is, when God answers his prayers. I think that it is one of the
   strongest confirmations of the Truth of God when we find that God hears
   us. Now I speak to you, on this point, of things which I have tasted
   and handled. The wicked man will not believe this. He will say, "Ah, go
   and tell those who know no better!" But I say that I have proved the
   power of prayer a hundred times because I have gotten to God and asked
   Him for mercies and have received them. "Ah," say some, "it is only
   just in the common course of Providence." "Common course
   ofprovidence?"It is a blessed course of Providence! If you had been in
   my position, you would not have said that. I have seen it just as
   clearly as if God had rent the heavens and put His hand out and said,
   "There, My child, is the mercy you asked for." It has come so plainly
   out of the way that I could not call it a common course of Providence!

   Sometimes I have been depressed and downcast--and even out of heart at
   coming to stand before this multitude-- and I have said, "What shall I
   do?" I could fly anywhere rather than come here anymore. I have asked
   God to bless me and send me words to say, and then I have felt filled
   to the brim, so that I could come before this congregation or any
   other! Is that a common course of Providence? It is a
   specialProvidence--a special answer to prayer! And there are others
   here who can turn to the pages of their diary and see, there, God's
   hand plainly interposing. So we can say to the infidel, "Begone! The
   truth of God is confirmed in us and so confirmed that nothing can drive
   us out of it!"

   You have had the Truth confirmed in you, my dear Friends, when you have
   found great support in times of affliction and tribulation. Some of you
   have passed through deep trouble. Some of you have been sorely tried
   and have been brought very low, but can you not say with David, "I was
   brought low and the Lord helped me"? Can you not recall how well you
   bore that last trouble? When you lost that dear child, you thought you
   could not bear it so well as you did. But you said, "The Lord gave, and
   the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Many of you
   have loved ones under the sod--your mother, father, husband, or wife.
   You thought your heart would break when you lost your parents, but when
   your father and your mother were taken from you, then the Lord took you
   up. He told you, poor widow, that

   He would be a Father to your children--and have you not found it so?
   Can you not say, "Not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord
   has promised"? That is the best confirmation of the Truth of God.

   Sometimes, persons come to me, in my vestry, and they want me to
   confirm the Truth of God outside of them. I cannot do that, I want them
   to have the Truth confirmed inthem. They say, "How do you know that the
   Bible is true?" "Oh," I reply, "I never have to ask such a question as
   that, because it is confirmed in me. The Bishop has confirmed me!" I
   mean, "the Bishop of souls," the Lord Jesus Christ, for I never was
   confirmed by any other! And He has so confirmed me in the Truth of God
   that no one can take it out of me. I say to these people, "Try religion
   yourself and you will see its power. You stop outside the house and you
   want me to prove what is inside the house--go in yourself--'taste and
   see that the Lord is good,' blessed are all they that trust in Him."
   This is the best way of confirming the Truth to ourselves.

   The second thought was that it was our business not only to have the
   Truth confirmed in our own souls, but so to live that we might be the
   means of confirming the Truth in others. Do you know what Bible the
   worldly man reads? He does not read this Bible at all--he reads the
   Christian! "There," he says, "that man goes to church, or chapel, and
   he is a member. I will see how he lives, I will read him up and down."
   And he watches him and reads his conduct. If he is bad, he says,
   "Religion is a farce!" But if he is a man who lives up to it, he says,
   "There is something in religion, after all." Wicked men read
   professors--they watch them to see whether they live up to their
   profession. Christians have Argus, with a hundred eyes, staring at
   them! Worldlings look at every fault with a magnifying glass and they
   make the smallest molehill into a great mountain! And if there is a
   speck in our eye, they will make it a beam--and they will say the man
   is a hypocrite!

   It is the duty of every child of God to so live that he may confirm the
   witness of Christ. We should labor to do it in all the common things of
   daily life. "Whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to
   the glory of God." Some men think that religion lies only in great
   things. It does not, for it also lies in little things. Take any one
   day of our lives--we eat, drink, rise in the morning, go to bed at
   night--there is nothing very particular about the day. Our life is made
   up of little things and if we are not careful of little things, we
   shall not be careful of great ones. If we do not mind the little
   things, the great ones will go wrong. Oh, may you have Grace to live
   that the world may find no fault in you! And if in little things they
   see exactness and precision, (and too much precision will be better
   than the looseness of the morals of some professors), then they will
   say, "There is something in religion. That man's life has confirmed it
   in my mind because he lives up to it."

   Then, again, if you can bear the taunts of wicked men without returning
   them, that will be a good way of confirming religion. When I have
   entered into controversy with some men and have been betrayed into heat
   of temper, I could have bitten my fingers off that I should have done
   so! If you can keep your temper when men laugh at you and if, when they
   revile you, you do not return it, you will confirm the Truth of God.
   They will say, "There is something in that man's religion, otherwise he
   could not so keep his temper." You have read of James Haldane. Once,
   when unconverted, he threw a ship's tumbler at the head of a person who
   had insulted him. But when he was regenerated, on another occasion of
   insult, simply said, "I would resent it, but I have learned to forgive
   injuries and overlook insults." Men were obliged to say of him, "There
   is something in the religion which can bring such a lion as that down
   and make him such a lamb." Thus you will confirm the witness of Christ
   if you quietly endure persecution. If you can patiently bear the laugh
   and jeer of wicked men, you will confirm the Truth of God.

   The last confirmation you and I, my Friends, will ever be able to give
   to the witness of Christ is coming very soon. There is an hour when we
   shall no longer be able to confirm the Truth by living for it, for we
   must die, and that is the best confirmation of a man's principles--when
   he dies well. One of the noblest confirmations of the Christian
   religion is the fact that a man dies a peaceable, a happy and even a
   triumphant death. Oh, if when you come to die, you are able to say, "O
   death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" And if you
   can grasp the tyrant Death in your hands and hurl him to the ground and
   triumph in Him who said, "O death, I will be your plagues! O grave, I
   will be your destruction!" If you can die without fear, or repining, or
   remorse--knowing that you are forgiven. If you can die with the song of
   victory on your lips and with the smile ofjoy upon your countenance,
   then you will confirm the witness of Christ!

   In conclusion, let me urge you, as followers of Christ Jesus, as those
   whom He has loved with an everlasting love, as heirs of immortality, as
   those who have been rescued from the pit of destruction, as professors
   of religion, as members of a Christian Church--let me beseech you to
   make it your first and last objective to confirm the witness of Christ!
   Wherev-

   er you are, whatever you are doing, say within yourself, "I must so
   live and die that I may confirm the witness of Christ. I must so walk
   among my friends and neighbors that they will see that there is a truth
   and a power in religion." And let me warn you not to undertake this
   task in your own strength--you will need power from on high, from the
   Holy Spirit, a fresh supply of Grace from the Throne of the heavenly
   Grace. It is a good plan that some persons adopt--they walk home, after
   service, and when they get there, they have a few minutes in prayer
   with their God. It is a blessed way of clinching the nail and making a
   sermon count.

   So, dear Friend, go home, and say, "I solemnly vow, yet not in my own
   strength, but I solemnly vow, by Your Grace, that from this moment,
   forward, it shall be my aim to live more as a confirmer of the Truth of
   God! I did not know my high calling before, but I now know that I am a
   confirmer of Your Truth. Lord, help me so to live that there may never
   be any flaw in my conduct, never any vile word proceed out of my
   lips--make me so to live that I may confirm Your Truth! Lord, help me
   to confirm the witness of Christ!" Go and register that vow, and that
   resolution, and seek God's Grace that you may not let it be a vow not
   carried out, but may you be able to live to the Glory of God, and to
   the honor of His blessed name! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM84.

   A Psalm for the sons of Korah. You remember how Korah, Dathan and
   Abiram were destroyed because of their rebellion against the Lord and
   their revolt against His chosen servants, Moses and Aaron. And you, no
   doubt, recollect how it is recorded that "the children of Korah died
   not." Why they were spared, we cannot tell, except that it was an act
   of Sovereign Grace and if so, I can understand why they were afterwards
   selected to be among the chief singers in the house of the Lord, for
   who can sing so sweetly to the God of Grace as the men who have been
   saved by His Sovereign, distinguishing Grace? This Psalm is "for (or,
   of) the sons of Korah."--

   "Who can praise the blessed God,

   Like a sinner saved by Grace?

   Angels cannot sing so loud,

   Though they see Him face to face--

   Sinless angels can never know

   What a debt saved sinners owe." Verse 1. How amiable are Your
   tabernacles, O LORD of Hosts!The outer portions and the inner parts as
   well-- how lovely they all are! To be among Your people, to have sweet
   fellowship with them, how delightful it is, "O Lord of Hosts! "You
   dwell in Your tabernacles, O Jehovah of Hosts, like a king in the
   center of his army, and Your people encamp round about You!

   2. My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD. Those
   children of God who have been for even a little while exiled from the
   court of the Lord, prize them all the more when they get back to them.

   2. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. There gets to be
   so deep a longing to appear once more in the house of the Lord that
   even this clay-cold flesh of ours, which with difficulty becomes warm
   towards good things, at last melts and joins in the common cry of the
   Believer's whole being--"My heart and my flesh cry out for the living
   God."

   3. Yes, the sparrow has found a house. She is such a bold bird that she
   comes and picks up a crumb or two even in the courts of God's house!
   So, Lord, let me be one of Your sparrows today--"Yes, the sparrow has
   found a house,"--

   3. And the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, even
   Your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, and my God. God's house is dear
   to us for the benefit that it is to ourselves, but it is still dearer
   to us for our children's sake as a nest where we may lay our young.
   What a double mercy it is when young people love to come with their
   parents to the house of God!

   4. Blessed are they that dwell in Your house: they will still be
   praising You. Selah. The Psalmist felt that those who were always in
   the house of the Lord must always be full of music. I am afraid that it
   is not so in all cases, yet it should be.

   5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in You; in whose heart are the
   ways of them. The man who throws his whole heart and soul into his
   worship of the Lord and his service for the Lord, is the man who gets
   the greatest blessing out of

   the holy exercises in which he takes part. Half-hearted worshippers are
   an insult to God, but blessed is the man whose strength is in the Lord
   of Hosts and whose heart is in His ways.

   6. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also
   fills the pools. If they pass through valleys that are dreary and
   gloomy, they find them to be a benefit and a blessing, for they get
   refreshments on the road and also help to cheer other travelers.

   7, 8. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion
   appears before God. O LORD God of Hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O
   God of Jacob. Selah. David cannot go up with the multitude that keeps
   holy day so, feeling like Jacob when he was all alone at the brook
   Jabbok--like Jacob, he wrestles with God for a blessing. You can hear
   him crying out in the wilderness--"O Jehovah God of Hosts, hear my
   prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob," and He who heard the prayer of
   lonely Jacob by the brook, hears the cry of David and the cries of all
   His children who cannot join the great assembly of worshippers of God.

   9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed.
   Jesus is the "shield" of His people, and He is "anointed" for His
   people and there is, in Jesus, so much of all that is good that when
   the Father looks upon us in Him, He can see goodness even in us poor
   sinners, for the goodness of Christ overflows to us and is accounted
   ours!

   10. For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. Of course the
   Psalmist means that a day in God's courts is better than a thousand
   spent anywhere else. See how he contrasts nearly three years with a
   single day, and he might have gone even further and said, "Better is
   one day with God than a thousand years without Him." He gives us
   another contrast as he goes on to say--

   10-12. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to
   dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the LORD God is a sun and shield:
   the LORD will give Grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from
   them that walk uprightly. O LORD of Hosts, blessed is the man that
   trusts in You. May all of us know that blessedness, for our Lord Jesus
   Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ's Crowning Glory

   (No. 2876)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   5, 1876.

   "His glory is great in Your salvation: honor and majesty have You laid
   upon Him." Psalm 21:5.

   I FEEL quite sure that David here sings first concerning himself and
   then concerning the far greater King, "great David's greater Son," the
   Lord Jesus Christ. But I shall apply the text entirely to our blessed
   Redeemer and, surely, the Psalmist's language is most appropriate to
   Him.

   Some of us are going to meet, presently, around the Table of our Lord
   to commemorate His death for us and, of course, there must be some
   sorrowful processes connected with that ordinance. How can we remember
   His death without sorrowing over the sin which made that death
   necessary? How can we remember "that the Lord Jesus, the same night in
   which He was betrayed, took bread, and broke it," without feeling that
   there is a somberness of spirit which becomes us as we surround His
   Table? Yet we must not indulge the mournful strain too much, for we
   must never forget that it is a joyous feast, not a funeral repast, to
   which our Lord invites us! It is a feast which reminds us of His
   triumph as well as of His conflict and agony. "After supper," we are
   told, in the record of its institution, "they sang a hymn" and our Lord
   Jesus Christ would have us come to His Table in the spirit of
   hymn-singing, making melody in our hearts unto the Lord. No funeral
   dirge is appropriate, here, no muffled drums nor wailing pipes--but let
   the daughters of song sound the loud timbre, as Miriam and the women of
   Israel did at the Red Sea!

   Let it not be forgotten, too, that the last time this supper will ever
   be celebrated on earth, it will not die out amid groans and
   lamentations, but it will cease to be observed any longer because He
   will have come, whose coming will have been welcomed by the acclamation
   of all His saints, both those that are alive and remain, and those who
   come with the King and all His holy angels! This ordinance is full of
   joy, for each time it closes with a hymn when it is properly celebrated
   and, at the last, like all external symbols, it shall pass away amidst
   the hallelujahs of eternity! Come, then, Beloved, let us not be in a
   dolorous mood as we come to the Table of our Lord, but let us take all
   our harps down from the willows and wake their glad strings to exultant
   music! He, whom we remember in this ordinance, is not here, for He is
   risen! He is not there, on yonder crucifix. His wounds bleed no longer.
   No thorns surround His brow, no nails pierce His feet and hands, no
   spear tears open His side, for He has gone back into the Glory which
   was His before the worlds were made, and it is thus that we are now to
   think of Him--"His glory is great in Your salvation: honor and majesty
   have You laid upon Him."

   In meditating upon this text, we shall notice, first, that it reminds
   us of a Divine Salvation. Secondly, it sets forth the glory of Jesus in
   that salvation. And, thirdly, it reveals to us the reward which Jesus
   has obtained for that salvation-- "Honor and majesty have You laid upon
   Him."

   I. First, then, THE TEXT REMINDS US OF A DIVINE SALVATION. It speaks of
   "Yoursalvation" that is to say, the salvation of God, by which is
   intended, according to the Hebrew idiom, not merely the grandest of all
   salvations, the chief of all deliverances, but, actually, that the
   salvation of which we speak is God's! O Brothers and Sisters, though
   the Truth of God is very simple and the observations I shall make upon
   it may be very trite, yet is it a Truth never to be put in the
   background that "salvation is of the Lord"!

   Remember that the salvation of man is God's, in the conception of it He
   first conceived the idea of redeeming the rebellious sons of Adam. It
   must be so, for the sons of Adam were not born when the Lord first
   planned the way of their salvation. From old eternity, before yet the
   sun had opened its eye of fire, God, in far-reaching foresight had
   beheld the sons of Adam ruined by the Fall--and He resolved that, out
   of them He would choose a people who should be redeemed and who, to all
   eternity, should show forth His praise! From the august mind of the
   Infinite God, the first thought of salvation sprang and it was He who
   sketched and mapped it all out, electing unto eternal life as many as
   it pleased Him, settling the way by which they would be redeemed, the
   method by which they would be called, arranging the place, the day, the
   hour, the means by which they would be converted--fixing it all,
   according to His eternal purpose, in Infinite wisdom and prudence--for
   in every part it was to be of Him and through Him and to Him! Even as
   in the old tabernacle in the wilderness, every board, curtain, hook,
   silver socket, every badger skin and every vessel of the sanctuary was
   ordained by God--and man was only left to carry out God's plan--even so
   is it in the salvation of God! In its minutest details, as well as in
   its grand outline, the provisions of eternal love are of the Lord! And
   so it is in His salvation.

   But you know, dear Brothers and Sisters, that it was not only His in
   the arranging but it was also carried out by God. Who is He that has
   redeemed us by His blood, but He who is over all God, blessed forever?
   Who trod the winepress side by side with Him? Did He not stand there
   alone and, singlehanded, win the victory? And from where comes every
   blessing of salvation? Who provided it? Has man any share in the
   provision of any of the mercies by which sinners are taken out of sin
   into righteousness and raised from the ruins of the Fall to all the
   glories of Heaven? No, from first to last, all the provisions of
   eternal love are of the Lord! And so it is in His salvation.

   No, more than that, God has not only planned and provided everything
   relating to it, but it is He who applies the salvation which He has
   thus provided. No one believes that Jesus is the Christ but by the
   teaching of the Holy Spirit. "No man comes unto the Father but by Me,"
   says Christ. Much is said by some people about free will, but free will
   has never done anything in this world yet--unless moved by Free
   Grace--except to ruin mankind! Leave men to themselves and they are
   sure to choose that which is evil. As naturally as the river runs
   downwards to the sea, so does the heart of man turn towards that which
   is unclean. If the heart ever ascends towards holiness, Christ and God,
   it is because it is drawn upward by Divine Grace--and the Lord is
   working in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure. From the
   first sigh of repentance to the last hymn of thanksgiving, everything
   in us that is good is His workmanship! And so, in that respect, our
   salvation is of the Lord.

   And, Beloved, when it is all finished--when everyone who ever shall be
   called, has been called--when every one of the Lord's elect has been
   regenerated, justified, sanctified and glorified--when the whole of the
   blood-washed family of God shall surround His Throne above, all the
   glory shall be given unto the Lord alone! There will be no jarring note
   in Heaven, no whisper of human merit, no claim of a reward for good
   intentions--but every crown shall be cast at Jesus' feet and every
   voice shall join in the ascription, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto
   Your name be all the glory of the salvation which You have worked out
   for us from first to last."

   Let me pause, just a minute, to put this question to each one here--Do
   you, dear Friend, know anything about this salvation which is all of
   God? I fear that there are many who have no more religion than they
   have made themselves. Their religion is the result of their own efforts
   to improve themselves. Ah, Sirs, our Savior's words are still true,
   "You must be born-again!" And, as it was in our first birth, so must it
   be in our second birth--not our own act. Depend upon it, if all the
   good you have, has been fetched out of yourself as the spider draws its
   web out of its own bowels, it will all have to be brushed away! All
   that Nature spins will have to be unraveled, and all that Nature builds
   will have to be pulled down. God must save you, or you will be lost
   forever! The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity in
   Unity, must come upon you and quicken you into newness of life, and
   renew you in the spirit of your mind, or else you will fall short of
   that which is requisite for admission into the Kingdom of God.

   "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." The best flesh is only
   flesh and only "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
   Consequently, the Spirit of God must operate upon us, or else we shall
   remain unspiritual--not able to understand spiritual things--and not
   possessing that spiritual life without which we cannot enter, at the
   last, into the enjoyment of those spiritual pleasures which are at
   God's right hand forevermore. One thing I can say without any doubt. I,
   personally, know that it is God's salvation that has saved me. And I
   think I speak the mind of many here when I say that they feel that if
   the Holy Spirit does not work in them from the first to the last, their
   salvation will never be accomplished. I do

   not know any Doctrine which my experience more fully confirms than that
   to which Jonah gave utterance when he was in the whale's
   belly--"Salvation is of the Lord." It is, as our text reminds us, a
   Divine Salvation!

   II. Now, secondly, I come to the subject which I desire to impress most
   deeply upon your memory, that is, THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN THE SALVATION
   OF GOD--"His glory is great in Your salvation."

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, the tongues of men and angels can never fully
   tell the glory of Christ in salvation! It is a subject to be thought
   over by the loftiest intellects! It is a theme for men who lie awake at
   nights to meditate upon! It is a topic worthy of the thoughts of those
   who linger on the verge of Heaven! Dr. John Owen's pen was somewhat
   heavy in its style, but it never glowed and burned as much as when he
   wrote upon the Glory of Christ. This is a theme which the glo-rifled
   spirits before the Throne of God perpetually contemplate. And the more
   fit we are to be among them, the more delightful will this subject be
   to us. As to that Glory, oh, if I had the allotting and the measuring
   of it, what glory I would give to my dear Lord and Master! I read, the
   other day--I cannot exactly quote the words, though I give the sense--a
   sentence by Samuel Rutherford in which he said that he would like to
   pile up ten thousand million heavens upon the top of the third Heaven
   to which Paul was caught up--and put Christ in that high place--and
   then He would not be as high as He deserved to be put and, truly, no
   honors seem sufficient for Him who stripped Himself of all He had that
   He might become the Savior of sinners!

   And, first, it is His glory that He has redeemed His people from
   stupendous evils. When a statesman or a warrior rescues a country from
   a cruel despotism and brings to it the blessings of liberty, he
   deserves great praise. But, my Brothers and Sisters, the tyranny of
   sin, from which Christ has delivered His people, was a thousand times
   worse than the rule of the worst human despot! Consider, for a moment,
   the position in which His people were in the sight of God. They had
   sinned and they had, therefore, become exposed to the wrath of God.
   Unless some power greater than their own should intervene, they must be
   cast into Hell forever. God Himself could not lay aside His justice,
   for God would cease to be if He ceased to be just--and an unjust God is
   a contradiction in terms, an impossible combination! How, then, were
   these, who had sinned against God, to be delivered from the peril which
   hung over them? Moreover, they were held in bondage by sin, so that,
   even if the punishment of their past sin could be removed, they were
   still members of an enslaved race. Satan had cast his iron chains about
   them and they were led captive by him at his will.

   Ah, Sirs, it is from this bondage that Christ has set us free, for He
   has taken away our guilt, bearing it in His own body up to the tree and
   then hurling it away from the tree into His grave to be remembered
   against us no more forever! By bearing the punishment that was due to
   us, Christ has delivered us from the yoke of Satan and of sin and, by
   the wondrous redemption which He has worked out, and brought in, He has
   made His people "free indeed." No curse now hangs above their heads. No
   sin now has dominion over them, for they are not under the Law, but
   under Grace. Therefore, sound aloud your Deliverer's praises, all you
   who have been thus delivered! Think of what stupendous evils these were
   from which Christ set us free. To overthrow an oppressive empire is a
   great achievement. To rout the vast hordes that are led into the
   battlefield by great tyrants is no slight victory. The conqueror's
   statue is set up on high and his name is emblazoned upon the scroll of
   earthly fame. Then what honor shall be given to Christ who has set us
   free from mightier foes than ever trampled upon a nation's liberties?

   Recollect, too, that He has not only delivered us from stupendous
   evils, but, in the process, He has crushed the mightiest powers. It did
   seem, at one time, as if evil would got the mastery in God's universe.
   God had permitted the strange experiment, as it seemed, of making
   creatures gifted with free agency--with whose free agency He would not
   interfere. These creatures broke His Law. How was the evil to be
   prevented from spreading? They would multiply and increase as, indeed,
   they have done. And, multiplying and increasing, there would be many
   millions of spirits in the universe, all rebellious against God and,
   consequently, all suffering! There would be countless myriads, born
   into God's world, all bearing hearts of sin within their bosoms and
   all, therefore, subject to the wrath of God. How Satan exulted at the
   prospect of increasing evil!

   But when Jesus came into this world, He put His foot upon the head of
   the old dragon and so effectually crushed him to the earth so that he
   has never been able to rise again. Satan saw Christ hanging upon the
   Cross and thought that was his opportunity for gaining a decisive
   victory, yet it proved to be the hour of his greatest defeat! Death
   drove his sting right through the heart of Christ, but it so fixed
   itself in His Cross that it could never be drawn out again and, now
   that sting of death, which is sin, is gone, as far as all Believers in
   Christ are concerned. He has vanquished all the powers of

   evil--sin, death and Hell--and shattered their forces forever! Listen
   to this great shout of victory! Oh, that I had a voice loud enough to
   make it ring round the globe--"You have ascended on high, You have led
   captivity captive: You have received gifts for men, yes, for the
   rebellious, also, that the Lord God might dwell among them."

   Perhaps the main point of Christ's Glory in the salvation of His people
   is that He has achieved this by means which reflect unbounded honor
   upon His holy name. I have often read the story of Cromwell's Ironsides
   and, sympathizing deeply with them in the objective of their fight, I
   have greatly admired their stern courage and consecrated ardor. But,
   still, I cannot think of battles and of fighting for the best of
   objectives without something of a shudder, so I cannot approve of the
   means which they employed. Doubtless, our country owes her present
   liberties to those brave men, yet, for all that, I grieve over the
   awful price of blood at which those liberties were purchased. Our
   blessed Lord and Master conquered all our foes, but what were the
   weapons He used to secure so glorious a victory? Do you look up to Him
   and enquire, "Where is Your battle-axe, O Lord Jesus? Where are Your
   spear, Your sword, Your quiver and Your arrows?" He bids you look at
   His hands, His feet, His side, His heart--these are the weapons with
   which He overcame all the powers of darkness! There was much suffering
   in that awful conflict, but the suffering was all His own. There was a
   terrible gory sweat, but it came from His own body. There were wounds
   and there was death, but the wounds were in His precious body, the
   death was all His own. This is how evil was conquered--by love which
   denied itself, even to the death, for the sake of others! This is how
   human stubbornness was vanquished--by an almighty patience that could
   suffer at the hands of rebellious sinners till it bled to death! This
   is your death, O Death--this is your Hell, O Hell--this is your
   destruction, O Destruction--that God Himself bore the consequences of
   His creatures' sin!

   No, start not back at that expression, I pray you. Do not think of
   Christ as being separated from God. God did not find somebody else to
   be the Substitute for sinners, but He gave His only-begotten and
   well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, who is the equal and in all respects
   One with the Father. It was God Himself, in the Person of the Man
   Christ Jesus who bore the penalty that was due to human sin. It was
   God, in the Person of His Son, suffering, agonizing, groaning, dying,
   to put our sin away forever! I cannot conceive, nor do I think that
   cherubim and seraphim could conceive of anything more noble and more
   glorious than this Self-sacrifice of the Son of God! He conquers, not
   by making others suffer, but by sufferings all His own!

   A kindred thought to that is this. Christ's Glory is great in the
   Divine Salvation, because it developed and revealed the most wonderful
   attributes. Suppose England were to win a great victory at sea. We
   would probably ascribe it to her superior men-of-war. Generally,
   battles are decided, as Napoleon said, by the big battalions, or by the
   excellence of the weapons that are used by the soldiers. If one man has
   an old Brown Bess and another a modern rifle, we can pretty well guess
   on which side the victory will be. We call it, "glory," when one
   fellow, who is twice as big as another, knocks the little one down--at
   least, we call it, "glory," when the nation which has the better ships
   and the bigger army wins the victory. I saw a huge Newfoundland dog
   pick up a poodle and shake him--there was about as much "glory" in that
   as when great nations war against little ones and overpower them! It is
   the same kind of "glory" as being a bigger bully and having a harder
   fist and stronger muscles than anybody else. That may be the sort of
   glory for a bull, or a lion, or an ass--but it is not the glory that is
   suited to men--and especially to Christians. But when Christ came and
   redeemed us, there was, on His part, no display of physical or mere
   brute power. There was a display of power, but it was the power of
   goodness, the power to suffer, the power to be patient, the power to
   love. As if God said to men, "Sinners and rebels as you are, I love you
   more than you hate Me. And great as your badness is, My goodness shall
   overwhelm your badness, My pardoning mercy shall overpower your power
   to transgress."

   As the result of His death upon the Cross, our Lord Jesus has saved a
   multitude whom no man can number. And a part of His Glory consists in
   the fact that there are so many whom He has saved. The salvation of God
   is not for just a little privileged company. I know that certain
   "sound" brethren imagine that the blessings of salvation are confined
   to just a few favored individuals in Little Zoar, or Rehoboth--they
   delight in the idea that there are only a few that will be saved. I
   trust that we have no sympathy with such narrow views--for my own part,
   I rejoice to know that, in Heaven, there will be "a great multitude,
   which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
   tongues," who shall cry, "Salvation to our God which sits upon the
   Throne, and unto the Lamb." So our Lord Jesus Christ has great glory
   from the fact that He saves so many sinners.

   There is this peculiarity about all whom He saves, that they are
   attached to Him forever. His Glory is great in their salvation because
   everyone of them is, from that day forth, Christ's man, Christ's woman
   forever and forevermore. In travelling through France, lately, I have
   been greatly amused at seeing in various public squares, pedestals that
   were evidently intended for equestrian statues, but there are no
   statues upon them. And there are shields upon town halls which look as
   if there should have been medallions upon them, but there are no
   portraits where the medallions should have been. On making enquiries,
   you will find that a statue of Napoleon the Third used to stand on that
   pedestal and a medallion of him used to be on that town hall. That must
   be a fine country for stone-masons, because they so frequently have
   fresh governments and need, also, to have fresh statues! I have heard
   of a man, living in Paris, who used to ask, every morning, whether he
   was under a republic, or a monarchy, or an empire. And when he was told
   which it was, he was not at all sure that it would last till the
   evening. No matter how good the ruler has been, nor how many times they
   have painted his likeness, or set up his image, the moment he has ill
   fortune, away go all the representations of him!

   You would have thought that many rulers would have obtained a permanent
   place in the hearts of their people, yet we know from the history of
   various countries that very few have done so. Those who are idolized
   today are despised tomorrow. But our Lord Jesus has a Glory which is
   great in our salvation because His image is forever enshrined in our
   hearts! The great Napoleon hit the nail on the head when, at St.
   Helena, musing upon his own position, he said to one who walked with
   him, "Jesus Christ is the most wonderful of men. I founded an empire
   which has passed away, but His never will, and I see the reason for
   that. Mine was founded upon force, but Christ's is founded upon love."
   Ah, that is the reason for our devotion to Him! He has loved us so much
   that He has won us to Himself forever! These hands of mine are manacled
   with blessed, invisible, but unbreakable bands of love--never was I
   truly free until I felt those fetters binding me to my Lord! This heart
   of mine is fast riveted to Christ. It never was really my own till it
   became His, but now it is His forever and ever! "I bear in my body,"
   said Paul, "the marks of the Lord Jesus." He felt it to be an
   unspeakable honor to be the branded slave of Jesus Christ, with the
   Cross burnt into his very flesh by the suffering which he had endured
   for the sake of his dear Lord and Master!

   Truly, Brothers and Sisters, to rule over other men is a great thing.
   To have moral power over men is no mean matter. But to get men to so
   love you that they would willingly die for you--to get them to so love
   you that they would sooner cease to live than cease to love you--this
   is to occupy a glorious high throne! And such is the throne upon which
   Christ sits in the hearts of all His people! Such is the dominion which
   He wields over all the hosts that He has purchased with His precious
   blood! Well says the Prophet in our text--for the Psalmist was a true
   Prophet--"His glory is great in Your salvation."

   III. Now, thirdly, Our text REVEALS THE REWARD WHICH JESUS HAS OBTAINED
   FOR THIS GREAT

   SALVATION--"Honor and majesty have You laid upon Him." I do not intend
   to preach upon this last point, but only to give you a few sentences by
   way of an outline of the honor and majesty which God the Father has
   laid upon Christ.

   First, our Lord Jesus Christ has been exalted, as Man, to reign over
   the angels. As God, He was always Ruler, Governor and Lord of all. But
   the Man Christ Jesus died, was buried and rose again--and then ascended
   into Glory--and now He is Head over all principalities and powers, and
   all the holy angels that have never fallen, delight to do His bidding.
   My Brother, in that very sweet prayer before the sermon, to which I
   assented with all my heart, pleaded that we might get a view of Jesus
   Christ within the veil in His Glory. That is how I want you to think of
   Him--that very Man who hung upon the tree. That very Man who was the
   butt of all the reproaches and scorn of His enemies, now sits upon the
   Throne of God and around Him all the cherubim and seraphim are
   gathered, all worshipping and adoring Him and praising and magnifying
   His holy name!

   Then, my Brothers and Sisters, God has given to the Lord Jesus to be
   the Head of His Church. Over all the redeemed, on earth and in Heaven,
   Christ presides and rules. While He is the Lord of the angels, He is
   also the Lord of all elect men. His Father gave them to Him from
   eternity and made Him to be the Head and made them to be the members of
   His mystical body. Christ is the one and only Head and supreme Ruler of
   His Church. It is true that there are men who sat themselves up as
   governors of Christ's Church. And there is an antichrist, at Rome, who
   calls himself the head of the church, but that is only a wicked
   fiction, a manifest lie! There is but one Head of the Church and that
   is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only supreme Ruler and before Him
   all His loyal subjects bow. "Honor and majesty have You laid upon Him."

   Being Head of His Church, He is also Head over all things outside of
   His Church in which His Church is concerned. Joseph ruled Egypt for the
   good of Israel and, in like manner does Christ rule the whole world for
   the good of His people. All the arrangements of Providence are under
   His control. Nothing is done in the entire universe without His command
   or His permission. Does that statement startle you? It is,
   nevertheless, true! He who was made Lord of the angels, has had all
   things put under His feet and He is, at this moment, Lord of all! And,
   Brothers and Sisters, we shall see this demonstrated soon, for He is
   coming. As surely as He went up to Heaven, literally and Personally, so
   surely will He comes again, literally and Personally--and when He does
   come, it will be as Ruler and Lord over all, for He will come to judge
   the quick and the dead according to His Gospel. Then will all created
   intelligences behold the honor and majesty which God has put upon Him!

   There will have to appear, before the Judgment Seat of the Nazarene,
   the spirits that fell ages upon ages ago. Satan shall come and receive
   his final sentence and be banished forever to Hell. Then shall come the
   unbelieving world, to hear from Christ's lips the terrible message,
   "Depart, you cursed!" The earth shall reel beneath His Presence--that
   earth which could scarcely lend Him a sepulcher. And Heaven and earth
   shall flee away from that Face which earth once seemed to scorn and
   Heaven to forget! Ah, it will be seen who the Christ is in that day! A
   trumpet blast more terrible than that which startled the echoes of
   Sinai shall ring over land and sea. A cloud shall come and on it shall
   stand the Great White Throne--and upon it shall be seated the "Man of
   Sorrows and acquainted with grief." But, oh, how changed!--

   "With rainbow wreath and robes of storm," He shall come--with a face
   shining above the brightness of the sun and with eyes like flames of
   fire, He shall come in all the Glory of His Father, with all His holy
   angels to attend Him, and to swell the triumph of His appearing! O
   Brothers and Sisters, let us anticipate that glorious appearing and
   begin to clap our hands with exultation over our Lord's triumphal
   advent!

   But are we all His people? Do not desire that day if you are not His,
   for the Day of the Lord will be darkness, not light, to all who are His
   enemies! The more glorious Christ is to His own people, the more
   dreadful will His appearance be to you if you live as unbelievers and
   if you die without trusting in Him! O Christians, I bid you be glad in
   your Lord, and I also bid you pray for the unsaved, that they may
   trust, and love, and serve Jesus, too--and rejoice with you in
   recollecting that He is coming again to receive unto Himself all to
   whom He is both Lord and Savior! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 7:18-50.

   Verse 18. And the disciples of John showed him of all these thing. John
   was in prison and, possibly, troubled in spirit.

   19. And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus
   saying, are you He that should come? Or look we for another? Did John
   doubt? Perhaps not. It may be that he saw that his disciples doubted
   and that he wished their fears to be removed. It is possible, however,
   that he did have doubts. It is no unusual thing for the bravest hearts
   to be subject to fits of doubt. Elijah, you remember, sat under a
   juniper tree in the wilderness, "and he requested for himself that he
   might die," though he was the man who never was to die. And John--the
   Elijah of the Christian dispensation, though a man of iron, was but a
   man, so he sent two of his disciples to Jesus, saying, "Are you He that
   should come, or look we for another?"

   20-22. When the men were come unto Him, they said, John the Baptist has
   sent us unto You, saying, Are You He that should come, or look we for
   another? And in that same hour He cured many of their infirmities and
   plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind He gave
   sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John
   what things you have seen and heard. Our old proverb says that actions
   speak louder than words, so an answer in His actions would be more
   eloquent with these enquirers than even an answer in our Lord's own
   words. He bade them look at the evidences of His Messiahship which He
   gave them by His miraculous cures, and then He said to them, "Go your
   way, and tell John what things you have seen and heard." It would be
   well if our lives were such that if any enquired what we were, we
   should only have to say that they might judge us by what they had seen
   and heard in our common everyday life and conversation!

   22, 23. How that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,
   the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached.
   And blessed is he, whoever shall not be offended in Me. According to
   our Lord's testimony, the preaching of the Gospel to the poor is as
   great a proof of His Messiahship as the raising of the dead! Then how
   highly it ought to be prized by them and how glad should they be who
   have the Gospel now preached freely in their hearing!

   24. And when the messengers of John were departed, He began to speak
   unto the people concerning John, What did you go out into the
   wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?The wind on the banks of
   the Jordan, where there are plenty of reeds growing--did you see a man
   who would bow before every breath of popular favor or popular wrath?
   Was John the Baptist such a man as that? No, certainly not.

   25. But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?
   Behold, they which are gorgeously appareled, and live delicately, are
   in kings'courts. They do not preach repentance. As is their clothing,
   so is their doctrine. They try to show a royal road to Heaven--a smooth
   and easy path. But was John the Baptist a preacher of that kind? No,
   that he was not.

   26-28. But what did you go out to see? A Prophet? Yes, I say unto you,
   and much more than a Prophet This is he, of whom it is written, Behold,
   I send'My messenger before Your face, which shallprepare Your way
   before you. For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women
   there is not a greater Prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is
   least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he. Passing into the
   dispensation of clearer Light of God, he who is least among the
   Believers of the Gospel of Jesus is, in some respects, greater than
   this man who could only preach repentance and point to a coming Savior!

   29-32. And all the people that heard Him, and the publicans, justified
   God, being baptized with the Baptism of John. But the Pharisees and
   lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not
   baptized of him. And the Lord said, To what, then, shall I liken the
   men of this generation? And to what are they like? They are like unto
   children sitting in the marketplace. At play--the playing of children
   is often according to the manners and customs of grown up people.

   32. And calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and
   you have not danced. ' 'You would not play a merry game when we asked
   you to do so."

   32. We have mourned to you, and you have not wept. "You would not play
   either at funerals or weddings."

   33. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine;
   and you say, he has a devil "He came among you as an ascetic, denying
   himself, not only the luxuries of life, but even the common comforts
   that others enjoyed. And you say, 'He has a devil.'"

   34. The Son of Man is come eating and drinking.' 'He does not pretend
   to be an ascetic. He comes, on the contrary, to show that neither meat
   nor drink can save a man. What do you say, then, of this Son of Man?"

   34, 35. And you say, Behold a gluttonous Man, and a winebibber, a
   friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her
   children. Though the world contemns all wisdom's children, whichever
   way they go, and is not pleased with their manners, whatever manners
   they possess, yet, in the long run, when the Wisdom of God shall be all
   unfolded, it will be seen that the roughness of John and the gentleness
   and loving kindness of Jesus were both right in their proper place. If
   fish are not caught in the Gospel fishery, it may sometimes be the
   fisherman's fault, but more often it is the fault of the fish. Here we
   have two very different kinds of fishermen, yet neither of them
   attracts all, though each of them draws some.

   36, 37. And one of the Pharisees desired Him that He would eat with
   him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat And,
   behold. For it is a wonder of Divine Grace--"Behold."

   37. A woman in the city, which was a sinner A sinner by profession, a
   public and notorious sinner.

   37-44. When she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house,
   brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at His feet behind Him
   weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with
   the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the
   ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden Him saw it, he spoke
   within himself, saying, This Man, ifHe were a Prophet, would have known
   who and what manner of woman this is that touches Him: for she is a
   sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, Ihave somewhat to say
   unto you. And he said, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor who
   had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
   And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me
   therefore, which of them will love him

   more? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave
   most. And He said unto him, You have rightly judged. And He turned to
   the woman, and said unto Simon, See you this woman? I entered into your
   house, you gave Me no water for My feet. "Though it was only a common
   act of courtesy, such as should always be shown to a guest, you did
   neglect that."

   44. But she has washed My feet with tears, and wiped them with the hair
   of her head.''She has given My feet no common washing, for she has
   washed them with her tears. You would only have brought Me a linen
   napkin, but she has wiped them with the hairs of her head.'"

   45. You gave Me no kiss. Which was usually given as a greeting to
   guests at that time. Simon had not given to Jesus the honor which was
   due to Him, which would have been to kiss His forehead.

   45. But this woman since the time I came in has not ceased to kiss My
   feet. Every word is emphatic to show how far she had gone beyond Simon,
   who thought himself so much better than she was.

   46. My head with oil you did not anoint. Another usual Eastern custom
   with guests whom the host intended to honor.

   46. But this woman has anointed My feet with ointment. Anointed them,
   not with ordinary olive oil, but with precious costly ointment.

   47. Therefore I say unto you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven;
   for she loved much. "You know that her sins were many, and I tell you
   that they have been forgiven, and you can see, by her actions, that she
   loves much."

   47, 48. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. And He
   said unto her, Your sins are forgiven. What music that sentence, "Your
   sins are forgiven," must have been to her! "Ah," says one, "I also
   should like to hear that sentence. Beyond everything else in the whole
   world would I desire to hear Jesus say to me, 'Your sins are
   forgiven.'" Then put yourself in the place that this woman occupied.
   When Joab clung to the horns of the altar, he had to die there, but
   this woman had fled to the feet of Jesus--and she did not die
   there--nor shall you, but at those blessed feet, weeping for sin, and
   trusting the great Sin-Bearer, you shall receive assurance of pardon.
   "Your sins are forgiven."

   49, 50. And they that sat at meat with Him began to say within
   themselves, Who is this that forgives sins also? And He said to the
   woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace. He did not want this
   young convert, this beginner in the Christian life to hear the
   bickering and controversies of these coarse spirits, so He said to her,
   "Go in peace."

   And, dear Soul, if you have begun to find out that even in the
   Christian Church there are many opinions concerning many things, do not
   trouble yourself about those things. This is enough for you--"Your
   faith has saved you; go in peace." There may be some who are galled to
   contend for this or that point of the faith but, as for you, poor
   Child, if, with your broken heart you have found the Savior and if you
   love Him with an inward, warm and hearty love, do not spoil that love
   by getting into a controversial spirit--"Your faith has saved you; go
   in peace."
     __________________________________________________________________

Trials Expected and Conquered

   (No. 2877)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   12, 1876.

   "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the
   rivers, they shall not overflow you, when you walk through the fire,
   you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I
   am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior: I gave Egypt
   for your ransom, Ethiopia and SSeba for you." Isaiah 43:2,3.

   EVEN down to the present day, the Jewish nation has not been destroyed.
   It has been made to pass through fire and through water. The story of
   the persecution of the Jews, both in earlier and later times, would
   fill many volumes with the most harrowing details. Had they not been a
   people whom God specially ordained to remain as His witnesses until the
   Messiah comes again, they would have utterly perished from among the
   sons of men! They have been a people scattered and peeled, rent and
   torn, hunted and harried--yet they still exist. For many a century they
   were equally abhorred by the heathen and the so-called Christians, yet
   they have lived on and they will continue to live on until a new heart
   and a right spirit shall be given to them and the Lord shall, in His
   great mercy, take away the blindness which in part has happened to
   Israel, so that they shall look on Him whom they have pierced and shall
   mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son. Then shall come the glory
   of the Gentiles, when more than the former glory of Israel shall be
   restored to her.

   But, Brothers and Sisters, every promise in the Scriptures, of a
   spiritual nature, which is made to the literal people of Israel and to
   the seed after the flesh, is, according to the Inspired teaching of the
   Apostle Paul, yet more fully made to the seed of Abraham after the
   spirit--for all Believers are his spiritual seed. Was he not the father
   of all the faithful, not of the circumcision only, but of them, also,
   who are uncircumcised, if they trust in the living God? To us, then, as
   well as to the literal Israel, is this promise made. And to the Church
   of God, as a whole, will it be fulfilled, even as it has been fulfilled
   to her thus far. Her martyrologists have told us how often she has gone
   through fire and through water, but the floods have not drowned her,
   neither have the flames consumed her. At this time she stands in a
   wealthy place--her Lord has set her feet in a large room. Her banner
   still floats upon the breeze. No weapon that is formed against her
   shall prosper and every tongue that rises against her in judgment, she
   shall condemn. For her there is a noble destiny. Her full glory is not
   yet revealed, but we know that when her heavenly Bridegroom shall
   appear in His Glory, His bride shall share in it with Him. Yes,
   Beloved, we who believe in Jesus are on the winning side--we are on the
   side which has God with it and Christ with it, and eternity with
   it--and the appointed day shall reveal that this is the conquering
   side!

   But, further, this promise, while it applies to the whole Church of
   God, also applies to every individual in that Church, for it is a rule,
   with the promises of God, that you may break them up as small as you
   please, but they will still be after the same fashion as at the first.
   Like certain crystals, which, if you break them again and again, and
   again, retain the same crystalline form--which is their natural
   form--so a Divine promise that is true to the whole corporate body of
   the Church, is also true to every one of the members of that Church--
   and true to every one of those members in every trial into which that
   member may be cast! Take you, then, this promise to yourselves,
   Beloved! You who are in Christ Jesus and who worship God in the Spirit,
   claim this promise as made to you, just as much as if God had spoken it
   out of the excellent Glory right into your ear, or as much as if you
   saw Him writing, with His own eternal pen, these precious sentences as
   a personal epistle to you, for He does speak them and write them to you
   by His ever-blessed Spirit!

   On looking at our text, we see that it very readily divides itself into
   three parts. The first is this--trials must be expected by Believers.
   You may have to go through fire and through water. But, secondly,
   trials will not be able to destroy you. You have, in the text, the most
   express declaration that you shall neither be overwhelmed nor consumed.
   And, thirdly, of this blessed fact, we have the very highest assurances
   given to us. They are found in the third verse of this chapter, where
   we have argument after argument to prove to us that God will be with
   His people, to deliver them when they are called to pass through rivers
   of trial or through fiery tribulations.

   I. First, then, TRIALS ARE TO BE EXPECTED BY BELIEVERS.

   I suppose that some young Christians imagine that the favorites of
   Heaven will never be tried, but it is not so. The first verse of this
   chapter bids us fear not, for God has redeemed us and called us by our
   names, and we are His. And we might, therefore, draw the conclusion
   that we could live at our ease, enjoy all manner of luxuries and, as
   the chosen people of God, be protected from every wintry blast!
   Beloved, it is not so--if you are heirs of the Kingdom of God, you are
   also, most assuredly, heirs of tribulation, for your Lord has declared,
   "In the world you shall have tribulation." If you are soldiers in the
   army of Christ, you are not intended to win the victory without a
   conflict! And if you are ordained to wear a crown above, you are
   certainly equally ordained to bear a cross below. Grace does not bring
   luxury in its train, nor does it lull us into a sweet slumber and carry
   us to the skies--

   "On flowery beds of ease."

   No, we must fight if we would reign! We must suffer for Christ if we
   would be glorified with Him. Our text speaks about all this as if it
   were a matter of course--"When you pass through the waters...and
   through the rivers...when you walk through the fire," just as if we
   hardly needed to be told that it would be so!

   Our text tells us that these trials will be of various kinds. We use
   the expression, "through fire and through water," to signify a variety
   of severe trials. If you are a true child of God, you will have to go
   through the waters. You will have to endure trial of a certain kind
   which will chill you to the very marrow--trial which will seem to sweep
   you off your feet, take away from you your foot-hold and carry you
   along, with its rapid current, where it pleases. You must expect to
   have trials of that sort. And after you have endured them long, you
   must not delude yourself with the promise of relief, for, when one
   trouble has gone, another will come and it will probably be of a
   different character from the last one you had and will require the
   exercise of another kind of Grace and another form of watchfulness!
   Instead of being in the water, you will be in the fire--you will not be
   chilled, now, but heated, like molten metal in a furnace--and the
   fierce flame will be all around you, alarming you and filling you with
   dismay and distress. It is a different trial altogether from any that
   you had experienced before. You know how, in one day, the wind often
   blows from quite opposite quarters of the compass and how, in a few
   hours, we have, first snow, then rain, then sunshine, then wind, then
   snow again, then sleet, and I scarcely know what beside--a sort of
   epitome, in one day, of human life--yet a strange day, as most human
   lives are--a day one never wishes to have repeated, but is glad when it
   is over? God's children would not wish to live their lives over again
   and they are glad when they come to the evening and can undress, and go
   to the place of rest. But, in the meantime, if they are wise, they will
   expect a variety of trials to come to them.

   And our text seems to intimate that some of these trials will be very
   terrible ones--"When you pass through the rivers"--strong, rapid rivers
   that come rushing down from the hills, like Kishon, the mighty flood
   which swept away Jabin and his hosts--deep, impassable rivers, perhaps,
   through which, nevertheless, you will have to pass--rivers which are
   like the Jordan which overflows all its banks at the time of harvest.
   There will come to you trials like these and it will sometimes seem as
   if you never could get over them--as if, now, your Christian career
   must end, and end in failure, even as the pilgrim's course would end in
   drowning if, in attempting to ford a rapid river, he was swept away.
   And if the flood is so terrible, what shall I say of the fire? It is
   the nature of the flood to overwhelm, but it is the nature of the fire
   to consume. There are certain trials that could overwhelm our faith and
   speedily consume us if there were not a secret source of
   strength--Divine, Omnipotent--within our hearts and round about us. If
   it were not true that "the Lord sits upon the flood: yes, the Lord sits
   King forever," the rivers would long ago have overwhelmed us. And if it
   were not that He makes the flaming fire to be His messenger and the
   burning heat to be His servant, we would have been utterly consumed!

   But we shall not be, although the trial, if it could work in its own
   way, would have this result. You may quite expect that between here and
   Heaven, if you have not met with it yet, you will have enough trouble
   to destroy you utterly unless the Lord is your Helper. I suppose that
   the most of us can already sing with the Psalmist, "If it had not been
   the Lord

   who was on our side, now may Israel say--if it had not been the Lord
   who was on our side, when men rose up against us: then they had
   swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: then
   the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul." But
   because the Lord has been with us, therefore our adversaries have not
   been able to prevail over us.

   Our trials have not only been varied and terrible, but they have been
   many times repeated. I do not think it is merely the parallelism of the
   Hebrew poetry which requires the reduplication of the sentences here,
   or, if it is, yet even then we may suppose the poetry to be typical of
   the trials of the Believer's life. We have to pass through the waters
   and, after that, through the waters again, only, this second time, it
   is called through the rivers. We are encompassed, at one time, with
   fire and, by-and-by, the fire comes again--only this time it is called
   flame, as if the fire raged yet more furiously. No, my young Friend,
   you are not done with temptation yet, and not even with the temptation
   which you have overcome, for it may return in another form! No, my
   Brothers and Sisters, you have not seen the last of your corruption,
   not even of that corruption which you consider to be quite dead. You
   have not yet passed through all the trials which Satan will cause you,
   or which the world will cause you, or which the flesh will cause you.
   You will have to go through not merely one river, but many rivers, and
   through, not simply one fire, but through many fires before you come,
   at last, to God's right hand in Glory!

   And this is sometimes the sharpest pinch of our tribulation, that it
   comes upon us again and again. We have all read, with great interest,
   the story of Job's many trials and we have felt that the force of them
   was increased by the declaration of messenger after messenger, "I,
   only, am escaped alone to tell you." First the oxen and asses were
   stolen by the Sabeans and the servants that were with them were killed.
   Then the sheep and their keepers were slain by lightning. Then, the
   Chaldeans captured the camels and slew the servants in charge of them.
   Last of all came the terrible tidings of the death of all his children!
   It was stroke upon stroke, sorrow upon sorrow, trouble upon
   trouble--and it is this repetition of trial that bows even a strong man
   down and that makes the firmest Believer begin to doubt and tremble!
   But, Beloved, you must expect wave upon wave, trial upon trial. You are
   not, as a soldier, after having fought one battle, to take off your
   regimentals and retire to your tent and say, "I have won the victory."
   That battle is but the beginning of a long campaign--and you will have
   to endure the smoke and dust of the battlefield and the garments rolled
   in blood, time after time--before the victor's wreath shall at last
   surround your brow! So, your trials will be repeated, as well as varied
   and terrible.

   And, mark you, according to the text, these trials are inevitable.
   "When you pass through the waters." It is taken for granted that you
   have to go through them. There is no bridge and there is no boat by
   which you can pass over these waters--and no tunnel by which you can go
   underneath them--so you must go through them. Then it is added, "When
   you walk through the fire." There is nothing said about putting out the
   fire, or about waiting until the flame burns low, or the embers begin
   to cool. No, you have to go through the fire and through the water. You
   have not merely to dip your feet in the waves of trouble--you have to
   go through them. You have not merely to go and just singe yourself a
   little in the flame--it is through the fire that you have to go and
   that fire will be like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace when it was heated
   seven times hotter than usual. It is not a fire for you to warm your
   hands--you have to tread those glowing coals--possibly with bare feet.
   Are you prepared to endure that fiery ordeal? Can you so trust in the
   living God as to feel sure that when you get into the midst of the
   burning fiery furnace, there will be with you one like unto the Son of
   God, who will preserve you by His gracious Presence? God does not
   promise His people any immunity from trouble. In fact, He has foretold
   that they shall have trouble. As there is no royal road to learning, so
   there is no royal road to Heaven--

   "The path of sorrow and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow
   is unknown." Make up your mind that you have to go through these trials
   and ask the Lord to give you Grace and courage that you may be able to
   endure unto the end. These trials of the saints are appointed and
   ordained and they have their destined end, so, depend upon it, if you
   are a child of God, you will have more or less of them. If you have
   more, then you shall have the more consolation. If you have less, you
   may be grateful for the Lord's tenderness towards you and not wish for
   more. But rest assured that all God's children will be baptized with
   fire! He has had one Son without sin, but He has never had one child
   without suffering--all the sons and daughters of God are brought under
   the rod of the Covenant and are made to feel the chastising strokes of
   their wise Father's hand.

   II. Now, secondly, I have to remind you that TRIALS SHALL NOT DESTROY
   BELIEVERS.

   First of all, they shall not divide Believers from their God. That
   would be destruction, indeed, but it can never be. Notice the first
   sentence of our text--"When you pass through the waters." But, my Lord,
   will those waters roll between You and me? No, for, "I will be with
   you." Then, Lord, let them roll, for I can say, with the Apostle Paul,
   "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
   principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
   height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
   from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." "Quis
   separabit?" "Who shall separate us?" asks the Apostle and the answer
   is, "None shall separate us," for God and His people are indivisible!
   If I said no more and sat down, there would be enough comfort, I think,
   in that thought, to make you ready to rush through floods and flames
   where Jesus leads the way. "When you pass through the waters, I will be
   with you." You shall not have less of God because you are poor, or
   because you are sick, or because your mother is taken from you, or your
   children are, one by one, caught up into Heaven. Oh, no, in your
   losses, crosses and troubles, you shall realize the Presence of God
   even more conspicuously than you have ever done before!

   Our text does not say, "When you shall tread the flowery mountain and
   rest upon the soft green bank, I will be with you." I never remember
   reading, in the Scriptures, a promise of that kind, or one like
   this--"When you walk upon close-shaven grass, which seems like a carpet
   beneath your feet, I will be with you." No, but God says, "When you
   pass through the waters, I will be with you." He gives a special
   promise for a special time of trial and, to meet the doubt which has so
   troubled His child, He says, "Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have
   called you by your name; you are Mine."

   Then our text tells us that neither the waters nor the seas shall stop
   the Believer's march--"When you pass through the waters, I will be with
   you." It does not say, "When you get to the waters, you shall stop
   there." They cannot stop us--we are to go through them! Our way to
   Heaven lies through that flood--then, through that flood we will go!
   God has ordained that no troubles, however great, and no persecutions,
   however terrible, shall stop the onward march of a soul predestinated
   to eternal joy. Suppose it is a deep and rapid river, whose swollen
   torrent seems to sweep everything before it? We shall go through it! We
   shall neither be stopped by it, nor swept away by it, for the promise
   is, "When you pass through the rivers, they shall not overflow you."

   But what about the fire? Can we got through that? Surely we are not
   fireproof--we wear no asbestos garment that shall preserve us from the
   devouring flames. Yes, Brothers and Sisters, you shall pass through the
   fire as well as through the water! Our text implies that your march
   through the flame shall be quiet, calm and safe, for the Lord says,
   "When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned." There is no
   need to quicken your usual pace. If I had to go through literal fire, I
   would want to run and leap through it, but the Believer is,
   spiritually, to walk through the fire. That is a beautiful passage in
   the 23rd Psalm--"Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
   death, I will fear no evil." Walking is the pace at which men go when
   nothing distresses or alarms them. "He that believes shall not make
   haste," but shall walk even through the fire! What a blessing it is
   that, as no trouble shall separate us from God, so no trouble shall
   hinder our progress towards Heaven, but, through Divine Grace, whether
   floods or flames are in the way, we shall go through them!

   Our text further says that some trials which threaten to overwhelm us,
   shall not be able to do so--"The rivers... shall not overflow you." You
   may be carried off your feet and have to take to swimming--the blessed
   swimming of faith, which casts itself upon Divine strength and spreads
   out its hands as the bold swimmer does! The water will sometimes,
   perhaps, be near your head for a minute, the spray will dash into your
   eyes and the brine will be in your throat--but the waves shall not
   overflow you, however furiously they may rage around you. There are
   some trials which seem as if they must crush the life out of those to
   whom they come. Possibly you are saying, "I do believe, but I am in
   such a turmoil, that my mind seems quite upset. I am exceedingly
   sorrowful, almost to the death of my faith." Ah, but it shall not be
   quite to the death of your faith--the floods shall not overflow you!

   Other trials seem as if they would consume you, as if, with fierce and
   burning vehemence, they would destroy you as a martyr burns at the
   stake. But what does our text say? "When you walk through the fire, you
   shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." You
   shall not lose faith, or hope, or love, or patience, or any Christian
   Grace! You shall come out of the fire as you went into it--no, you
   shall be improved by the flame, for our text says, if we read it in the
   Hebrew, "When you pass through the fire, you shall not be scorched,
   neither shall the flame burn you." We remem-

   ber that when those three brave witnesses for God came out of the
   burning fiery furnace, not so much as the smell of fire had passed upon
   them! I think I see the Babylonians crowding around them and asking, in
   amazement, "Are these men alive? We saw the guards, who cast them into
   the fire, consumed by the great heat of the furnace--and are these men
   alive who were actually in the midst of the flames?" They had to come
   close and touch them, to make sure that they were not ghosts or
   apparitions. When they had grasped the hand of one of the three, to see
   whether it was alive, they next would want to examine it. But had not
   the fire scorched their eyebrows, or their hair? No, "the fire had no
   power; nor was a hair of their head singed." They were just as they
   were when they went into the burning fiery furnace! It was very amazing
   and, in like manner, the child of God, sustained by Divine Grace, will
   be none the worse for all his troubles!

   Look at Job after all his trials. The Lord gave him twice as much as he
   had before--and he was neither the weaker, nor the less honorable for
   all he had been called to endure. No, he was a gainer by it all! O
   Brothers and Sisters, the gold loses nothing in the fire but what it is
   glad to lose! The silver in the crucible loses none of its real
   preciousness--it only loses its alloy. So shall it be with you,
   Beloved!

   III. The latter part of our text supplies us with THE ARGUMENTS AND
   ASSURANCES WHICH GO TO PROVE THAT THIS WILL BE THE CASE WITH BELIEVERS.

   And the first is, "For I am Jehovah "Ah, Brothers and Sisters, if you
   and I are trusting to anything short of the one living and true God,
   the rivers will overwhelm us and the fires will consume us! But if our
   living faith rests on the living God, it is not possible for us to have
   reason to be ashamed or confounded, world without end! I ask without
   any fear as to the answer that may be given to me--Did any man ever
   trust in God and find himself forsaken? Has it ever come to pass, in
   all the history of the Church of God, that one single heir of Heaven
   has had cause to be ashamed of his hope and his belief in his God? If
   you rely on an arm of flesh, you will soon find it fail you. If you
   turn to idol gods, and earthly priests, they will all prove useless to
   you in your hour of trial--but it is not so with any who trust in the
   Lord! Have we not seen the saints on their deathbeds--yes, seen them in
   excruciating pain and in deep depression of spirit! Yet they have never
   been ashamed of staying themselves upon their God. They have always
   found this to be an Infallible protection in the time of their deepest
   need--"I am Jehovah."

   Now, child of God, are you afraid of the fire, or are you afraid of the
   flood when you have the self-existent, eternal, almighty, unchangeable
   God to trust to? O Man, be afraid to be afraid, and fear to fear, but
   trust in God at all times! And, with dauntless courage, go wherever He
   leads or points the way! It is the living God in whom you trust,
   therefore, when you pass through the rivers, they shall not overflow
   you! When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned!

   The next assurance lies in the words, "your God.""I am the Lord your
   God." Ah, the God in whom you trust is your own God! The God who, in an
   Everlasting Covenant, has taken you to be His servant and has given
   Himself to you, to be your Father, your Friend, your All-in-All--in a
   word, your GOD! Now, my dearest earthly friend may fail me. The
   choicest companion I have may forget me. But my God never will. There
   is an enduring relationship which can never end in disappointment. "'I
   am your God.' Yours, for I chose you. Yours, for I redeemed you. Yours,
   for I have taken you to be Mine and I have made Myself to be yours in
   the Covenant of everlasting love. Trust Me, then, for, 'I am your God,'
   so I cannot forsake you. 'Can a woman forget her sucking child, that
   she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, she may
   forget, yet will I not forget you.' 'I am Jehovah your God.' If I am
   nobody else's God, I am your God, so, 'when you walk through the fire,
   you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame even scorch you.'"

   Now turn to the next words, " the Holy One of Israel." When David
   wrote, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His
   holy name," why did he select the holinessof God's name as the
   objective of special blessing? If you sound the word a little
   differently, you will see that holiness is whole-ness--and that is one
   of its meanings. God is holy or whole. His holiness comprehends all His
   other attributes. If there were a failure in any one of the moral
   attributes of God, He would not be whole, or holy! But there is no such
   failure. So, now, the whole of God--the holy guarantees to the Believer
   that he shall be preserved in all perils and trials!

   You are not trusting to a God that can lie, or that can break His
   promise, for He is "the Holy One of Israel." You are not relying upon
   One who will divorce His people whom He has espoused unto Himself, for
   the Lord, the God of Israel, says that He hates putting away. You are
   not trusting to One who, after all, will repent of what He has promised
   and not fulfill it, for, "God is not a man, that He should lie; neither
   the son of man, that He should change His mind: has He said, and shall
   He not do it? Or has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" The
   holiness of God is terrible to an

   unreconciled soul, but, to a heart that is reconciled to God, the
   holiness of God's Nature is a pledge that every one of His promises
   shall be kept and that not one jot or tittle of all that He has
   guaranteed to His people shall fail to come to them. Look, then,
   Believer, at the guarantees of your safety which you have in the very
   Nature of your God! Whether the rivers flow about you, or the raging
   sea roars in your ears, or the furnace pours forth its vehement heat,
   or the prairie is on fire all around you, you are at all times safe!

   Then there is a further word of assurance--"the Holy One of Israel,
   your Savior." Now, to be true to His name, He must save all who trust
   in Him. Why does He call Himself the Savior--and especially put in the
   words, "your Savior"-- if He does not save, and save you? Come,
   Believer, surely it needs no words of mine to draw out the force of
   this argument. If He does not save, He is not a Savior! And if He does
   not save you, He is not yourSavior. But if you believe on Him, He will
   redeem His word--every iota of it! As honorable businessmen meet their
   bills and notes of hand when they become due, so will the honorable God
   fulfill His Word and prove Himself to be the Savior of all who trust in
   Him. In six troubles, He will be with you. And in seven, there shall no
   evil befall you. He has promised to save you and He will save you. He
   will rest in His love. He will rejoice over you with singing. "Many are
   the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them
   all." That is His own Word and that Word will be kept to the very
   letter. He is "your Savior."

   The last assurance is, in some respects, the strongest of all--"I gave
   Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you," by which the Lord
   means, "I will surely preserve you, because I have bought you at such a
   great price that I cannot afford to lose you. I have shown My valuation
   of you by the price I have paid for you, so you may rest assured that I
   will not suffer any harm to come to those whom I have so dearly
   purchased." You remember that the Israelites were redeemed by the
   Egyptians being made to suffer. You recollect how the plagues thickened
   about the heads of Egypt's sons and that Ethiopia and Seba were
   conquered by the Assyrian turning his forces against them instead of
   against the Israelites. And, since then, it has often happened that God
   has succored His saints by allowing other people to feel the force of
   the sword which was turned aside from the godly. When the poor
   persecuted Protestants of France or Piedmont were likely to be
   destroyed, it generally happened either that the kings of Germany and
   France fell out, or else that France went to war with Spain and then
   the soldiers were recalled--and the poor saints had a little liberty.
   God had given other nations as a ransom for them, and so He will do
   again when it is necessary. He will blot whole nations off the map of
   Europe, or the map of Asia, or any other part of the world, for the
   sake of His people! What cares He for them in comparison with His own
   chosen ones? In the olden days He set the bounds of the nations
   according to the number of the children of Israel-- and He will do the
   same for the spiritual Israel. All the world is but peel or rind, but
   His Church is the sweet fruit! All the universe is only as the shell,
   but the kernel inside the shell is His own redeemed!

   But, in a higher sense, God has paid a far greater price than this for
   the redemption of His people--something infinitely more precious than
   Egypt with all her treasures, or Ethiopia with all her gold, or Seba
   with all her fragrance. Did He not give His Son to die for His people?
   And if Christ redeemed me with His blood, is not my safety guaranteed,
   not only against flood and flame, but against the very gates of Hell?
   Think you, Beloved, that the death of Christ can be in vain? Do you
   believe that He bought with His blood some who, after all, shall be
   cast into Hell? I know that there is a general aspect to redemption
   which brings some good things to all men--but there is also the special
   aspect in it which brings all good things to some men! "Christ loved
   the Church, and gave Himself for it." He has redeemed us from among
   men. The good Shepherd laid down His life for His sheep. Christ said,
   concerning His disciples, "I pray for them: I pray not for the world,
   but for them which You have given Me."

   And did He really, specially and with an eye to my salvation, lay down
   His precious life as a ransom for me? And shall God, after having given
   me to His Son, let me fail to come into the possession of Him who
   redeemed me with His blood? I confess that I am unable to conceive of
   such a thing being possible! Once redeemed with the blood of the Son of
   God, who could again enslave the soul that has been thus set free? Go
   where you will, redeemed one, the blood-mark is upon you and "the Lord
   knows them that are His." According to the notion of some people,
   redemption does not guarantee salvation to anybody--but our text
   directly contradicts such a theory as that! It is becausewe are
   redeemed that we shall be saved--that is the reason why there are
   saints already in Heaven and why they will be there forever and ever.
   Redemption is the pledge of their eternal safety. If Christ should lose
   any one of His redeemed--if God should lose any one of those who were
   so dearly purchased--what a terrible result it would be! Then, from the
   depths of Hell, the blas-

   pheming fiend would look up and cry, "Aha! Here is a soul that was
   redeemed by the blood of Jesus, a soul that believed in Jesus, yet He
   could not save it from destruction! When it came to the river, it was
   drowned, or it was consumed by the fire. Aha! You call Yourself the
   Redeemer? But You have not redeemed this one!"

   Now I am going to conclude my discourse by asking one or two questions.
   My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, have you not proved, in your
   experience, that what I have been saying is true? I see, before me,
   some who have been through fire and through water. The whiteness of
   their hair betokens that they have been pilgrims for a long while. You,
   my aged Friends, have the snows of many a winter upon your brows--and
   the furrows of many a care are also there. Well, what have you to say
   concerning your God? Has He ever failed you? You have had many sharp
   pinches, but has He ever left you in them? You have had heavy burdens
   to bear, but have they broken your back? You have had stern trials, but
   has your faith ever altogether failed? Brothers and Sisters, I think we
   who have had any experience in the ways of God might stand up and sing
   good Samuel Medley's verse--

   "When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,

   Has gathered thick and thundered loud,

   He, near my soul has always stood,

   His loving kindness, oh, how good!" Then there is another question that
   I want to ask. If the Lord has dealt with you thus up till now, what
   ails you that you should have any fear about the future? "Ah," you say,
   "but I have not passed this way before." I know you have not, but then,
   all the way you have already trodden was new to you until you came to
   it--and the Lord helped you then. Why should He not help you now and
   for all the future, too? "Ah, but there will be changing
   circumstances!" I know there will, but there will not be changing
   promises. "Ah, but I find such frequent changes in myself!" Very likely
   you do, but do you find any change in the Lord? That is where your
   confidence is to be placed--in the Lord--not in yourselves. Brothers
   and Sisters, if you never doubt your Lord till you have just cause to
   do so, you will never doubt Him at all! And if you never have any
   mistrust of His goodness till He betrays your confidence in Him, you
   will never mistrust Him! Is it not a base thing, on our part to get
   down in the dumps so readily as we do and to fret and worry ourselves
   the moment a little cloud appears in the sky? Let it not be so with us!
   Let us who have believed enter into rest, as our Lord intended that we
   should. We shall just as assuredly wear the crown of final victory as
   we have fought and won our first battle, for the Grace that enables us
   to begin the conflict will never forsake us, but will help us to
   conclude the campaign, however long it may last! So let us raise our
   song of holy confidence and sing it all our journey through, for,
   perhaps, the sweetness of our notes of praise may be heard by others
   and may draw them, also, to go on pilgrimage with us, trusting in the

   Lord!

   Last of all, what are some of you doing--you who never did trust in
   God? Well, you say you have got on so far, somehow. I cannot make out
   how you do it. If I had not a God to trust in, though I have many
   earthly comforts, I should be, of all men, most miserable, but I cannot
   understand how a suffering man with a large family, and small wages,
   manages to live without God! I cannot comprehend how a hard-working
   woman, with many children and, perhaps, a drunk for a husband, manages
   even to existwithout trusting in God! Oh dear, dear, dear, dear, dear,
   dear! Why, your life is not worth five minutes' purchase! I would not
   like to give you even a bad farthing for it, you do seem to have such a
   wretched lot.

   Then, some of you business people, with all your cares and worries and
   troubles--up early in the morning and working till late at night--what
   is it all for? Saving a little money. For whom are you saving it? Who
   will have it when you die? Somebody who will call you a fool for saving
   it, very likely! What are you other people living for? "Oh, we have our
   amusements!" Yes, yes, yes, I daresay, and wonderful stuff the
   amusements of the world are made of nowadays! Passing along the streets
   I sometimes hear one of the songs that are being sung and I cannot help
   feeling that the common songs that are sung in our streets would be a
   disgrace to apes if they were to sing them--they are meaningless and
   absurd, if not worse than that!

   People sometimes ask me, "What sort of amusements would you have us go
   into?" I know they only do it for an excuse, so I answer, "You know
   what you like." "Ah," says one, "but I am a Christian." Well, if you
   are a Christian, you will not care for the amusements of worldlings,
   you will count them as unclean and not fit for you. I always say, "Let
   the dogs have their biscuits and the cats their meat, and the hogs
   their slop--and let the worldling have his amusement--I

   don't want to rob him of it. It really is such poor, poor stuff that
   they must be poor, poor creatures who can make themselves happy on it."
   A bag of wind--that is all the world's amusement is!

   When I hear how fashionable people spend an evening and go away saying
   how delighted they were, I think they must have been absent when brains
   were being distributed, or else they would say, "Dear me, this is a
   wretched way of wasting time! I cannot endure it." You have not
   anything, O you Worldlings, even you who dwell in palaces and ride in
   chariots! You who have great riches, you who have broad acres--you have
   not anything fit to feed a soul upon! It is all wind, chaff, husks such
   as the poor prodigal could not fill his belly with, yet you eat it. How
   is that? I do not understand you. I go back to what I said before. If I
   had all that my heart could wish for--I have that already, for I do not
   wish for anything more than I have in this world--but if I had all that
   my heart could wish for, supposing that it took to ambition and
   covetousness, yet should I be wretched without my God! I cannot live
   without Him! I would be like Noah's dove when it was flying over the
   wild waste of waters--I could not find a place where I could rest if I
   were to try to do so! I must go back to my Noah, to my Ark--there is no
   other place of rest for me.

   Poor Soul, how is it that you think there is rest for you anywhere but
   in Christ? Come back, you with the weary wings, come back to God! Come
   back, you with the weary heart, come back to your Savior's bosom!

   May God bless you all, for Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Good Cheer for the Needy

   (No. 2878)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH
   16, 1876.

   "For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the
   poor shall not perish forever." Psalm 9:18.

   These words will fall upon different ears with quite different effects.
   If any of you are, in the Scriptural sense, "poor and needy," God the
   Holy Spirit will enable you to see much in these gracious sentences,
   but if you fancy that you are "rich, and increased with goods, and have
   need of nothing," you will care nothing whatever for such words as
   these. You know right well that the value of a text to any soul depends
   upon the condition of that soul. I know not how many stars may be
   visible at the present moment. I do not think that I even looked up at
   them before I came here and, perhaps, you have not. But to the mariner,
   who needs to know his position when far out upon the sea, even one lone
   star gleaming amid the clouds may be very precious. So, if you are
   among the poor and needy ones, the Light of God in this text will be
   most joyful to your heart! But if you are not among them, perhaps you
   will scarcely condescend to look up to see its light. When Richard I
   was shut up within the gloomy walls of a foreign prison, you remember
   that he heard a song sung by his faithful friend who was traversing all
   Europe, as a troubadour, to try to find him. There were many ears that
   heard that strain and, possibly, some of the listeners had noticed the
   sweetness of the music--yet there was nothing very special in it to
   them. But the imprisoned king, when he heard that song, could sing the
   refrain to it and, therefore, it had a peculiar value to him, for it
   re-opened his communion with the world outside and ultimately led to
   his release! So, it may be that my text has a refrain that you do not
   know, and if it is so, you will not care for it. But if your heart is
   very poor--if you are consciously very needy--if you are reduced to
   spiritual destitution, then these simple words, "The needy shall not
   always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish
   forever," will awake echoes in your soul which will be the means of
   bringing you great joy!

   Here let me remark what a blessed thing it is to be poor in spirit and
   down among the lowly in heart. The best things come to those who are in
   such a condition! Up there, on the mountaintops, you are in a
   conspicuous but very cold position. If there are any storms about, they
   will be sure to gather around the mountain's brow, but if there are
   brooks, they will be sure to flow down there in the quiet seclusion of
   the valley where the nourishing grass grows for the feeding of the
   sheep. He who dwells in the Valley of Humiliation lives in a place
   where he may delight himself with safety because he is certain, while
   he abides there, to give all the glory for his delight to his God. It
   is not a land that every man chooses--it lies too low for some men's
   tastes. There are those who love the high places of the earth where
   they can exalt themselves. But he who is wise will choose to be
   numbered among the hungry whom the Lord fills with good things and not
   among the rich whom He sends away empty. He will delight to be reckoned
   among those that are of low degree, whom God exalts, even the humble
   and the meek--and he will not wish to be gathered with the proud,
   against whom the Lord has registered His solemn declaration that He
   will stain the pride of their glory.

   If you look at our text as it stands, it bears, first of all, the
   literal and natural meaning that God will take care of the poor and
   needy. As a general rule, they are forgotten. In the regulations of
   many kingdoms, no provision whatever has been made for the poor.
   Christianity has done much to cause modern governments to make some
   recognition of the rights of the poor and needy--and also to provide,
   to some extent, for them--yet this provision is often handed out to
   them with great coldness and sternness. Our poor laws are not, even
   with the best intentions, always administered justly.

   And there are lands where everything seems to be done to increase the
   riches of the rich and to make the poor still poorer. Well, it will not
   always be so! There are better days coming for you that are despised,
   poor and needy. You need not fight, strive and be envious and make
   discord--there is One in Heaven who is your Helper--and He is coming
   down to earth again! And when He comes, "He shall judge the poor of the
   people, He shall save the children of the needy and shall break in
   pieces the oppressor." The reign of Jesus Christ, though it may seem to
   be long in beginning, will assuredly come at the appointed time! And
   when it comes, then all tyranny and oppression and wrong-doing shall be
   speedily ended. "In His days shall the righteous flourish; and
   abundance of peace so long as the moon endures." In His days shall no
   man be robbed of his rights--no man be down-trodden--no man be
   oppressed. Behold, the Lord has laid help upon One who is mighty! He
   has exalted One chosen out of the people! His coming is the world's
   hope! His appearing will be the signal for the world's deliverance from
   all that is opposed to Him and to His Gospel!

   But I am going to take our text in a spiritual sense and refer it to
   those who are "poor and needy" in the Scriptural meaning of those
   words. This is a description that is very frequently applied to the
   people of God. They have been taught, by the Spirit of God, to realize
   their poverty. They know it and they confess it. They also feel that
   they have many needs--indeed, they seem to themselves to now have more
   needs than they ever had before! And were it not for the Infinite
   fullness which is treasured up in Christ, the very thought of their
   needs would crush them and drive them to despair! "Poor and needy" is a
   fair and full description of all those who have been taught of the Lord
   to see themselves as they really are in His sight.

   I want to give some good cheer to the poor and the needy, and my text
   seems to me to refer to three pairs of things which concern them.
   First, it speaks of two bitter experiences which will come to an end.
   Then, two sad fears which are removed by the text And, thirdly, two
   precious promises which are given to us in the text.

   I. First, there are TWO BITTER EXPERIENCES which many of God's
   people--no, allGod's people have more or less had, especially if they
   happen to be poor and needy in temporal things as well as in spiritual.

   The first bitter experience is that they have been forgotten. The text
   says, "The needy shall not always be forgotten," plainly implying that
   they havebeen forgotten--forgotten by those who used to know them,
   forgotten by those who fed at their table and who landed and flattered
   them in the days of their high estate. They do not know you now. You
   are the same, but your coat is different, your house is different, your
   purse is different and, therefore, though they loved you-- oh, so
   fervently!--their love is now gone because the various adjuncts, which,
   after all, were the real ground of their love, have departed.

   The leaves are withering, so the swallows, which gathered in the
   summer, are all gone before the winter comes. Many friends are of that
   sort--their friendship withers like the leaves of autumn and, like the
   swallows, they are gone to find other summers somewhere else! If you
   become prosperous, again, and get another summer, they will come back
   and seek to ingratiate themselves with you again. Like dogs, they will
   follow you as long as you have a bone to give them, but, unlike many
   dogs, they will not stay with you even when you have nothing to bestow
   upon them. If you are a poor man, who was once better off, you have
   passed through this bitter experience, I have no doubt, and have been
   forgotten because your circumstances have changed.

   Possibly, you have been forgotten ever since you have been a Christian.
   While you were self-righteous, like other men, they knew and respected
   you. You helped to keep each other's self-righteousness up, just as
   tradesmen, with their accommodation bills, help to keep each other
   financially afloat. But you suddenly became poor in spirit--you began
   to see that you needed a better righteousness than your own. They
   called you melancholy and no wonder that they did, for you were,
   indeed, melancholy! You were very uncongenial company for them. You
   used to heave a deep sigh when they would rather have heard a noisy
   laugh and now that you have gone right over, as they say, to the
   Puritan Party, and left their merry-making, they have forgotten
   you--they do not know you--they look down upon you and despise you!
   They say, sometimes, "You are a canting hypocrite," and they have other
   equally pretty names that they apply to you. If they remember you, it
   is that they may scoff at you--but they say they have forgotten you and
   it is a great mercy if they have! And it will be another great mercy if
   you also forget them.

   There is a message in the 45th Psalm which may be addressed to
   you--"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." You are to go

   outside the camp, bearing Christ's reproach, and to be forgotten by
   your former friends and acquaintances because of your religion. It will
   be a painful ordeal to you, but you may go through it without any very
   serious loss.

   Possibly, too, dear Friends, you have often thought that you have been
   forgotten in the arrangements of God's people since you have come among
   them. You are so needy, perhaps in pocket, but certainly in spirit,
   that when arrangements have been made for the help and relief of
   others, you fancy that you have been overlooked. Do not be quite
   certain that it is so, for I have known some poor people who have been
   a little too sensitive on these points and have suspected unkindness
   when everything has been really planned for the best. Do not be ready
   to misjudge your fellow Christians if they are better off than you are.
   As it would be a sin, on their part, to be proud, it would be equally a
   sin, on your part, to be envious. It would be wrong for them to be
   unkind to you, but it would be just as wrong for you to be unkind to
   them by thinking that they are unkind when they are not. Still, I
   should not wonder if it does sometimes happen that you fancy yourself
   forgotten even in the arrangements that are made in connection with the
   House of God.

   So, too, you may have had the experience of seeming to be forgotten in
   various regulations which are passed by your fellow Christians. For
   instance, someone has been declaring the proportion that every
   Christian should give to the cause of God out of his substance. It has
   been laid down by some, as a hard and fast rule, that nobody should
   give less than a tenth--a good rule, mark you, and a rule applicable to
   nearly everybody, but, sometimes there is a needy saint who says, "I
   could not spare a tenth from my poor pittance. I can scarcely spare a
   penny from the little that I have, so this rule presses hard upon me."
   Well, then, give what you feel to be right, and do not trouble yourself
   about the matter. When we speak to various classes, we cannot always
   mention the exceptions--you know that there are exceptions to all rules
   and we do not wish any rule to press hard upon anyone. The poor widow
   gave her two mites and so may you, but do not fret and worry, though I
   have no doubt it sometimes pains you when, in such utterances, you seem
   to be forgotten.

   It is also very painful to a Christian who is poor and needy in spirit,
   when, in the preaching of the Gospel, there seems to be nothing for the
   poor lame sheep, for the halting, for those that are weak-kneed, for
   those who are ready to perish. I have heard sermons which have related
   to very glorious experiences in which I have taken some delight. But I
   have felt, all the while, "I wonder what the poor weaklings of the
   flock think of this, when they hear about this experience and are told
   that they can have it if they like, and that they must have it, or else
   they have no real saving faith at all?" At such a time, my mind always
   goes to those who can only touch the hem of the Savior's garment, or
   say to Him, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." My witness is that
   some of the best children in the whole family of God never have the
   enjoyment of full assurance, but they are so careful, so watchful, so
   sensitive that their very sadness of heart drives them close to Christ.
   They seem to be so conscious of their own weakness and so afraid of
   sinning against God, that though in them there is not the perfect love
   that casts out fear--I wish it were--yet I would be the last to condemn
   them.

   There is One who will not condemn them--even He who carries the lambs
   in His bosom and who is tender and full of pity to all the weak ones in
   His flock. We must mind, when we are preaching experience, that we do
   not so put the experience of the strong as to make it the standard for
   the weak. That is almost as wrong as to make the experience of the weak
   to be the standard of the strong, as some have done. The fact is, there
   is no experience that is a real standard of the Christian life except
   the experience of a change of heart and of simple faith in the Lord
   Jesus Christ. Ah, dear Heart! I know what you mean when, after
   listening to a sermon, you have said, "Alas, I am forgotten! There
   seems nothing there for me. There are no crumbs for those who have lost
   their teeth and have only sore gums! There is no bread and milk for the
   children. It is all rounds of beef--strong meat for grown-up men, but,
   woe is me, there is nothing that I can eat." I should not wonder if
   that is what you have felt, but, if so, do not feel it any longer, "for
   the needy shall not always be forgotten."

   And, perhaps, up till now, you have even experienced a forgetfulness on
   the part of Providence as you have understood the term. Others of your
   family have risen in the world, but you have not. Your friends have set
   up in business and have done well, but you have not. You have sought to
   obtain a competence, but you have not secured it yet. You wished, at
   any rate, to get out of financial trouble, but you are still in it and
   you are apt to fear that when the Lord distributes His favors, He
   forgets you--at least, as far as His Providential mercies are
   concerned. Well, now, let this fear be gone, I pray you! Let this
   bitter experience come to an end! Believe that you are not forgotten,
   after all, by Him who is in Heaven and who beholds all His people--and
   if you have experienced, in some measure, a sort of forgetfulness, real
   on the part of man, but never real on the part of God--believe that it
   will not last forever.

   The second painful experience is that you have been disappointed, as
   well as fancied that you have been forgotten. Our text says, "The
   expectation of the poor shall not perish forever," which implies that
   it has sometimes perished.

   Now, dear Friend, I know that if you are a Christian, you have had some
   of your expectations that have perished and a good many of them, too.
   Why, you expected, at one time, to find your own way to Heaven--you
   expected that your own righteousness would make you acceptable to God
   and that you could do everything that was necessary to gain His favor!
   That foolish expectation has perished forever, has it not? Your
   self-righteousness is such a mass of filthy rags that you never mean to
   try to patch those old rags together and make them into a garment to
   wear in the sight of God.

   Then, you thought that you might expect, when you believed in Jesus
   Christ, that you would have perfect peace directly. Yet, possibly, you
   did not have it. Believer as you were, you had to live by faith without
   much experience of inward joy. And you also expected that you would
   never be troubled any more with any sort of bitter experiences,
   certainly not with any sins. You had lost your burden at the foot of
   the Cross and you meant to go singing all the way to Heaven! In fact,
   you imagined that you were to ride there in a carriage--in a most
   luxurious and delightful style, having two heavens--one here--and
   another hereafter! That expectation has not been realized, has it? You
   have found that the way to Heaven is a rough road, that there are many
   hardships in the pilgrim's pathway and that there are giants to be
   fought and slain. Alas, also, there are sins within that have to be
   contended with from day to day.

   Perhaps you had even entertained some very high expectations that you
   were going to be one of the brightest stars that ever shone among the
   spiritual constellations of God! Oh, what wonders you were going to do!
   You were going to be the leader among the people of God. There would be
   no diminution of zeal in you--no lack of life in you, no declension
   from Grace in you--no neglected prayer in you. You would be the very
   paragon of virtue! You would push the world before you and drag the
   Church behind you. I do not know how high your expectations soared, but
   I would not wonder if some of them have perished before now and you
   have come down to be, even in your own estimation, a very ordinary sort
   of person! In fact, you have continued to grow smaller and smaller ever
   since you have known Christ, till now you have come down to be
   nothing--and you are on the way to being less than nothing! And you
   will be wonderfully near the mark when you get down to that point.

   How many human expectations turn out to be mere wind? As I studied my
   text, turning it over and over again, it occurred to me that the needy,
   the poor, are generally the people who have the greatest expectations.
   I have talked with many poor men and I have found, over and over again,
   that they have a great, great uncle somewhere or other, who may leave
   them a lot of money some day. Or else they think they are entitled to
   property somewhere, only the lawful owner keeps them out of it! They
   have proofs that there was someone in their family who left--well, I do
   not know whether it was some millions of money that now lie in the Bank
   of England and they are expecting to get it! Ah, he that butters his
   bread with such expectations will find it very dry. And he who waits
   till expectations of that kind are fulfilled will, I am afraid, find
   that he is waiting in vain. But poor people generally have plenty of
   expectations and, as a rule, those expectations come to an end. This is
   a part of the bitter experiences of life and always will be--so, let us
   bear it patiently, for our text assures us that our disappointment
   shall only be temporary.

   II. Now, in the second place, there are TWO SAD FEARS WHICH THE TEXT
   REMOVES.

   The first sad fear is that, perhaps, we may be forever forgotten of
   God. Oh, what, a sad day it would be for us if God should ever forget
   us! You remember what varied experiences David had. Once he wrote, "In
   my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by Your favor You
   have made my mountain to stand strong: You did hide Your face, and I
   was troubled." At another time, he wrote, "Has God forgotten to be
   gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Ah, that is how
   the greatest saints have to sometimes talk, but what a fall in the
   barometer that indicates! From being up there at, "set fair," it has
   gone down to, "much rain" and "storms." "Zion said, the Lord has
   forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." This fear will come to the
   child of God at certain times. It may take this shape, "What if God
   should forget me in my present trouble? None but He can get me out of
   it. I am so bowed down and distressed that without Divine Consolation I
   know that I shall surely sink in the deep waters! Yet the consolation
   does not come, the help I need does not arrive. I cannot see any way of
   escape and I am as much in perplexity, now, as I was six months ago. I
   have made it a matter of prayer and waiting on the Lord, but I
   sometimes fear that He has forgotten me. What shall I do if He never
   helps me? If it had not been the Lord who was on my side, I would long
   ago have sunk into despair--but what shall I do if He deserts me now? I
   can never escape out of this difficulty without Him."

   Possibly the Believer is not so much in temporal trouble as burdened
   under a sense of sin. He used to feel joy and peace through believing
   in Christ, but he has wandered away from fellowship with his God and
   God is walking contrary to him because he is walking contrary to God.
   He is dwelling under his Father's frown--He is smarting under his
   Father's rod. Now he says within himself, "What will happen to me if He
   should never again give me the kiss of reconciliation?" He cries, "Deal
   mercifully with Your servant, O Lord, and restore unto me the joy of
   Your salvation!" Yet still he walks in darkness and sees no Light. He
   is under a cloud and his cry is, "Oh, that I knew where I might find
   Him whom my soul loves!" There comes to his heart the horrible fear
   that God has forsaken him. It is a horrible fear, but it is quite
   unfounded--there is no real reason for it. God cannot forget His chosen
   ones whom He has engraved upon the palms of His hands. And though a
   woman may forget her sucking child, God cannot forget any of His
   people, sorrowful or sinful though they may be.

   Then, too, this thought will come--"I am sick. My health is failing. I
   have less strength every day and, soon I shall have to go through the
   cold river of death. And what if, then, I should be without my God? It
   will be hard to suffer and harder, still, to die--to leave the warm
   precincts of this house of clay and, as a disembodied spirit, to be
   launched into an unknown world. What if there should be no guardian
   angels around my dying bed and no Savior to receive my departing
   spirit? What if, after all, my hope should turn out to be a delusion,
   my faith a fiction and my experience a dream?" I do not wonder, when
   such thoughts as these cross your minds, that you should feel
   distressed, as hundreds before you have been, "who, through fear of
   death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." But our text is a
   blessed cure for this sad fear--"For the needy shall not always be
   forgotten."

   The other dreadful fear is, lest, after all, your expectation should
   perish. Your expectation, Beloved, is that since you have trusted in
   God, you shall never be confounded--and that because you have relied
   upon the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you shall be numbered with
   His saints in Glory everlasting. Yet, sometimes you sorrowfully say,
   "Shall I hold on to the end? Shall I be able to persevere? I am so
   weak, so unstable, so apt to slip and slide, that I fear what will
   happen to me. Will my hope endure to the end?" Then you look around and
   see the strong temptations that beset your path-- you live, perhaps,
   where there are few Christians to help you and where everything seems
   to go against your progress in the Divine Life and you say, "I shall
   surely one day fall by the hand of the enemy. How can I hope to outlive
   these many perils and dangers?"

   Possibly your constitutional temperament is a hindrance to you and you
   cry, "Woe is me, because I have such corruptions within--such a fierce
   temper--such a cold heart--such a stingy disposition. Can I ever, after
   all, be fashioned into the likeness of my Lord? Can such gritty granite
   as my soul is made of ever be melted down and run into the Divine Mold,
   or be turned like wax to the Divine Seal?" It does make you fear and
   tremble, especially when trials come, the likes of which you never saw
   before! And you say, "My expectation will perish. I thought that, by
   God's Grace, I should leap over a wall and break through a troop. I
   hoped that I should continue to trust in the Lord even though all
   creature aid should fail. But now I tremble and fear! I have run with
   the footmen and they have wearied me. What shall I do when I have to
   contend with horses and, above all, what shall I do in the swellings of
   Jordan?" Well, now, this is the sort of fear that arises in the hearts
   of God's children--yet that fear need not be entertained for a single
   moment! It is your duty and privilege to shut it out of your heart, for
   thus says the Lord, "The expectation of the poor shall not perish
   forever."

   III. Now I come to our third and last point--TWO PRECIOUS PROMISES ARE
   HERE GIVEN TO US.

   The first is given to the needy and it declares that they shall not
   always be forgotten. Possibly some of you think that you have been
   forgotten in the arrangements of Providence. Listen, troubled one. If
   you can only wait with patience and stand still and see the salvation
   of God, you will find that the needy shall not always be forgotten.
   Have you ever noticed how a father carves for a large family. You do
   not expect him, at a single stroke, to carve enough to fill every
   plate, do you? There is a little child who is ill, so there must be a
   suitable portion sent away for that one. And, likely enough, that will
   be the first portion sent from the table. Then the father serves his
   other children according to a certain order which he has in his own
   mind and there must be some who come after the others. I have known
   carvers keep someone waiting till they have reached the most juicy part
   of the meat--they only made him wait till they could give him something
   especially choice! So, if you are kept waiting for your portion, you
   will not lose anything by waiting a while. Patience is rewarded in due
   season. If ships are longer on their voyage, we expect them to bring
   home all the richer freight. If the trees are slower than usual, this
   year, in putting forth their buds--if the peach blossoms or the
   apricots are not visible as soon as

   in other seasons--let us hope that it will be all the better for the
   ultimate fruit-bearing of the trees. Be you content to come last rather
   than first, for sometimes last is best and, "there are last which shall
   be first, and there are first which shall be last." Poor as you are,
   you shall not always be forgotten! There is a portion in reserve for
   you--even for you.

   You shall not be forgotten at the Mercy Seat. You have been there many
   times without receiving an answer to your petitions. Perhaps, poor
   heavy Heart, you have prayed seven times and no reply has yet come.
   Possibly you have gone to your God as often as the poor widow went to
   the unjust judge and you have gone as importunately as she went. But so
   far there has been no sweet relief such as your soul longed for. Yet
   you shall not be always forgotten, so, continue in prayer! If the
   promise tarries, wait for it, for, in due season, the answer shall
   surely come.

   You shall not always be forgotten in the Word. You have been reading
   it, yet no promise has seemed to comfort you. In fact, as you turn over
   the pages of your Bible, you find bitter things recorded there, as if
   they were written against you. But read on! Read on and one of these
   days you will come to a passage that will seem to leap up out of the
   Scriptures to meet you! It will woo you--the very sight of it will
   fascinate you and you will say, "The Lord has spoken this message to my
   soul--and I bless and praise His holy name!"

   You shall not always be forgotten from the pulpit. Perhaps there is
   someone here who has long been listening to the Gospel and who
   sorrowfully says, "I find that others are comforted, but I am not. God
   seems to give a portion to all the rest of His people, but none to poor
   me. Alas, I come and I go, but it seems to be all in vain! I love to go
   where I see others getting a blessing, yet I find no comfort there for
   myself." Well, you shall not always be forgotten! God will bid His
   servant drop a handful on purpose for you. Perhaps this very text is a
   message to your heart just now!

   You shall not always be forgotten at the Lord's Table. You have gone
   there hoping that He who often reveals Himself to His servants in the
   breaking of bread will be pleased to manifest Himself to you at His own
   Table. Yet you have not had a smile from Him. You have sat with others
   at the King's Table, but the King, Himself, did not seem to sit there
   with you. You ate the bread, but you did not spiritually feed upon His
   flesh. You drank the wine, but you did not spiritually drink His
   precious blood. Well, you shall not always be forgotten! If you are
   really trusting in Jesus, there are brighter days yet in store for you.
   The King shall yet bring you into His banqueting house and His banner
   over you shall be Love and you shall see such changes that you shall
   sing--

   "My mourning, He to dancing turns, For sackcloth, joy He gives, A
   moment, Lord, Your anger burns, But long Your favor lives."

   And you shall not always be forgotten in the service that you are
   rendering unto God. You have not yet seen a soul converted through your
   instrumentality, but you shall not always be forgotten in that respect.
   And in the sufferings that you are called to bear for Christ's sake,
   you shall not always be forgotten. Patience will yet have her perfect
   work and the suffering will end when it has accomplished its purpose.
   You are persecuted and despised, perhaps, but you shall not always be
   forgotten. You shall yet learn the sweetness of being reproached for
   Christ's sake. You may seem to be forgotten for a little while, but you
   shall not really be so. God, the Holy Spirit, will not forget you--He
   will sustain, instruct, illuminate and console you. God the Son will
   not forget you. He paid too high a price for you to ever forget you.
   You are His bride! He loves you as He loves Himself. You are part and
   parcel of Himself, so He will never forget you. And God the Father will
   not forget you. You have been His from all eternity and He has
   "begotten you again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead." You will die soon, but you will not be
   forgotten, for the holy angels will convoy you home to Heaven!

   The rich man died and was buried with many waving plumes over his
   mourning coach. His will was read, his property was squabbled over and
   that was the end of him. Everybody soon forgot him. But the angels
   carried Lazarus into Abraham's bosom! They had not forgotten Lazarus.
   The dogs had licked his sores, but the angels had loved him! The
   dunghill was his couch, but Abraham's bosom was his throne! If you are
   a Believer in Jesus, you are not forgotten up in Glory! Rowland Hill,
   when he was very old, used to like to go and see aged people when they
   were dying and he used to say to them, "When you get to Heaven, give my
   love to the three glorious Johns up there, and be sure to tell them
   that poor old Rowley hopes they have not forgotten him." There is no
   fear that they will forget any of you who are going there! There is a
   crown in Heaven which will fit nobody's head but yours and that crown
   must hang as a useless thing until you get there to wear it! There is a
   mansion in Glory that nobody but you can inhabit and you cannot suppose
   that it will be al-

   lowed to stand empty forever, can you? Oh, no! Youmust be there to
   occupy it and you may rest assured that He who is preparing the place
   for His people will bring His people to it, for He has not gone to
   Heaven to prepare a place for His people without resolving that His
   people shall not perish on the way there!

   "The needy shall not always be forgotten." They will be especially
   remembered when Christ comes and He says to them, "Come, you blessed of
   My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
   the world." They will be remembered as they enter into the joy of their
   Lord and then, throughout the eternal ages, they will never be
   forgotten of Him! They may well bear whatever comes upon them now in
   the anticipation of the Glory that is yet to be revealed!

   The other promise in our text is that "the expectation of the poor
   shall not perish forever " What is your expecta-tion--you who have
   believed in Jesus, yet who feel very poor and needy? You have been
   expecting to get peace, have you not? You shall have it in due time. A
   friend said to me, quite recently, "Supposing a person has believed in
   Jesus, but does not feel immediate peace, what then? Is that person to
   believe that he is saved? What is his evidence that he is?" I replied,
   "God says that whoever believes in His Son is not condemned, so I need
   not ask to have peace within my soul in order to corroborate the
   declaration of God. I am bound to take the Truth of God as it stands
   and believe myself to be saved, whether I feel any peace or not. If I
   will do this, then I shall have the peace. But if I say that I will not
   believe myself saved till I feel peace, then I am not really believing
   God at all--I am asking Him to give me peace to corroborate His
   evidence, as if the evidence in the Word were not strong enough to
   satisfy me." Dear Friend, it may be that you have not yet enjoyed peace
   because your faith is not as simple and as clear as it should be. But
   if you are really poor and needy and cast yourself on the promises of
   God, you may depend upon it that the expectation that you have rightly
   founded upon the Gospel shall not be disappointed. You shall have
   peace! Yes, and you shall have perfect peace one day. "The peace of
   God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your heart and mind
   through Christ Jesus."

   You are expecting, too, that you shall triumph over sin. God has
   promised that sin shall not have dominion over you. It may struggle
   very hard and, for a while, you may seem to be under its power. No,
   more--you may come under its power in a measure, but it never shall
   reign over you! Sin may, for a time, conquer a part of Mansoul, but it
   can never conquer the citadel of the heart! So rest assured of that.
   "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly," and you
   shall yet feel the power of holiness and the mighty work of the Eternal
   Spirit in your soul. "The expectation of the poor shall not perish
   forever."

   You have been expecting, too, to get out of trouble. Well, you shall
   get out of trouble. You have been expecting to see good come out of
   evil. Well, good will come out of evil. I cannot tell you when you
   shall be delivered, but delivered you shall be, for thus it is written,
   "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him
   out of them all." One of these days you will receive a warrant that
   will set you free from all trouble forever and ever! How soon it may
   come, I cannot tell, but, till it does, you may patiently wait and
   quietly hope for the salvation of God.

   You have also been expecting to enjoy the full assurance of faith and
   your expectation, in that respect, shall not perish forever. The Lord
   will make your faith grow--every day's experience will help to
   establish it and even your difficulties and troubles will tend to
   strengthen it. If a boy is apprenticed to a blacksmith, I should not
   wonder if, for months, his arm aches dreadfully through swinging the
   big hammer. But keep on, Boy, keep on! Your muscles will grow hard,
   your sinews will get braced and you will become strong just where you
   need to be strong. So, dear Friend, shall it be with your faith--you
   shall become strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

   You expected to have very special spiritual joys, did you not? You
   expected that your soul would be made like the chariots of Amminadib,
   did you not? You expected to be in such a condition that whether in the
   body or out of the body, you could not tell. Well, you shall realize
   all that in due season, for God will reveal it unto you when it seems
   good in His sight. As for myself--and I may also speak for all who love
   the Lord--I am expecting to be with Him where He is, to behold His
   Glory. I am expecting to be like He and to overcome and sit with Him
   upon His Throne, even as He has overcome and has sat down with His
   Father upon His Throne.

   And, Brothers and Sisters, if this is your expectation, it shall not
   perish forever, but it shall be blessedly realized. I have told you
   before some of the last words of my venerable grandfather, but I may
   venture to repeat them to you. One of my uncles said to him, "You know,
   Father, that hymn of Dr. Watts--

   "'Firm as the earth Your Gospel stands,

   My Lord, my hope, my trust If I am found in Jesus'hands, My soul can
   never be lost'"?

   "Ah, James!" he replied, "I do not like the metaphor that Dr. Watts
   uses there, 'Firm as the earth.' Why, the earth is sinking from under
   my feet! I need something much firmer than that. I like better what the
   Doctor says when he sings--

   "'Firm as His throne His promise stands,

   And He can well secure

   What I've committed to His hands,

   Till the decisive hour.

   "That will do for me now, James," said the dying saint, "that is Divine
   Sovereignty. The Lord is King and, as surely as He is King and sits
   upon His Throne, so surely will He fulfill His promise to a poor feeble
   worm like I, so I shall behold His face with joy."
     __________________________________________________________________

The Wide-open Mouth Filled

   (No. 2879)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE PASTOR'S COLLEGE CONFERENCE, ON FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 7, 1876.

   "I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt:
   open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." Psalm 81:10.

   You have, no doubt, met with various interpretations of this
   metaphor--"Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." You will find
   that several expositors say that there is an allusion, here, to a
   custom which is said to have been observed by the late Shah of Persia,
   who, being greatly pleased with one of his courtiers, made him open his
   mouth and then began to fill it with diamonds, pearls, rubies and
   emeralds. I shall expect that, under such circumstances, the courtier
   would open his mouth very wide indeed!

   Well, you may use that incident as an illustration, if you like and,
   certainly, the spiritual blessings which God gives to His children are
   far more precious than pearls, diamonds and rubies--and there is every
   inducement for you to open your mouth to receive such treasure as He is
   waiting and willing to give you! But I do not feel sure that the Holy
   Spirit intended the Psalmist to allude to any such custom as this. It
   is too expensive an operation to be very frequently performed and it
   strikes me that even such semi-maniacs as Shahs and Sultans usually
   are, would not be likely to often attempt such a feat as that. In
   default of a more suitable illustration, it might be used, but it does
   not appear to me to be in accordance with the chaste and natural tone
   of the Word of God.

   Another illustration of the text may be found in a custom which is much
   more common in the East. At Oriental feasts, when the head of the
   household wishes to select the best part of the meat for an honored
   guest, he usually chooses the fattest portion he can find, as the
   Oriental mind conceives just what we would not conceive, namely, that a
   mass of fat, all dripping with grease, is the most delicious morsel
   that can possibly be given to a guest. So the host searches for the
   fattest piece of meat in the dish, takes it in his hand and puts it
   deliberately into the mouth of the principal guest, bidding him open
   his mouth wide that he may receive it. This seems a revolting practice
   to us, but it was evidently the custom then, as it still is in the
   East. Thus we have David saying, "My soul shall be satisfied as with
   marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips"--as
   if the lips sucked it with delight even while the fat was still upon
   them.

   But I am inclined to look for quite another explanation of the text,
   though admitting that the second one is probably that upon which the
   Psalmist was thinking when he wrote these words. One springtime I
   discovered a bird's nest, in which there were a number of little birds.
   They were not fledged enough to fly and their judgments were not well
   developed and, therefore, they mistook me for their mother or father. I
   would not touch them, but I held my fingers over them and they opened
   their mouths wide--no, the little creatures seemed to me as if they
   were all mouth! I could not see any other part of their bodies--all
   seemed lost in one great vacuum. If you have ever seen the mother bird
   come to the nest with a worm in its mouth, you have noticed that, in an
   instant, all her little ones are up and eager to swallow that worm. She
   can only fill the mouth of one and she can scarcely do that, for, no
   sooner has it swallowed what she gives it than it begins to gape again!

   So the parent birds have to keep flying very fast, all day long,
   collecting food for their family but, however many times they come,
   they never have to use the exhortation of our text! The little birds in
   their nests are far more sensible than we are. When God hovers over us
   with His wide-spread wings and covers us with His warm feathers, He has
   need to

   say to each one of us, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." But
   the little birds take good care, without any teaching, to open their
   mouths wide that their mothers may fill them. This illustration may
   occur again during the sermon, for, whether it is the one to which the
   Psalmist alludes, or not, it is a very useful one and is full of
   instruction. It also has the further advantage that it does not
   appertain to either the East or the West and, as this blessed Book is
   neither for East nor West, alone, but for both, I like to find an
   illustration which, in all times and in every clime, may open up the
   meaning of the Word. "Open your mouth," then, as a bird opens its mouth
   when the mother bird returns with its food, and He who, in the
   infinitude of His condescension, likens Himself to birds, says, "I will
   fill it."

   Let us imitate the Inspired teachers in using things in Nature to
   illustrate the meaning of the messages they have to deliver. Look from
   our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers, through the long line
   of Prophets, to Evangelists and Apostles, and you will see that they
   did not utter the Truth of God with their eyes closed, but, with large
   sympathy, they looked abroad upon the whole range of creation, both
   animate and inanimate, and yoked every creature to the chariot of
   Truth, if, by any means, through the use of simile, metaphor and
   illustration, they might enable the Divine message to ride triumphantly
   into the hearts of the people!

   If any of us are to succeed in teaching either few or many, we must
   imitate these masters of the art. God has given the preacher eyes as
   well as a tongue--yes, two eyes to one tongue--and he must take care to
   observe all that can be seen and to make abundant use of his
   observation. Otherwise he will find his speech prove to be, as
   Shakespeare says, "stale, flat, and unprofitable." The true teacher
   should not seek to soar on the gaudy wings of brilliant oratory,
   pouring forth sonorous polished sentences in rhythmic harmony, but
   should endeavor to speak pointed Truths of God--things that will strike
   and stick--thoughts that will be remembered and recalled, again and
   again, when the hearer is far away from the place of worship where he
   listened to the preacher's words.

   The text naturally divides itself into three parts. First, there is the
   exhortation--"Open your mouth wide." Secondly, there is the promise--"I
   will fill it." And thirdly, there is the encouragement contained in the
   name by which God speaks of Himself--"I am Jehovah your God, which
   brought you out of the land of Egypt."

   I. First, then, Brothers, here is THE EXHORTATION--"Open your mouth
   wide."

   What does that expression mean? Well, I should have to open my mouth
   very wide, indeed, if I were to explain all it means. You probably will
   know, by putting it in practice, better than by any explanation that I
   can give you, but, certainly, first of all, I should say that it means
   that there should be a greater sense of your need. The wide-open mouth
   means that you hunger. The little birds need no instruction in opening
   their mouths except the inward monitor. They feel a lack of food--they
   are growing, and growing fast, and feathers have to be made--and they
   need much food and those strong needs of theirs make them open their
   mouths by instinct, as we say. Brothers, if we had more sense of our
   need, prayer would be more of an instinct with us--we would pray
   because we could not help praying! We would pray, perhaps, less
   methodically, but we would pray, probably more truly, if we prayed
   because there were groans within us caused by intense pain and moaning
   that came out of inward agony and longings that came out of the
   consciousness of our dire necessities. Surely, this kind of opening of
   the mouth, by the sense of our need, ought to be easy to us, for our
   needs are very great. I must not say that they are infinite, for we are
   only finite beings, but they are so vast that only Infinity can ever
   supply them! What is there that you do notneed, my Brother? Someone
   said in prayer, the other day, that we were "a bag of needs." That was
   a very accurate description. Are we all conscious of our many needs?

   Dear Brother, are you growing conscious of your own power? If so, pray
   against it with all your might! A much better thing is to become
   conscious of your own weakness. You will not open your mouth wide if
   you do not realize how weak you are. If you feel that you are strong,
   you will cease to cry to God for strength. Are you getting proud of
   your experience of Divine things? Strive to hurl that pride down, for
   you will be no wiser than a wild ass's colt if you rely on your own
   experience. Do you feel that you have now attained to a very high
   degree of Grace? You have certainly not attained it if you think you
   have! If you are still conscious of your own shortcomings, you are
   probably far ahead of your own belief--but if you are conscious of your
   attainments, you are far behind those attainments, rest assured of
   that.

   I do solemnly believe, Brothers, that it is as good a test of a man's
   spiritual riches as can be found, namely, his own sense of his
   spiritual poverty. Oh, get less and less in your own esteem! Grow
   poorer and poorer, weaker and yet weaker--become, in yourselves,
   nothing and less than nothing! This is a grand way of opening the mouth
   because our needs, when they are truly felt, are really prayers, for
   prayers are merely the expression of the needs of our heart. And if, to
   the

   consciousness of our need, there is added the knowledge that God can
   supply that need, we have, at any rate, the basis of all true prayer.
   Oh, for a great sense of our spiritual poverty! Oh, for an awful vacuum
   within the soul, a consciousness most truly felt that there is room for
   God! Oh, for a deep chasm to yawn within one's nature, which only
   Christ, Himself, can fill!

   The next way of opening the mouth will be to increase the vehemence of
   desire. How did the Psalmist do this? He said, "I opened my mouth and
   panted." This is what we need to do, to get such vehement desires after
   good things that we cannot take a negative answer to our petitions. We
   know that what we ask is for God's Glory and our own good and,
   therefore, we are not going to ask as men who may be put off, but our
   resolve is like that of Jacob at Jabbok--

   "With You all night I mean to stay,

   And wrestle till the break of day." We cry, with good John Newton--

   "No--I must maintain my hold,

   'Tis Your goodness makes me bold.

   I can no denial take,

   When I plead for Jesus' sake."

   Those prayers speed best that are most full of holy vehemence. There is
   an evil kind of vehemence which we must get rid of. I am not sure that
   all the expressions we sometimes hear in prayer are right--there is no
   need for us to seem to fight with God at the Mercy Seat. I feel,
   sometimes, a sort of shivering when I hear Brothers make a great noise
   in prayer without any evidence of corresponding earnestness deep down
   in their soul. Yet I know that our Lord Jesus said, "The Kingdom of
   Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." If you want
   to have great things of God, you must want them terribly! You must get
   to want them more and more. Your sense of want must keep on growing.
   You know also that our Lord Jesus said, "Blessed are they which do
   hunger and thirst"--hunger is bad enough and thirst is awful, but
   hunger and thirst combined bring a man to the verge of death--yet Jesus
   says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
   for"--Christ's promise is parallel to the text before us--"they shall
   be filled." Get that blessed hunger and thirst, Brothers! When you
   cannot live without conversions, you shall have conversions! When you
   must have them, you shall have them! May the Lord drive that "must"
   into us all! May He urge us on with a passionate desire to resolve that
   we will know the reason why if souls are not converted to God!

   Another way of opening the mouth is to ask for greater capacity. If you
   have ever fed a lot of little birds--no doubt my friend, Archibald
   Brown, has often done it--with pieces of egg. If you have some very
   small pieces, you drop them into the smaller mouths, but if you have a
   large piece of egg, where does it go? Into the biggest mouth you can
   find! You seem to feel, "That little bird cannot have a large piece
   because he has only a tiny mouth. But here is one whose mouth yawns
   like the crater of a small volcano!" So you drop into his mouth a
   larger piece and I have no doubt the mother birds exercise a good deal
   of discretion in feeding their young. They do not give the large worms
   to the little birds, but they drop the large ones into the large mouths
   and, in like manner, if we get large capacities, we shall receive large
   blessings.

   What a wonderful difference there is in the capacity of different
   individuals! I have heard it said that a sinner sucks in happiness,
   such as it is, with the mouth of an insect, but that a Believer drinks
   in bliss with the mouth of an angel--and it is so. The stream of mercy
   seems to run right over some men because there is no place for it to
   run in. It runs into others in driblets because there is only a little
   hole into which it can drip. But when the mouth is opened wide to
   receive the blessing of the Lord, how capacious it is! I should like,
   spiritually, to have my mouth like that of Behemoth, of which the Lord
   said to Job, "he trusts that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth." Oh,
   for a mouth of such mighty capacity as to be capable of receiving a far
   greater blessing than we have ever yet received!

   Dear Brothers, we are not straitened in God. If we are straitened at
   all, it is in ourselves. No wise man will try to put a gallon of any
   liquid into a quart pot. You cannot expect to put a bushel of anything
   into a peck measure. "Be you therefore enlarged," is still the message
   we need to hear--and one part of that enlargement must consist in the
   enlargement of the mouth in prayer and in holy vehemence! God grant to
   all of us far greater capacity! What little men we all are! We
   sometimes call one another great and perhaps fancy that we are. I
   wonder what our Heavenly Father thinks of us? We see our little
   children, one of them three years old and another only two, and another
   only a month or two--they think the baby is a very little thing and
   that they themselves are ever so big--and they talk of their big
   brother who is only four or five years old! It is very much like that
   with us! There is not much more difference between the greatest and

   the least of us than between those children. So, if we can, we must
   grow--grow at the mouth and grow all over. We need to have greater
   Grace given to us, but the Lord will not give us great blessings until
   we are able to bear them. You remember how He said to His disciples, "I
   have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now"? And
   He might say to us, "I have yet many things to give to you, but you
   cannot bear them at present." If God were now to give to any man all
   the blessings that He means to bestow upon him in a few years' time, it
   would ruin him! When God has given us any success, it is a great
   addition to the mercy if He has first fitted us to bear it. Some of us
   can recollect Brothers taken almost straight from the miners' pit and
   elevated suddenly into a position of great popularity with no training
   for the ministry--no persecution, no criticism from the public press
   and no unkind remarks from Christian men--and we remember with sorrow
   how they failed. So, if you, while you are young men, have to run the
   gauntlet of a good deal of trial, difficulty, opposition and failures,
   you ought to thank God for it! You are now being made ready to receive
   the blessing for which you were not fit before. The Lord is increasing
   your capacity and when the capacity is sufficient, He will fill it.

   Next, dear Brothers, I feel that the text must mean seek for greater
   blessings than any that you have yet received. You have opened your
   mouth and you have received something. Possibly you think that you have
   received a great deal. But the Lord "is able to do exceeding abundantly
   above all that we ask or think." I have heard people say in prayer,
   "You are able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or
   think." Well, I suppose that is true, but that is not what Paul was
   Inspired to write. We can ask and can think a great deal, but Paul says
   that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we actually
   doask or think! Well, then, as this is the case, will we not ask for
   greater things than we have ever asked for before? It is a singular
   fact that the certainty of obtaining is in proportion to the largeness
   of what you ask. Some men go to God and ask only for temporal favors
   and, possibly, they do not obtain them. He who would be content with
   this world will probably never get it--but he who craves spiritual good
   may ask with the absolute certainty of receiving it! Christ's promise
   is, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock,
   and it shall be opened unto you." If you ask only for temporal mercies
   and can be satisfied with them, you may get what you ask. There are
   gushing springs from which you might drink if you would, but the muddy
   waters of Sihor are evidently good enough for you.

   But if you ask the Lord for spiritualblessings, He is sure to give them
   to you. It is more natural for God to give great things than little
   things--they are more in His line--more in His way. You know that
   certain men have certain ways. There are men whom you can get to do
   anything if it is in their way, but they will not act in another way.
   Well, now, the Lord's ways are as high above our ways as the heavens
   are above the earth! Yet David knew what God's ways were, for he said,
   "Then will I teach transgressors Your ways." One of the ways of God is
   to do great things for His people. Some of them sang, "The Lord has
   done great things for us; whereof we are glad." So you are more sure of
   getting blessings from God if you ask Him for great things--therefore
   be sure to ask for very great things! When you do get to the Mercy
   Seat, do not begin asking for littles and go home with trifles, but ask
   for as big things as ever your soul can desire and as big things as the
   promises of God cover! There you have a task before you that will tax
   your greatest powers, but give your heart and soul to it and you will
   find it to be a very pleasant and profitable one!

   Ask great things for yourselves, Brothers. Ask to know all the Truth of
   God. Ask to know the fullness of God. Ask to know the riches of His
   Grace. Ask to know "the love of Christ, which passes knowledge." And
   when you have asked for all that, ask for holiness--and do not ask for
   anything less than perfectholiness. Continue to open your mouth wide
   that every Grace may be given to you, adding "to your faith, virtue,
   and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to
   temperance, patience, and to patience, godliness, and to godliness,
   brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love." And do not rest
   satisfied until you have all these Christian virtues! You may also ask
   for joy and oh, what an ocean of bliss is before you in the joy of the
   Lord! In "the peace of God, which passes all understanding," what a
   wondrous depth of joy there is laid up in store for you! Our Lord Jesus
   said to His disciples, "These things have I spoken unto you, that My
   joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." It may be
   the same with you--therefore ask for great things! Do not be satisfied
   with being little Christians--seek to come to the full stature of men
   in Christ Jesus! I will be thankful to get just inside the gate of
   Heaven, but if I can sing more sweetly and if I can have more
   fellowship with Christ nearer His Throne, why should I not get there?
   God grant that we may all have that high privilege!

   Once more, I think that this exhortation, "Open your mouth wide," means
   attempt great things for God as well as ask great things from God.
   Brothers, go in for something great! Go in for saving one soul--that is
   something great. Go in for preaching the whole Truth of God--that is
   something great. Go in to be faithful to the teaching of the whole Word
   of God--that is something great. It is not sufficient if you have
   filled your own place--a good many of you have not done that yet--go in
   to preach the Gospel somewhere else as well. Open some other building
   for worship! Penetrate into some region where the Gospel is not yet
   known. I wish that our College would open its mouth so wide as to
   include the whole world in the sphere of its operations. Brother
   Wigstone tells us that if we open our mouth wide, we shall swallow up
   the whole of Spain and Portugal. Other Brothers want us to open our
   mouth wide enough to absorb France, Germany, Russia and all Europe!
   Some of our Brethren have gone to India--there is a mouthful for us! If
   we open our mouth wide, India may be evangelized--and China--and the
   new world of America and the far-distant world of Australia will feel
   the power of the Gospel that we take there in the name of the Lord! Let
   us pray, as David did long ago, that the whole earth may be filled with
   God's Glory! What is the whole earth, after all, compared with the
   greatness of God, and with the Infinite Sacrifice that Christ has
   offered? Well may the Lord say to each one of us, "Open your mouth
   wide, and I will fill it."

   I like big prayers, Brothers. I have some regard for the memory of
   William Huntington, though I would be sorry to endorse all that he said
   and did. He was a man whose prayers God heard and answered, but what
   often were his prayers? I smile, sometimes, as I think of what he asked
   of God--"Lord, give me a new pair of leather breeches," or, "Give me a
   horse and carriage"--and he got them. William Carey cried, "India for
   Christ," and his prayer has kept on ringing right down the ages! And
   the Church of God is still praying, "India for Christ," and that prayer
   will be heard and answered in God's good time. Little boats that carry
   small cargoes come quickly home, but the big ships that do business in
   great waters are much longer in reaching the home port. But they bring
   back much more precious loads! Huntington's prayer was the little boat
   that proved God's faithfulness, but Carey's prayer was the big ship
   which will come home as surely as the other one did!

   So, "open your mouth wide," Brothers, and ask something that will be
   honoring to God to give. Did you ever think, dear Friends, how
   wonderful is the condescension of God in listening to the voice of a
   man? That He should hear our prayers at all shows that in His
   condescension He is as Infinite as He is in His Glory. Do you know, in
   your own soul, that God has ever heard your prayers? Then bless Him and
   love Him all your days. You know how the writer of the 116th Psalm put
   the matter--"I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my
   supplications. Because He has inclined His ear unto me, therefore will
   I call upon Him as long as I live." It is truly marvelous that though
   our prayer is so full of faults and has to do with such insignificant
   worms as we are, yet that the Lord hears us and grants our requests.

   There are some who talk as if prayer was a meaningless form to us. "It
   is a beneficial thing, no doubt, for you to pray," they say. Surely,
   Sirs, you must be measuring our corn with your bushel if you imagine
   that we could do such an idiotic thing as pray to a god who cannot hear
   us! That is an employment only fit for imbeciles and if you tell us
   that no doubt it is a good thing for us to do, we reply that it would
   probably be a good thing for you to do it, for it could only be
   suitable to the imbecility which originated the charge brought against
   us! We assert and rejoice to assert that without working miracles, God
   still accomplishes His eternal purposes in answer to the supplications
   of His people. In earlier days He worked miracles for the deliverance
   of His servants. But today He does the same thing without the
   miraculous process and as manifestly grants the requests of His
   suppliants as if miracles were as plentiful as the leaves upon the
   trees in summer.

   II. Now, secondly, we turn to THE PROMISE--"I will fill it."

   Great asking seems to me to be on a scale proportionate to the great
   things that are according to the very Nature of God. I have never been
   able to believe in a little Hell because I cannot find, in the Bible,
   any trace of a little Heaven, or of a little Savior, or of a little
   sin, or of a little God. I believe in a theology that is drawn to
   scale. If it is on the scale of an inch all round, I can receive it,
   but if it is on the scale of a foot in one place, I think it should be
   on the same scale throughout. Look, Brothers, at the brightness of the
   Shekinah Glory shining above the Mercy Seat--and that Mercy Seat red
   with such blood as was never spilt but once! And the Eternal Spirit
   leading us up to that Mercy Seat--can we go there to ask for a mere
   trifle? That does not seem to me to be at all congruous. Far more
   congruous does it seem that before the great God, with the great
   Mediator and the great Spirit helping our infirmities, we should open
   our mouth wide

   and expect God to fill it! O Brethren, we may be quite sure that in
   dealing with the Infinite Jehovah, if we can rise to His scale of
   things, He will fill our mouths when we open them!

   It is hard work to fill a hungry mouth, for the food disappears down
   the throat in a moment. When once fed, it opens again and is as empty
   as it was before. But God has the way of filling mouths that makes them
   stay full. He gives us water to drink of so wondrous a kind that we do
   not thirst again! Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, "Whoever drinks
   of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water
   that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
   everlasting life." And God says to each child of His, "'Open your mouth
   wide,' and though it seems to be like a horse-leech crying, 'Give,
   give,' 'I will fill it.' Though it seems as insatiable as the grave, 'I
   will fill it.'" The great God Himself says it and, therefore, it must
   be true. If He had not said it, I would not have believed it, but
   having said it, He can do what seems impossible to us--He can satisfy
   our most insatiable cravings and longings--and He bids us keep on
   longing and craving that He may keep on satisfying us again and again!

   This promise is given by One who knows what we are going to ask. The
   Lord says, "Open your mouth wide," and He knows what we desire to
   receive from Him--and He has it all ready to give to us. Did you ever
   bring home a present for your children and ask them to wish for
   something, although they did not know that, all the while, it was in
   your pocket? You have brought them up to the point of asking for
   something that they need--then they go to bed and when they wake in the
   morning, they are surprised to see the very thing they longed for lying
   on their pillow! In a similar manner, our Heavenly Father gives
   additional sweetness to His mercies by tempting us to long for various
   things that He has all ready to give to us. He may well say, "Open your
   mouth wide," when He has so many good things ready to fill it!

   What will He fill our mouths with? Sometimes He will fill them with
   prayer. Do you not find, at times, that you cannot pray? Never mind,
   Brother, if it is so with you--open your mouth wide, for He will fill
   it. He will fill your mouth with arguments. Kneel down and groan
   because you cannot pray, agonize because you cannot pray and the next
   day you will say, "I wish I felt as I did yesterday, for I never prayed
   with greater power than when I thought I was not praying at all." Open
   your mouth with a sense of need, a sense of desire. Open your mouth
   with the sensibility of insensibility. You can comprehend, by
   experience, the paradox that I cannot explain. God knows how to fill
   your mouth with prayer when you go to your pulpit. Perhaps before the
   time for the service came, you thought you could not pray or preach at
   all. You remember how the Lord said to Ezekiel, "Eat this roll and go
   speak unto the house of Israel," and the Prophet said, "So I opened my
   mouth, and He caused me to eat that roll." You also may be able to do
   the same thing. Sitting in your study, you may be anxious because you
   cannot get a subject to really lay hold of you. At any rate, Brother,
   open your mouth with desire, eagerness and longing as you sit
   there--and if the Lord sends a roll to you, and shows you how to eat
   it-- when you go to talk to your people, you shall get that promise to
   Ezekiel fulfilled in your own experience, "I will open your mouth, and
   you shall say unto them, Thus says the Lord God." When you open your
   mouth in private and eat the roll that the Lord gives you, He will open
   your mouth in public and you shall tell the people the Truth of God
   upon which you have privately feasted.

   Next, the lord will fill our mouth with all manner of spiritual
   blessings. David says that the Lord "satisfies your mouth with good
   things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." Time fails me
   to attempt any list of proof texts upon this point. I can only say that
   when the Lord opens your mouth, you may be quite certain that anything
   He puts into it is wholesome and good even though, sometimes, it is not
   according to your own taste--though it will be if your spiritual palate
   is in a healthy condition. If your taste is out of order, even sweet
   things will seem bitter to you. If your heart is not right with God,
   you will ask for that which would injure you if He granted your
   request. When the Israelites craved for flesh in the wilderness, they
   made a terrible mistake. It will be far wiser for you, when you open
   your mouth in prayer, not so much to go into details as to say, "Lord,
   I am a mass of needs. I hardly know what they really are and what I
   think I need may be a mistake, but my mouth is open to receive whatever
   You see to be best for me." Then you may expect that He will fill it
   with all sorts of good things.

   Further, the Lord will fill your mouth with sacred joy When the Lord
   turned again the captivity of Zion, His people said, "Then was our
   mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing." It is a
   blessed mouthful when you get such an amazing mercy that you cannot
   understand it! Have you not, sometimes, received a mercy that has been
   like Isaac, the child of laughter? It has come to us as Isaac came to
   Abraham and we have heard the sound of the mercy and have laughed for
   very joy! God will also fill your mouth with His praise. That was a
   wise prayer of the Psalmist, "Let my

   mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your honor all the day." What
   a blessed mouthful it would be to have your mouth so full of the praise
   of God that you could not help letting it run out!

   III. Now I must close by noticing THE ENCOURAGEMENT. "Open your mouth
   wide, and I will fill it." Why?

   "Because I am Jehovah, your God, which brought you out of the land of
   Egypt."

   Brother, it is Jehovah who says to you, "Open your mouth wide." It does
   not always do to open your mouth wide to man, but the Lord says to you,
   "I am Jehovah, your God; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."
   When you stand before men, ask little and expect less. But when you
   stand before God, ask much and expect more--and believe that He is able
   to do for you exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think! "I
   am Jehovah." That is a boundless name! We know that our asking can
   never exceed His benevolence or His might. We are asking of a King,
   yes, of Him who is King of kings, so let us open our mouths wide as we
   approach Him. His very name prompts us to do so. Then He adds, "I am
   Jehovah, your God." So, will you not ask great things of the One who
   has given Himself to you? Is God, Himself, yours? Then, what is there
   that you may not ask of Him?

   There is great force in Paul's argument, "He that spared not His own
   Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also
   freely give us all things?" There is equal force in this other
   argument--As He spared not His own Deity, but freely gave Himself up to
   be the God of His chosen ones, saying, "I will be their God, and they
   shall be My people," then He will not deny them anything that they ask
   of Him if it is really for their good. Indeed, all things are yours
   already! Since He is your God, you have only to ask Him to give you
   that which is your own by His own gracious Covenant. I should not feel
   afraid or ashamed to ask anyone to give me what really belonged to me,
   however big it was. And, in prayer, you have to ask from God what He
   has already given you in Christ Jesus, for "all things are yours,"
   because "you are Christ's and Christ is God's."

   Then He adds, "which brought you out of the land of Egypt" Notice this
   argument, Brothers. Our own experience of deliverance from sin is a
   wonderful reason for asking great things of God. I speak with the
   utmost reverence, but it seems to me that God Himself cannot give me
   anything more than He has already given me in the unspeakable gift of
   His only-begotten and well-beloved Son. His blessed Spirit has given
   unto us eternal life! All the embellishments and enrichments and
   sustenance of that life are not equal to the life itself. The life of
   God in the soul is the chief blessing--and that we have already
   received. Well, then, as God has given us life, surely He will give us
   all other great blessings that we need and will deny us nothing that is
   for His own Glory and our present and future good. Paul often uses this
   kind of argument. For instance, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died
   for us. Much more, then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be
   saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were
   reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled,
   we shall be saved by His life." The greater mercy having come, the
   lesser one will also surely come! So, ask God for large things, for you
   have already received larger things than you are ever likely to ask
   for! And so you may rest assured that you will receive, in the future,
   whatever God sees that you really need.

   God said to His ancient people, "I am the Lord your God, which brought
   you out of the land of Egypt." Might they not well ask large things of
   that God who smote Pharaoh with all those terrible plagues? Might they
   not well ask great things of Him who darkened the sun at midday, who
   brought up the locusts till they covered the land, who made the very
   dust of Egypt to crawl with noxious life and who sent terrific
   hailstorms, with fire mingled with the hail? Who would not ask great
   things of such a great God as that? Then think of His slaying the
   first-born of Egypt and dividing the sea, even the Red Sea, and leading
   all the hosts of Israel through the deep and through the wilderness. He
   that could do all that, could, in His Infinite might, do all else that
   His people needed--so they might well ask great things at His hands!

   Moses sang, on the borders of the Red Sea, "He is my God, and I will
   prepare Him a habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt Him." The
   Israelites might well ask great things of Him who had overthrown all
   their adversaries! And you who have experienced such a marvelous
   deliverance by the blood of Jesus Christ, ought surely to be bold when
   you go to the Mercy Seat! The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was by
   blood. The paschal lamb was slain and its blood was sprinkled upon the
   houses of the Israelites. But you have not been redeemed with the blood
   of earthly lambs, "but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
   without blemish and without spot." Can it be possible, after such a
   redemption, that anything that is needed to bring you into the promised
   land and to enrich you with all temporal and spiritual blessings should
   ever be withheld from you?

   Let us, each one, go to the Mercy Seat with our mouths wide open and
   then let us go to our pulpits and preach with our mouths wide open,
   even as Paul wrote, "O you Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our
   heart is enlarged." Your mouths may well be open to your hearers
   because they have first been opened unto God!

   I am thankful that throughout this Conference, I have seen no traces of
   doubt and no signs of despondency. Every Brother has seemed to have
   confidence in God and to have hope, like a bright light, guiding him on
   his way. I have no doubt that some of you will see "greater things than
   these" even here on earth, while others will see them from the heights
   of Heaven. As surely as we have the Gospel with us and the Holy Spirit
   with us--as surely as God has led us thus far through the wilderness,
   as surely as He keeps us knit together in love and unity--so surely
   will He lead us from strength to strength--and the Lord will be
   magnified in our mortal bodies whether by life or by death! And we
   shall, by His Grace, all appear before Him in Zion. God bless you,
   Brothers! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

New Tokens of Ancient Love

   (No. 2880)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.

   "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yes, Ihave loved you
   with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
   you." Jeremiah 31:3.

   IT is said that when the stars cannot be seen during the day from the
   ordinary level of the earth, if one should go down into a deep well,
   they would be visible at once and, certainly, it is a fact that many of
   the brightest of God's promises are usually seen by His children when
   they are passing through some of their darkest experiences. As surely
   as God puts them into the furnace of affliction and trial, He will be
   with them in the furnace. I do not read that Jacob ever saw the Angel
   of the Lord until that night when, by the brook Jabbok, "there wrestled
   a Man with him until the breaking of the day," but then, the wrestling
   Jacob met the wrestling Angel foot to foot. I do not know that Joshua
   ever saw the "Captain of the Lord's host" until, outside the walls of
   Jericho, his Divine Leader appeared to him. I do not know that Abraham
   ever saw the Lord until, as a stranger in the plains of Mamre, He
   manifested Himself to His servant in the form of a traveler and His
   friends needing hospitality and refreshment.

   It is in our most desperate straits that we often have our most joyous
   Revelations. John must go to "the isle that is called Patmos" before he
   could have the wondrous Revelation that was there given to him. It was
   only on that barren, storm-girt rock, shut out from the world's light,
   that he could find the fitting darkness in which to view the Glory of
   Heaven undistracted by the shadows of earth! The message of our text
   was given to Jeremiah in a time of deep distress-- it was meant to be
   helpful to the Lord's people in their greatest desolations. That being
   the case, we may use it in a threefold manner and view it, first, as an
   answer to many complaints. Secondly, as teaching some exceedingly
   valuable doc-trinesand, thirdly, as a stimulant to self-examination as
   to our state before God.

   I. First, then, our text may be viewed as AN ANSWER TO MANY COMPLAINTS.

   If you look at your Bibles, you will see that the word, "saying," is in
   italics, showing that it is not in the original, but has been supplied
   by the translators. Sometimes they have inserted words which have
   really brought out the meaning more clearly--but, in this case, if I
   understand the passage, they have rather obscured the sense. The fact
   is, the first sentence is a complaint on the part of Israel. In the
   previous verse, God had said, "The people which were left of the sword
   found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to
   rest." "Ah," said Israel, "but that was centuries ago--'the Lord has
   appeared of old unto me.'" There was a note of complaint even in the
   expression of gratitude, as much as to say, "Times are changed, for the
   Lord does not appear unto me now." The complaint was that His choice
   Revelations and wondrous deliverances were all in the ages long ago.
   But the Lord's answer was, in effect, "It is true that these
   Revelations and deliverances were in the past, but they are designed to
   yield you present comfort, for they prove that I have loved you with an
   ancient love and, since I am Immutable, you may omit the word, ancient,
   and insert, everlasting--Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting
   love.'"

   Then, to complete the answer, the Lord avers that even in Israel's
   present time of mourning He had manifested His loving kindness. He
   seems to say, "Is not that as much as I ever did? Talk of all the
   wonders that I worked in the days gone by, when I cut Rahab in pieces
   and wounded the dragon--this is a greater wonder, that I have drawn you
   with loving kindness! Say not that the former times were better than
   these. Say not that the wonder-working power of God is

   exhausted. I loved you of old, but I also love you today and I have
   proved it by drawing you with the bands of My love. This is as great a
   miracle, as high a privilege and as sure a sign of My love to you as
   anything I did in the olden days."

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, is not this sometimes our complaint--that we
   read in the Bible of what God did of old, but we see nothing like that
   nowadays? Indeed, some people think that although there were wonders in
   those ancient times, the oracle has long ceased to speak. I daresay you
   have heard of the poor ignorant woman who, on being told by her
   minister about the crucifixion of Christ, said, "Well, well, Sir, if it
   was so, it happened a long while ago and a great way off--but let us
   hope the story is not true." I address some people, not quite so
   ignorant as that woman, who, nevertheless, when I preach about the
   wonders God has worked, say, "Well, Sir, those things happened long ago
   and a great way off--but it is not at all probable that God would do
   anything like that now." What? Do you think that His arm is waxed
   short, or that His hands have become powerless, so that He is not now
   able to help His people as He did in the ages gone by? This is the
   complaint of many! Perhaps they do not put it into words, but this is
   what they often say in their heart.

   What is God's answer to this complaint? Let each Believer hear Him say,
   "I have done for you as great wonders as I ever did for Abraham, Isaac,
   or Jacob. I have worked miracles for you as matchless as when I brought
   Israel up out of Egypt, or led the chosen nation through the wilderness
   into the land of Canaan. Did I bring them up out of Egypt? Have I not
   brought you up out of the dominion of sin? Did I break the power of
   Pharaoh? Have I not crushed the might of Satan? Did I divide the Red
   Sea for Israel to pass over? Have I not made a pathway for you, through
   many a tumultuous sea, so that you have gone over dry shod? Did I feed
   the people with manna in the wilderness and have I not fed you--not
   with bread, alone, but also with the Words which have come forth out of
   My mouth? Did I cause Moses to lift up the bronze serpent, that they
   might be healed when they were bitten by the serpents? And have I not
   lifted up the Son of Man, that whoever looks unto Him may be cured of
   the serpent-bite of sin? Did I bring them into Canaan and give them
   rest? And have I not said to you, 'There remains, therefore, a rest to
   the people of God'? Did I drive out the Canaanite before them and give
   them possession of the land? And have I not driven out your sins and
   will I not, by My Spirit, purify and cleanse your whole life? Did I
   give them Prophets after my own heart--and have I not given you
   shepherds who have fed you with knowledge and with understanding? Did I
   give to them, at last, King David to sit upon his throne--and have I
   not given to you great David's greater Son and Lord to be the King of
   your heart and to rule over your entire being? Did I give them Solomon,
   a temple and riches and glory? And have I not promised to you Heaven
   and greater riches, glories and splendors than anything I ever gave to
   him when he ruled over Israel?"

   I feel sure that if you will carefully look into it, your own
   experience will prove to be far more wonderful than anything which God
   did of old, so that you will have no reason to say, "The Lord appeared
   of old unto our fathers, but He is not now with their children." We are
   apt, sometimes, to think that natural miracles are greater than
   spiritual ones--for instance, that the dividing of the Red Sea, as
   recorded in the Book of Exodus, is a greater miracle than the forgiving
   of sins, as recorded in the Gospels. But if you will weigh these two
   things in the balances of the sanctuary, you will at once see that the
   spiritual miracle is infinitely greater than the natural one. It is an
   easy thing to shut the mouths of ordinary lions, but it is a great deal
   more difficult to shut the mouth of the roaring lion of Hell who goes
   about seeking whom he may devour. It is a very simple matter for the
   Omnipotent God to make a world--He speaks and it is done! But to remake
   an innumerable company of His creatures who have become debased and
   spiritually dead--this is, indeed, a work only comparable to that which
   He accomplished when He "brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,
   that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the Everlasting
   Covenant."

   God made the world without any suffering, but He could not redeem even
   one soul without unknown agonies. At the close of the six days work of
   Creation, God could say of everything that He had made, that it was
   very good. But, on the Cross, the Savior could not say, "It is
   finished," until His very heart had been broken with anguish and
   reproach. God could rejoice over the works of His hands--and His
   delights could be with the sons of men, but, after man had fallen, God
   could not lift him up again without sighs, groans and bloody
   sweat--yes, death itself, the death of deaths--"the death of the
   Cross."

   Therefore, let none of us, in these days, say that the former times
   were better than the present ones, or that God has ceased to perform
   His mighty works. He has done as much for us as He ever did for our
   fathers--so let us praise and bless His holy name, and laud and magnify
   His deeds of Grace! We, as a church, perhaps, are apt to think that we
   must not

   expect great things from God in these times. Why not--I pray--why not?
   Did not God give tongues of fire and send His Apostles forth to preach
   the Word to the people of every clime under Heaven? And is it not a
   fact that, within a hundred years of Christ's death, His Gospel had
   been proclaimed through all the then known world? And is it not
   possible that from this time forth the Church of Christ may take great
   strides like a giant, instead of creeping like a snail? Why may not the
   army of the Cross march onward--

   "From victory unto victory"-- instead of being so frequently repulsed?
   Is the Church of Christ always to be like a little stream in which you
   may see the pebbles lie? No! Let her be like Kishon, the mighty torrent
   that swept away the hosts of Sisera and Jabin, and let her carry off
   the legions of darkness into the depths of despair! Let God but arise
   in His might and wondrous works such as He did in the days of Huss, and
   Luther, and Calvin shall be done again! The thunder-claps of Whitefield
   and Wesley shall reverberate again! God can make all His ministers to
   be flames of fire if He so pleases. He can once more awaken His Church,
   scatter all her foes before her and enrich her with the spoils of the
   holy war!

   We have not fallen upon evil days, Beloved. We may be feeble, but our
   God is not! The light may be dim just now, but the sun is not dim. What
   if the winds do not always blow with hurricane force? They are but
   slumbering for a while and will awake with all their known vigor and
   drive the chariots of the sky at resistless speed! What if the ocean
   should seem, just now, to be sleeping in its briny bed? Before long it
   will respond to the Psalmist's invitation, "Let the sea roar, and the
   fullness thereof." If the stars should be, for a little while, hidden
   from your gaze, they will soon pierce through the darkness and, once
   again, shall you behold those eyes of Heaven peering down in mercy upon
   you! God can speedily renew to you all the manifestations of His
   Presence! Ebbs shall be followed by floods, winters by summers, and our
   present indications of a state of death shall give place to signs and
   tokens of a glorious life! Say not, complainingly, O Church of God,
   "The Lord has appeared of old unto me," but rather rejoice and revel in
   His comforting assurance, "Yes, I did appear of old unto you, for I
   have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness
   have I drawn you.

   I have thus explained how I believe our text was intended to be used.

   II. Now we will look at it as TEACHING SOME EXCEEDINGLY VALUABLE
   DOCTRINES. And, first, I believe that it teaches us the Doctrine of
   Effectual Calling--"With loving kindness have I drawn you." No one ever
   comes to the Lord unless the Lord, Himself, draws him. He cannot come
   and he will not come. Christ said to the murmuring Jews, "No man can
   come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him." And to those
   who sought to kill Him because of His miracles on the Sabbath, He said,
   "You will not come to Me, that you might have life." That is the
   sternest blow against free-will of which I know! What a free-willer can
   make out of that text, I cannot tell. He says that any man can come to
   Christ, yet Christ said to some, "You will not come to Me." And both
   observation and experience prove that this is still true. Never yet did
   a soul come to Christ till first Christ came to it. There are some who
   think that the Doctrine of Effectual Calling means that God forces men
   to repent and believe against their wills--a more absurd and
   unscriptural notion than that could hardly be mentioned! God does not
   drag men to Heaven by the hair of their heads! There is a wide
   difference between physical force and spiritual force. God does not
   save an unwilling man-- He makes him willing in the day of His power.

   We may not be able to explain all about this great mystery, yet we may
   firmly believe--in full accordance with the laws which regulate human
   minds and, without at all violating the free agency of His
   creatures--that God knows how to persuade men! Yes, and how sweetly to
   "compel them to come in," that His house may be filled! There is a sort
   of compulsion, you know, which one exercises by argument. The force of
   logic, or the spell of eloquence, we all acknowledge. In this way the
   understanding is overwhelmed. The mind, at first, resists, and says, "I
   will not do such-and-such," but you bring argument after argument to
   bear upon it until, at last, it yields and says, "I am compelled to do
   it." Yet it acts willingly, freely and not without pleasure. The
   understanding has been enlightened that acts upon the rest of the
   powers of the mind--and thus the man is influenced. We may even say
   compelled without any violation of the fact that he is free!

   And so the Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding by bringing the
   Truth of God to the mind and, through that Truth, leads the soul to see
   certain consequences that follow from it. Then the understanding, being
   enlightened, the soul, with full consent, comes to Christ. The Holy
   Spirit does what you and I cannot do, for He acts directly upon the
   will. We cannot do that except by physical force and, even then, the
   will is not really changed, for, if a man resolves that

   he will not do a certain thing but you afterwards compel him to do it,
   I question if his will is actually conquered. But the Holy Spirit knows
   how to apprehend "My Lord Will-Be-Will"--as Bunyan calls him--put him
   in irons and lead him away captive. There is still the will, but I can
   hardly say that it is put into fetters, for it was in fetters before!
   But it is as changed and assimilated to the will of God that it is
   really free in its love of holiness. It seemed to be free before, but
   it was a slave to evil passions. Free-will is a slave, by nature, but
   when Christ comes and, (as some would say), fetters it with the golden
   chains of love--then the will becomes free, indeed!

   Thus I have shown you how the Holy Spirit acts upon the will. He can
   also act upon the heart which is, perhaps, an even more important part
   of the man. When a man truly loves any objective, he is always willing
   to do anything in furtherance of that objective. And so, when the Holy
   Spirit shows to the mind's eye the beauties of Christ, His sufficiency
   and adaptation to the needs of the soul, the heart begins to love
   Christ. Where the heart goes, the will must follow-- especially if it
   is led by "My Lord Understanding, the Lord Mayor of Mansoul," according
   to Bunyan's Holy War So, though no soul ever comes to Christ without
   being drawn to Him, yet let it always be understood that such drawing
   is in perfect accordance with the laws which govern human minds and
   that the Spirit of God thus acts without, in the least degree,
   violating the freedom which God has given to men!

   The text says that God draws His people "with loving kindness." Yet it
   is quite certain that the Holy Spirit makes use of the Law of the Lord
   in drawing men to Christ and salvation. The thunders of the Law, the
   terrors of judgment, the stings of conscience and the pangs of death
   are all employed for this purpose--but they are all tempered and
   softened by the loving kindness of the Lord! In every instance you will
   find that it is His loving kindness that gives the finishing
   stroke--even with those who are driven to Christ by that stern teacher,
   the Law. The prodigal set out for his father's house from a sense of
   need, "but when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had
   compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." So that the
   last steps he took towards his father's house were taken with those
   kisses still warm upon his cheek and His father's welcome still music
   in his ears! Rightly do we sing--

   "Law and terrors do but harden

   All the while they work alone.

   But a sense of blood bought-pardon

   Soon dissolves a heart of stone." And when that sense of blood-bought
   pardon comes to the heart, the Law's thunders are all hushed and the
   heart is won for God!

   The Master came one night to the door of a man's heart and knocked on
   it with the mailed gloves of the Law upon His hands. The door creaked
   and shook, but it did not open, and the man put up against it all the
   furniture he could find, to keep it from opening, crying, all the
   while, "I will never be forced to yield." So the Master turned away for
   a time, but, by-and-by, He came back and, with His own soft hand, using
   mostly that part where the nail had penetrated, He knocked again, oh,
   so softly and tenderly! This time the door did not shake, but, strange
   to say, it opened and there, upon his knees, the once-unwilling host
   was found, waiting to welcome his Divine Guest! He said to Him, "Come
   in, come in! You have knocked in such a way that I can no longer resist
   You. I could not think of Your pierced hand leaving its bloody mark
   upon my door and then of Your going away homeless--Your head filled
   with dew and Your locks with the drops of the night. Come in, come in!
   You have won my heart and I yield to You, You blessed Lord and Savior!"
   It is so, I believe, in every case--loving kindness wins the day! What
   Moses could not do with his hammer, Christ does with His Cross. What
   Moses, with the two tablets of stone, could never do, Christ does with
   one touch of the finger of His mercy!

   This is the Doctrine of Effectual Calling as I see it in the text. Do
   you all understand it experimentally? Can each one of you say with Dr.
   Doddridge--

   "He drew me, and I followed on, Charmed to confess the voice Divine"?

   If so, may He continue to draw you until, at last, He shall draw you
   from earth to Heaven and you shall sit down at the marriage supper of
   the Lamb, to go no more out forever!

   I also see in the text the Doctrine of Eternal Love. Why has the Lord
   drawn His people to Himself? Because He loved them "with an everlasting
   love." To some good people, the word, "election," sounds almost like
   blasphemy. If "predestination" is mentioned, they think it is something
   dreadful! Yet that Doctrine is in the text and you cannot get the idea

   of "predestination" away from the word, "everlasting." The reason--and
   the onlyreason why any man is ever drawn out from the world and brought
   to Christ, is to be found in the eternal love of God! There is nothing
   more, naturally, in that man than in any other man. Indeed, in many
   cases he is worse than others. If salvation had been the reward of
   merit, he would have been left out. There is, by nature, nothing in man
   to win the heart of Christ. What form, what comeliness is there in
   human nature in His sight? Shall blackness win the heart of Him who is
   without blemish and without spot? Shall loathsome leprosy be attractive
   to the Divine Being? Shall deformity so charm the eyes of Jehovah that
   He shall love it? It cannot be! The onlyreason for God's love to us is
   that He willlove us. From that fountain of His own dateless love
   springs our effectual calling and everything else that comes to us!

   Let us pause awhile and meditate upon this everlasting love. Let every
   Believer in Jesus think upon it to his own comfort. There are many old
   things in the world--we like to see old castles, old abbeys and old
   ruins--but, long before those castles and abbeys were built, Christ
   Jesus had proved His love to us by redeeming us from our sins by
   shedding His precious blood for us on Calvary's Cross! We delight to
   travel in foreign countries and to see the remains of old Rome, or the
   pyramids of Egypt, or other wonders of the world. But long before any
   of those stupendous structures were piled, God had declared that the
   Seed of the woman should bruise the old serpent's head! It is
   delightful to go back, in thought, to the time when the hills were
   born--when the hoary Alps were yet infants and when the aged ocean was
   but a baby, sporting in its newborn existence and clapping its hands in
   its early glee. But if you go back as far as that, you have not begun
   to get anywhere near the time when God, in covenant with Christ, gave
   to Him a people and promised that they should be His forever and ever!

   Scientists love to go back to the most remote geological periods--to
   those ages before man was created--when those various deposits of
   shells, bones and other materials were made which are gradually being
   discovered. But you must go further back than that! Yes, you must go
   back beyond the very first creative act of God--and even then you will
   not have reached that period of which the Psalmist says, "The mercy of
   the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him."
   Fly back in imagination, if you can, to the time when the unnavigated
   ether had never been disturbed by the wing of cherub and when the song
   of the seraphim had never startled the silence of the infinite! Go back
   to the time when God dwelt alone and you have only then begun to
   approach that mysterious eternity when God loved His people "with an
   everlasting love." This wondrous love, too, was from eternity fixed
   upon such a worm as I am--and such worms as you are, Beloved. What a
   marvel it is that the Eternal should ever have deigned to think upon
   me, or upon you, my Brother, my Sister! Try to grasp it, if you
   can--though it is one of those things which only "expressive silence"
   can set forth. "HE loved me--from everlasting" Feed on this glorious
   Truth of God, O Christian, and remember that your being drawn to Christ
   is the effect of this eternal love and is, at the same time, the proof
   of it--the proof that you were upon God's heart long before He--

   "Spread the flowing seas abroad, And built the lofty skies!"

   Read the text another way and it will teach us a third Doctrine. The
   word, "everlasting," looks not only backward, but forward. "I have
   loved you with an everlasting love." That is to say, "I have drawn you
   because I intend to save you to everlasting. I would not have called
   you by My Grace if I had meant to ever leave you to perish. I would not
   have begun the good work in your soul, by drawing you with loving
   kindness, if I had not intended to bring you to My Glory at the last."
   O beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, love without beginning is
   indeed sweet, but there is a still more luscious sweetness in love
   without end! It will do us good to dilate a little upon this wondrous
   Truth of God, nor shall we need to draw much upon our imagination in
   doing so. I can readily picture the time when this dark hair of mine
   shall be silvered over with gray and the sunlight of Heaven shall begin
   to whiten my brow. Yes, but God's promise is, "Even to hoar hairs will
   I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry and will
   deliver you." It needs no great stretch of the imagination to look
   forward to the time when the old man will have to lean upon his staff
   and those that look out of the windows shall be darkened and the
   grasshopper shall be a burden. Perhaps it will be the lot of some of us
   young people to grow old together--if so, may we grow ripe as we grow
   old! But if we are the Lord's people, we shall be able, each one, to
   say as infirmities increase upon us, "My flesh and my heart fails, but
   God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

   Then we look forward to that silent chamber where friends will stand by
   our bed and whisper, "He cannot last long now." Whether we shall hear
   them say it, or not, we cannot tell, but, "we know that if our earthly
   house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a
   house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Now the last moment
   comes. The death sweat is on our brow, the death rattle is in our
   throat, yet David's words are fulfilled in our experience--"Yes, though
   I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
   for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." Now my
   soul has stretched her wings! She has left mortality behind, to--

   "Soar through tracks unknown"--

   but still she sings--

   "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee."

   In due time will come the great Day of Judgment, but--

   "Bold shall I stand in that great day,

   For who anything to my charge shall lay?

   While through Your blood absolved I am

   From sin's tremendous curse and shame." Now the drama of Time is
   finished. Eternity has come and we shall be "forever with the Lord!"
   The sun has spent its fire, the moon has paled its feeble light, the
   elements have been burned up with fervent heat, the stars have shut
   their eyes in eternal blindness and the universe dissolves as the
   billow's foam sinks into the wave that bears it. But still, our Lord's
   words describe the joy of His people--"the righteous into life
   eternal." Oh, that precious everlasting love of God, always ours,
   because with loving kindness He has drawn us!

   There is a thief over there who wants to steal away this Doctrine from
   me. He has been borrowing the old-fashioned burglarious instruments of
   dead men--the pick-locks of Arminius and the center-bits of Mr.
   Wesley--a good man, but one who was on a bad errand when he tried to
   take this choice and comfortable Doctrine from the children of God. Yet
   I do not care what any of them may say or do, "for I am persuaded that
   neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
   nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
   other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which
   is in Christ Jesus our Lord." If we are in Christ, there is one thing
   which should make us feel very safe--if anything could ever divide us
   from the love of Christ, we would have been divided long ago. Suppose
   that our troubles could do it--then it would have been done long since,
   for we have had a sea full of them already! Yet, in six troubles the
   Lord has been with us and, in seven, He has not forsaken us!

   Suppose that sin could do it--then, Brothers and Sisters, it would have
   been done in the first hour after our conversion. I must certainly make
   my sorrowful confession--

   "If ever it could come to pass

   That God's own child should fall away,

   My fickle, feeble soul, alas,

   Would fall a thousand times a day!" If the Lord had ever meant us to
   fall into Hell, we would have gone there years ago.

   "But," say some, "perhaps we may meet with strong temptations." Yes,
   probably we shall, but we shall never meet with a temptation stronger
   than the arm of God can enable us to overcome! Others say, "But perhaps
   we may backslide." Yes, I know we may. But if we do, the Lord will say
   to us, even then, "Turn, O backsliding children, for I am married unto
   you." Yet others say, "But perhaps we may make the Lord angry with us."
   Yes, I know we may, but I also remember how He pleaded with those who
   did so in the olden day--"How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I
   deliver you, Israel? How shall I make you as Admah? How shall I set you
   as Zeboim? My heart is turned within Me. My repent-ings are kindled
   together. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger, I will not
   return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man."

   This is a question about which we need not dispute here, for I do not
   suppose that there is one member of this church who ever entertains a
   doubt about the truth of this Doctrine. We sing over and over again--

   "Did Jesus once upon me shine? Then Jesus is forever mine!"

   And we delight to repeat that confident assurance of Toplady, whose own
   end was so joyous because of his enjoyment of this precious Truth of
   God--

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

   III. I was to have concluded my discourse by considering our text as A
   STIMULANT TO SELF-EXAMINATION AS TO OUR STATE BEFORE GOD, but our time
   has gone, so I can only ask this all-important question--Brothers and
   Sisters, have you any part and lot in these things of which I have been
   speaking? Are you the objects of eternal love?

   "That is just what I would like to know," says one, "can you tell me?"
   Well, I cannot climb to Heaven to read the roll of the redeemed, nor
   can I tell you of a way to go up Jacob's ladder to read it for
   yourself. But there is a way of knowing whether God loved you before He
   made the world--and whether He will love you after the world has ceased
   to be. It is this--has He drawn you with His loving kindness? Examine
   your hearts and see. Have you felt your need of Jesus? Has that need
   constrained you to pray to Him? Has that prayer been answered by your
   being enabled to put your trust in Him? Have you been drawn away from
   the confidence in which you once boasted? Have you been drawn away from
   the love of your old sin? Have you--to sum up all--been made a new
   creature in Christ Jesus? Then, never doubt your election and never
   doubt your glorification! "For whom He did foreknow, He also did
   predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be
   the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
   them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and
   whom He justified, them He also glorified."

   What are you doing, Mr. Unbelief? You are trying to separate
   glorification from calling, but you can never do it, for God has joined
   them together so securely that neither death nor Hell can break the
   bond that unites them! Remember-- "whom He called, them He also
   justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." May we all
   be there, among the heavenly birds of paradise--

   "And vie with Gabriel while He sings, In notes almost Divine"

   of love without beginning and of favor without end! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH60

   The subject of this chapter is "The glory of the Church in the abundant
   access of the Gentiles, and the great blessings after a short
   affliction."

   Verse 1. Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the
   LORD is risen upon you. The Church is like the moon which shines with
   borrowed light. When God shines upon the Church, then the Church shines
   by reflecting His light. The Glory of Jehovah is her glory. If that is
   withdrawn, she is dark, indeed, but when that shines into her and
   through her, then her brightness is great, indeed.

   2, 3. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross
   darkness the people; but the LORD shall arise upon you and His glory
   shall be seen upon you. And the Gentiles shall come to your light, and
   kings to the brightness of your rising. There is nothing that breaks
   the darkness except the light from God's face. And when that falls upon
   the Church, then the Church straightway begins to shine in the midst of
   the darkness--and multitudes come to the light. Even the great ones of
   the earth, the kings, come to the brightness of her rising.

   4. Lift up your eyes round about, and see: they all gather themselves
   together, they come to you: your sons shall come from far, and your
   daughters shall be nursed at your side. There is no sign here of the
   Church of God being deserted. On the contrary, she shall become,
   through the Grace of God, the center of attraction! Men shall come from
   distant lands to her--however far removed they were, they shall still
   come--"your sons shall come from far." She shall also be increased by
   the accession of those near at hand--"and your daughters shall be
   nursed at your side."

   5. Then you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall fear and
   be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto
   you, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto you. Oh that we might
   live to see this happy day when we shall feel a holy awe because of
   God's Glory as revealed in His Church! This fear is not a servile dread
   but a

   holy awe of God. And then the heart shall be enlarged--we shall deal
   with great things, wish for great things, attempt great things, do
   great things and see great things. "Your heart shall fear and be
   enlarged," for the sailor far away upon the sea and the whole strength
   of the Gentiles shall come to you.

   6, 7. The multitude of camels shall cover you, the dromedaries of
   Midian and Ephah, all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold
   and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the LORD. All the
   flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto you, the rams of
   Nebaioth shall minister unto you: they shall come up with acceptance on
   My altar, and I will glorify the house of My glory. These people had
   mostly been followers of false prophets, but they, too, shall forsake
   their fanaticism and their bigotry and come to unite with the Church of
   God. Those least likely and furthest off from hope shall be brought in
   by the Sovereign Grace of God.

   8. Who are these that fly as a cloud and as the doves to their
   windows?The Church is astonished! She asks, "Who can

   they be?"

   9, 10. Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish
   first, to bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with
   them, unto the name of the LORD your God, and to the Holy One of
   Israel, because He has glorified you. And the sons of strangers shall
   build up your walls, and their kings shall minister unto them for in My
   wrath I smote you, but in My favor have Ihad mercy on you. The Church
   of God is one continuously. At first it was a Jewish Church and it has
   never ceased to comprise within its bounds some members of the chosen
   race. But now, in these latter days, she has broken the narrow bonds of
   race and from Tarshish and the distant isles of the sea, multitudes are
   already coming to the Church of God--and they shall come much more
   numerously in the years that have not yet arrived.

   11-14. Therefore your gates shall be open continually; they shall not
   be shut day nor night, that men may bring unto you the forces of the
   Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought For the nation and
   kingdom that will not serve you shall perish, yes, those nations shall
   be utterly wasted. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto you, the fir
   tree, the pine tree and the box together, to beautify the place of My
   sanctuary; and I will make the place of My feet glorious. The sons also
   of them that afflicted you shall come bending unto you. Or, if they do
   not themselves come, their children shall; each generation shall
   include a remnant according to the election of Grace and, in due time,
   shall come the great ingathering.

   14-22. And as they that despised you shall bow themselves down at the
   soles of your feet, and they shall call you, The City of the LORD, The
   Zion of the Holy One of Israel Whereas you have been forsaken and
   hated, so that no man went through you, I will make you an eternal
   excellency, a joy of many generations. You shall also suck the milk of
   the Gentiles, and shall suck the breasts of kings: and you shall know
   that I, the LORD, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of
   Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver,
   and for wood, brass, and for stones iron: I will also make your
   officers peace, and your exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more
   be heard in your land, wasting nor destruction within your borders, but
   you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. The sun
   shall be no more your light by day, neither for brightness shall the
   moon give light unto you: but the LORD shall be unto you an Everlasting
   Light, and your God your Glory. Your sun shall no more go down; neither
   shall your moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be your Everlasting
   Light and the days of your mourning shall be ended. Your people also
   shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch
   of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified. A little
   one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the
   LORD will hasten it in his time. "Amen! Amen!" So say we with all our
   heart!
     __________________________________________________________________

Feeble Faith Appealing to a Strong Savior

   (No. 2881)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   19, 1876.

   "And immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears,
   Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." Mark 9:24.

   THIS is the case of a man who knew well enough what he wanted and who
   was full of anxiety to obtain it. Indeed, he was so anxious to obtain
   it that he prayed most earnestly and most importunately for it. He
   prayed to the right Person, too, for, after having failed with the
   disciples, he resorted to their Master, Himself. Yet, not withstanding
   all this, at the time recorded in our text, he had not obtained the
   blessing that he sought.

   We probably know of many persons who have not yet been awakened to a
   sense of their need--and much labor has to be expended by the faithful
   minister in order to show them their danger and to make them realize
   their true condition in the sight of God. They have many spiritual
   needs, but they do not know what those needs really are. This man had
   gone further than that, for he did know what was the great need of
   himself and his son. Then there are others who have head knowledge as
   to their spiritual needs, but they do not seem to be anxious to have
   those needs supplied. They are stolid, careless, immovable. That was
   not the case with this man. He knew that he needed his son to be
   healed. He was intensely eager that he should be healed, and healed
   then and there. His heart was moved with compassion for his child and
   he was most anxious that the evil spirit should be cast out of him at
   once. There are some of our hearers who seem to have desire of a
   certain kind, but they do not use that desire in the right way. They go
   about seeking salvation where it is not to be found. They are, to an
   extent, earnest in their own fashion, but to them the Lord might say,
   as of old, "Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? And
   your labor for that which satisfies not?"

   This man had gone a stage beyond that. He was directing all his
   entreaties to Jesus--he was appealing to the great Lord, Himself, from
   whom alone deliverance could come. It is a great mercy, my dear
   Friends, if you are brought as far as this poor man was--to know what
   you really need, to be anxious to obtain it--and to be making your
   appeal to Jesus to grant your requests. Yet, with all that, this man
   had not obtained the gift he was seeking. There are many like he who
   have not secured the blessing they are seeking. You are aware of your
   sin and you lament it, yet you cannot get a sense of pardon. You know
   your spiritual needs and you bemoan them, but you cannot grasp that
   which supply them. You have made an appeal to God in Christ Jesus and
   you are resolved that you will never leave off so appealing--yet, for
   all that, you have not, thus far, received the blessing. There is
   something or other in the way--something that hinders you. And I should
   not wonder--no, I feel quite certain--that the thing which hinders some
   of you from getting what you seek from Christ is your own unbelief.
   That is the point at which I am going to aim in my discourse, as God
   shall help me. And I pray that as I do, from many a heart may be
   breathed this confession and cry, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."

   I. There are three things in our text. The first is THE SUSPECTED
   DIFFICULTY AND THE REAL DIFFICULTY.

   Reading the story carefully, I gather that this man saw difficulties as
   to his child's cure, but that he never thought of the real one. He
   fancied that the difficulty lay in the case of his child. His words to
   Christ, "If You can do anything," seem to imply that he felt, "This is
   a case that is quite out of the ordinary run--something special and
   singular--and, therefore, beyond Your power." If I can interpret his
   thoughts, it is my opinion that he said to himself, "This is too
   mysterious a case to be cured. An evil spirit has struck my boy dumb,
   yet that same spirit makes him foam at the mouth and

   gnash with his teeth. Those very organs which refuse to utter
   articulate speech, are, nevertheless, strangely in motion. He seems to
   be taken, too, by this evil spirit at intervals, and hurried this way
   and that--he cannot tell how--and, at one time, he is hurled into the
   fire and, at another time, into the water. It is a most mysterious
   malady and, possibly, because it is so mysterious, it is not in the
   Messiah's line of things."

   I have known some who have thought their case, spiritually, to be very
   mysterious. They have imagined that there was something about their
   constitution, or, still worse, that some extraordinary guilt had
   brought upon them a condition of heart that was peculiarly vicious.
   They have even fancied that this state of heart had put them beneath
   the ban of the unpardonable sin and that others had better beware of
   coming near them, for their condition was so strange, so singular, so
   wild, that they could not tell what to think or say of themselves.
   Sometimes they are hot and in the fire. But at other times, cold, and
   in the water--with no voice for praying or praising, yet able to curse
   and to blaspheme. "Ah," says such an one, "my case is so mysterious
   that even the Lord Jesus Christ will never be able to save me."

   Very likely, too, the father thought that his child's disease was too
   violent to be cured. He was dashed about, here and there, and torn as
   though his poor body must be dissolved into the atoms of which it was
   made. He could not be held in or restrained--no government or control
   could be exercised over him, for the demon carried him, with an
   irresistible influence, wherever it pleased. The poor father could
   truly have said, "Look at him. I brought him into the Presence of
   Christ, Himself, and here he lays wallowing upon the ground, being torn
   in pieces by the demon! And now that the spasm is past, he lies there
   as if he were dead--and some say that he really is dead."

   I should not wonder if I am addressing a man who thinks that the
   difficulty as to his salvation lies in the fact that his passions are
   so violent and so fierce. Possibly, he says, "I kept sober for months,
   but, all of a sudden, it seemed as if the drink demon overpowered me
   and I had an awful bout of drinking till delirium tremens was well-near
   upon me." "Ah," says another, "I struggled against a vicious habit
   which I had formed and I thought I had overcome it, but, alas, the next
   time the temptation came in my way, I did not seem to have any more
   power to resist it than a snowflake has to resist the wind that drives
   it along--and I was carried right away by the evil impulses. Some men
   have a peculiar bent towards evil because of their intense vehemence of
   character--it was so with Samson, though he had the saving Grace of
   faith. Such men are, perhaps, strongly developed in the sinews and
   muscles of their body, but, certainly, they are in the passions and
   impulses of their soul. You may bind them with fetters and chains, but
   the strongest bonds are only like the green ropes were to Samson. The
   devil that is in them seems to be absolutely supreme over them when he
   puts forth his power. I do not wonder, therefore, if they think that
   the difficulty, in their case, lies in the violence and suddenness of
   their sin. But it is not so.

   Perhaps this poor father thought that in his child's case, the
   difficulty lay in the fact that he had been such a long time a
   sufferer, even from his childhood. In answer to Christ's question, "How
   long has this been happening to him?" he said, "From childhood." So a
   man sometimes says, "Sin is bred in my bones and it will come out in my
   flesh. My very nature is corrupt. While I was but a child, I loved sin,
   and since then, throughout my youth and manhood, I have gone after it
   greedily--and it has become a habit that is firmly fixed upon me. 'Can
   the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' Then may he
   that is accustomed to do evil, learn to do well." Such sinners feel as
   if they had been steeped and soaked in the crimson lye until there was
   no hope of ever getting the stain out of them. They have been wanderers
   from God even from their youth--how can they be brought near to Him?

   Yet we know that the difficulty did not lie in the child's case at all,
   for Jesus Christ was able to cast the devil out and He did cast it out.
   And if that child had been possessed by a whole legion of devils,
   instead of only by one, Jesus Christ could, with a single word, have
   cast them all out! No matter how long the demon had been in possession
   of the child, nor how vehement and impetuous he might be, Christ could
   drive him out whenever He pleased. And at this moment, dear Friend,
   your past life, your sins, your natural corruptions, your inherited
   vices, your evil habits which have grown so strong upon you, are not
   the real difficulty. The Lord Jesus Christ "is able to save them to the
   uttermost that come unto God by Him." He, Himself, said, "All manner of
   sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men."

   So I care not how bad your case may me--it may even be worse than I
   should dare to guess--there may be a secret criminality about it that
   sets it altogether by itself as an unusual and even unique offense
   against God! But that is not the difficulty in the way of your
   salvation. Christ can easily write "settled"at the bottom of the long
   account of your sins-- it is no more trouble for Him to write that word
   at the foot of a long bill than a short one! God can as readily make
   you a

   new creature in Christ Jesus--whatever your sins may have been--as if
   you had been living a strictly moral life. You are spiritually dead in
   any case--and it is He alone who can give you life. You are lost in any
   case and the Good Shepherd can just as readily find the lost sheep that
   has gone far astray as another which is only just outside the fold, for
   He is Almighty and, therefore, able to do all things! So the difficulty
   does not lie there.

   Perhaps, however--no, we know that it was so--the father thought that
   the difficulty lay with Jesus Christ Himself He seemed to say, "I have
   done all I can for my child. I brought him to Your disciples, but they
   could not cure him. And now I have brought him to You. If You can"--but
   he had hardly got those words out of his mouth before the Lord Jesus
   addressed him, in a peculiar Greek idiom, which cannot be fully
   translated into English, but which might run something like this--"The
   if you can"--that is exactly the Greek word--"the if you can believe,
   all things are possible to him that believes," as much as to say, "The
   if you can does not lie with Me. Oh, no! The if you can lies with you."
   He takes the man's words and hurls them back at him! I daresay the man
   may have thought, "If His disciples cannot cure my child, at all events
   their Master does not. He has seen how afflicted he is. If He could
   have done it, surely He would at once have said to my child, 'Be
   healed.' Yet there He is, standing still and talking to me, as if this
   were not a pressing case of urgent need! It must be lack of power on
   His part that keeps Him from curing my child." But Jesus Christ will
   not let such a thing as that be said without showing that it is not
   true! And, Brothers and Sisters, if you harbor in your heart any idea
   that there is a lack of power in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you, you
   are believing a most atrocious lie and defaming the Almighty Savior!
   The difficulty, in your case, is not either in the sin or in the
   Savior. He is able to forgive the greatest conceivable transgressions
   of all who believe in Him and He is able to break and to renew the
   hardest heart, even though it should be hard as steel or like the
   nether millstone!

   II. We have now to consider, in the second place, THE TEARFUL
   DISCOVERY--"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."

   What was his discovery? Why his discovery was that he did not
   believe--and that is where the real difficulty lay. When did the man
   make this discovery? When he began to believe! Is it not a very
   singular thing that as soon as ever he had a little faith in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, he discovered the great abyss of his unbelief? "Lord," he
   said, "I believe, but, oh, I do also disbelieve so much that my
   unbelief seems to swallow up my belief!" Until a man receives faith, he
   may think that he has it--but when he has real faith in Jesus Christ,
   then he shudders as he thinks how long he has lived in unbelief--and
   realizes how much of unbelief is still mixed with his belief! There are
   many of you who have never believed to the saving of your souls, yet
   you say, "Oh, yes, we believe the Bible! We believe in God. We believe
   in Jesus Christ." You stand up in church and say, "I believe in God the
   Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth," and so on, but you do not
   do anything of the sort! If you did, you would be saved, since true
   belief in Jesus Christ brings salvation to everyone who so believes.
   While men have no faith--I repeat what I said just now--while men have
   no faith, they are unconscious of their unbelief, but as soon as they
   get a little faith, then they begin to be conscious of the greatness of
   their unbelief! When the blind man gets a little light into his eyes,
   he perceives something of the blackness of the darkness in which he has
   been living--and so you must be able to say from your heart, "Lord, I
   believe," or else you will never be able to pray, as this man did,
   "help my unbelief." Even a small measure of faith is necessary to
   discover the great measure of the unbelief.

   This man, as soon as he discovered his unbelief, was distressed and
   alarmed at it. He could not look straight at Christ and say, "Lord, I
   do disbelieve You, but I cannot help it." No, he was distressed about
   it. He felt how dreadful a thing it was to be unbelieving and he
   appealed to Christ, confessing his unbelief, saying, "Lord, help me out
   of it, I beseech You." Notice how he turned his whole attention to that
   one matter of his own unbelief--he did not even mention his poor child!
   His child was, no doubt, still in his thoughts, yet his prayer was not
   concerning his child, but concerning his own unbelief, for he saw that
   was the difficulty needing to be removed! And when God, in infinite
   mercy, visits a poor troubled heart and gives it even a little faith in
   Jesus Christ, its great distress is concerning its remaining unbelief,
   for it perceives that this is the greatest of all sins--the most
   terrible of all stumbling blocks--and it is, indeed, the chief
   hindrance to men's entrance into rest of heart and eternal life!

   Now look, all of you who are seeking Christ, but who say that you
   cannot get peace. The difficulty lies here--if you can believe, all
   things are possible to you! But it is because you do notbelieve that
   you remain as you are.

   Let me show you what it is that you do not believe. You say that Christ
   cannot save you. Then you believe that Om-nipotence--you dare not say
   it is notOmnipotence--has for once met its match! Look that statement
   in the face--that the Eternal Son of God has a task set before Him
   which He cannot perform! In other words, you do not believe in the
   Omnipotence of God, for, if He is Omnipotent, He must be able to save
   you.

   Next, Sinner, when you say, "Jesus cannot save me," you cast a slur
   upon His precious blood. You stand, in imagination, at the foot of His
   Cross, and you see Him bleeding away His very life--yet you say, "The
   merit of that blood is limited. I know it is, for it cannot atone for
   mysin." You are trampling upon the blood of the Son of God and counting
   it an unholy thing by declaring that your sin is more mighty than His
   Infinite Sacrifice!

   Again, after shedding His blood for sinners, Christ went back into
   Heaven--and a great part of His occupation there is to make
   intercession for the transgressors. Yet you say that His intercession
   cannot be powerful enough to avail for you, although I have already
   reminded you that God has said, "Therefore He is able, also, to save
   them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives
   to make intercession for them." To say of yourself, "Christ cannot save
   me," or to say of any other man, "He cannot save that man," is to
   insult His blood and to caste a slight upon His ever-living pleas! What
   greater crime can there be than thus to limit the Holy One of
   Israel--yes, to limit Him both when bleeding on the Cross and sitting
   on His throne? I charge you, Sirs, to feel the utmost horror at the
   very thought that you should have been guilty of such a crime against
   the Lord Jesus Christ! God has declared that "He that covers his sins
   shall not prosper: but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have
   mercy." The Apostle John, writing under the Inspiration of the Holy
   Spirit, declares, "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from
   all sin." If, then, you say, "But it cannot cleanse mefrom mysin," you
   call a lie the most solemn Revelations and pledges of the Divine Mercy!
   Do you mean to do that? Oh, how often shall we have to remind you that
   whether you mean to do so, or not, that is what you are doing? Remember
   how the loving John writes, "He that believes not God has made Him a
   liar because he believes not the record that God gave of His Son."

   In addition to insulting the Son as to the efficacy of His blood and
   insulting the Father concerning His veracity-- bear with me, Sinner, in
   bringing these grave charges against you--and as God bears with you,
   you may well bear with me as I remind you of your sin! You also insult
   the Spirit of God by your unbelief, for you as good as say, "The Spirit
   of God cannot renew my heart. He cannot bring me to repentance, He
   cannot bring faith to me." Yet the Spirit, the Father and the Son, is,
   Himself God--Infinite and Almighty. It is a great sin for anyone to
   say, "The Spirit cannot regenerate me. There is no hope for me."

   Is it possible that you, poor despairing Sinner, think that your
   despair proves that you are humble? It is not so. Despair is one of the
   proudest things in the world, for it even dares to tell the Almighty
   Spirit of God that He cannot--He cannot--save! I beseech you, do not
   say it! But if you have faith enough to believe that Jesus is
   Omnipotent and that there is unlimited value in His blood and His
   plea--that the Father is true and that His promises must be fulfilled
   and that the Spirit of God is able to work such a change in your heart
   that old things shall pass away and all things shall become new--then
   be alarmed to think that there should be any unbelief remaining in you,
   and cry out with tears, as this man did, "Lord, I believe; help my
   unbelief."

   III. Now comes our third point--THE INTELLIGENT APPEAL.

   The man has seen where the difficulty lies. He has made a discovery as
   to his own unbelief and now he turns round to Jesus and he cries,
   "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." Kindly notice the wording of the
   man's prayer as recorded in the 22nd verse--"If You can do anything,
   have compassion on us and help us." See that word, "help." And, now,
   when he is convinced of his unbelief, look at his prayer: "Help my
   unbelief--the same word that he had used before. In his first petition,
   looking at his poor child wallowing on the ground, he cried, "Help us!"
   But now he has been taught better and he says, in effect, "Lord, I see
   that it is easy work for You to cast a devil out, but the difficulty is
   that I am unbelieving, and that hinders You, Lord. Help me believe, for
   that is what is needed." I recommend some of you, instead of praying,
   "Lord, give me a sense of pardoned sin. Give me a new heart. Give me to
   feel that You love me"--pray those prayers, by-and-by, but for the
   present, pray like this, "Lord, help me to believe. Lord, give me
   faith. Lord, drive away my unbelief." Direct your prayers to that one
   point--for that is the matter in which you are lacking. Unbelief is the
   great stone lying at the door of your heart and preventing that door
   from being opened!

   Notice that this man's prayer was intelligently addressed to One, who,
   he believed, could help him. He seemed to say to himself, "If Christ
   can help my child to get well, then He can help me to believe." Believe
   that, Sinner, and ask Him to help you to believe! His prayer was
   addressed to One in whom he did believe, in a measure, for he would not
   have prayed to Christ to help his unbelief if he had not felt that
   Christ could do so. And he did say, "Lord, I believe." His was a
   strange mixture of belief and unbelief--and so are yours, my dear
   Friends--and I charge you, with the little faith you have, if you
   believe that Jesus can save other people, go to Him and beseech Him to
   cast out of you the unbelief which is still lurking within you! The
   chief reason why you have not peace with God--why you have not found
   the conscious enjoyment of eternal life--is that you lack faith! You
   need your unbelief to be cast out.

   I am going to close my discourse by showing you that there is nobody
   but the Lord Jesus Christ who can help us to get rid of unbeliefand by
   advising you to take your unbelief, and all your other sins, and
   confess them to Christ as sins and then ask Him to enable you to get
   rid of them. It ought to enable you to see how Jesus Christ does help
   you to get rid of unbelief if you consider His Nature. If you rightly
   understand that, it will be a deathblow to unbelief. Who and what is
   Jesus. You believe--I know you do--that He is "very God of very
   God"--that Jesus of Nazareth is "over all God, blessed forever." If you
   will only think of those two great facts, it will help you to believe
   in Him. Cannot you trust your soul in the hands of God? Is He not able
   to deliver you? Is He not able to pardon you? "The Son of Man has power
   on earth to forgive sins" because He is God! If I had an angel sent to
   be my Savior, I dare not trust him. When any man says that he can
   forgive my sins, I will not trust him, for I know that he is a liar and
   a thief, trying to rob God of His prerogative. When Jesus Christ, the
   Son of God, says that He can save me, I cannot find any reason why I
   should not believe Him--and I do not believe you can suggest any
   reason! Unbelief is a most unreasonable thing, but faith is most
   reasonable and right. As Christ is Divine, my natural inference is,
   "Then I will trust Him."

   Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ is Man as well as God--and such a Man
   as the world has never seen before or since. You have read the story of
   His life. Did you ever read of any other man so gentle, so tender, so
   true, so kind, so full of affection, so willing to live and die for
   others? What? Not trust Him? Oh, it seems to me as if I could not help
   trusting Him! Certainly, ever since I have known my blessed Lord and
   Savior, I have felt that I could say to Him, as David did, "They that
   know Your name will put their trust in You." Son of God and Son of Man,
   Your very Nature helps to banish our unbelief and, as soon as we
   rightly understand it, we feel that unbelief is an unnatural, illogical
   and wicked thing!

   Think also, for a minute or two, of His great offices. Our Lord Jesus
   Christ has a thousand offices, but there is one upon which I especially
   love to dwell. He is a Savior--He "came into the world to save
   sinners." Many people imagine that they cannot be saved because they
   are sinners, but that is the very reason why they can be saved. You
   remember how Martin Luther put it? He said, "The devil came to me and
   he said, 'Martin Luther, you are a big sinner. You are so great a
   sinner that you cannot be saved.'" Luther replied, "I will tell you
   what I will do, Satan--I will cut off your head with your own sword,
   for I am a sinner--and I know that it is so. And since Jesus Christ
   came into the world to save sinners, I believe He came to save me--and
   I have trusted my soul to Him for time and eternity." A doctor does not
   come to heal those that are healthy--he naturally looks after the
   sick--and a Savior does not come to save those who need no saving! He
   comes to save sinners, so that your sinnership, instead of being a
   disqualification, is, to speak broadly, a qualification! Just as filth
   is a qualification for being washed--just as poverty is a qualification
   for receiving alms--just as sickness is a qualification for medicine,
   so your very sin and vileness are qualifications for Christ's work of
   Grace in you! I am using expressions that some will think strange, yet
   I am speaking, nevertheless, what is the absolute Truth of God. Does it
   not help to remove your unbelief to hear that Jesus is "mighty to
   save"?

   Think, next, of the anguish which Christ endured when He offered
   Himself up as the great atoning Sacrifice for His people's sin. I have
   never been able, for a single instant, to believe in any limit to the
   value of the Atonement offered by Christ on Calvary. It does seem to me
   to verge upon blasphemy to suppose that if God, Himself, becomes
   Incarnate, and suffers, and bleeds, and dies, there can be anything
   less than infinite value in the Atonement that He offers. So then,
   Sinner, as it is infinite, it can cover your case! As it is without
   boundaries, there cannot be a boundary set to it as far as you are
   concerned! Look at Christ on the Cross and you will not dare to say,
   "He cannot save me." Know what He is and who He is--see how He suffers,
   how the Father smites Him and yet how the Father loves Him all the
   while--and you must say, "Christ's blood must have sufficient power in
   it to take away all the guilt of all who trust Him." It is so! Believe
   it and that will help to drive away your unbelief.

   Remember, too, dear Friends, that when Christ died upon the Cross, He
   was not working out a trifling scheme of salvation. It was a sublime
   enterprise that took Him from His Throne in Heaven and brought Him down
   to the manger in Bethlehem. It was a God-like undertaking which made
   Him lay aside the scepter and bear to have great nails thrust through
   His hands. It was a great scheme and, therefore, it included great sin,
   great pardon and great salvation! So, if you are a great sinner, you
   match the general scale of the whole scheme--which is of such huge
   proportions that it can encompass even you!

   Christ's design in dying, too, ought to help to kill your unbelief. Why
   did He die? Was it not that the Free Grace of God might have full swing
   and abundant scope? And will it not have full swing if you are saved
   and is there not great scope for pardoning mercy in you? Remember, dear
   Friends, our Lord Jesus Christ never thought it was worth His while to
   come from Heaven to give glory to a man--He came from Heaven to bring
   glory to God by vindicating His justice and manifesting His mercy! Now,
   if such a sinner as you are--you who think yourself too bad to be
   saved--if you get saved, what a display of Divine Grace there will be
   in your case! A man said to me, some time ago, "If ever I get to
   Heaven, Sir, I believe they will carry me about the streets and exhibit
   me as a marvel of God's mercy." "Well, then," I replied, "they will
   have to carry me around as well." I suspect that every saved soul in
   Heaven is a great wonder and that Heaven is a vast museum of wonders of
   Grace and mercy--a palace of miracles in which everything will surprise
   everyone who gets there! It has been well said that there will be three
   surprises in Heaven--first, we shall not find some we thought we would
   meet there. Then, we shall find some we never thought would be there.
   But the greatest surprise of all will be to find ourselves there! I
   think it will be so--not that we shall be astonished at the fact when
   we remember God's promise and what He has done for us--but we shall be
   amazed when we remember what we used to be and what the Grace of God
   had to do for us to make us fit to be there. Well, if you are one of
   those who will be carried all around Heaven as a marvel of mercy, I
   believe you are the very person who is likely to get there--because God
   wants the angels and all the redeemed to see the wonders of His Grace
   displayed to us-ward who believe!

   I close with this one thought. If, poor Soul, it is your lack of faith
   that stands in the way of the blessing coming to you, and if that lack
   of faith is infamous on your part since you call God a liar, I charge
   you to repent of it and to believe God here and now! If you still say,
   "I know not how to believe and I cannot trust," I dare not try to
   excuse you for saying so. Unbelief is the greatest of all crimes--I
   know of none to match it. But if you really want help in fighting
   against your unbelief, cannot you go to Christ for it? Even while you
   are thinking about Him, you will believe in Him! If you need to trust
   His blood, thinkof His blood. If you need to trust Him as a living,
   loving Savior, thinkof Him as a living, loving Savior. "Faith comes by
   hearing." When you are hearing about it, thinking about it, reading
   about it, the Holy Spirit will breed faith in your soul! Oh, do get
   faith, whatever else you do notget! May God enable you to exercise
   saving faith in Jesus Christ before you rise from your seat, lest, in
   this very building, you should stumble into death and into Hell!

   Do I need to ask you, Sirs, a thousand times, to believe the Truth of
   God? Must I, over and over again, say to you as Jesus said to the Jews,
   "Because I tell you the truth, you believe me not"? If Christ is not
   worthy of being believed, then He is a liar. If Christ cannot be
   trusted, then He is wrongly named. Oh, do not drive us to the inference
   that you think thus of Him! Commit your soul into His hands this very
   moment and have done with it, once and for all, for His dear name's
   sake. Amen!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MAARK92-29

   Verses 2-6. And after six days Jesus took with Him Peter, and James,
   and John, and led them up into an high mountain apart by themselves and
   He was transfigured before them. And His raiment became shining,
   exceedingly white as snow, so as no fuller on earth could whiten them.
   And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and they were talking
   with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good
   for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for You, and
   one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For he knew not what to say; for
   they were afraid. Brothers and Sisters, like these disciples of our
   Lord, we are not yet fit to be favored with a sight of His Glory. As we
   now are, we could not bear it. As our poet says--

   "At the too-transporting light,

   Darkness rushes over my sight"

   These three Apostles of Christ were too bewildered to know what to say.
   They were quite lost and, I suppose that if we could go to Heaven as we
   are, our bewilderment would even exceed our bliss! But we may rest
   assured that God will prepare us for that which He has prepared forus.

   7, 8. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a Voice came
   out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son: hear Him. And
   suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man anymore,
   save Jesus only with themselves. And although this was not so ravishing
   or so astonishing a sight, yet it was more encouraging to them--
   something which they could more easily bear with joy and peace--"they
   saw no man anymore, save Jesus only with themselves." May God grant to
   us, as long as we are here below, that if no Moses or Elijah shall ever
   come to visit us, at any rate Jesus may never be absent from us! May
   our fellowship with Him be unbroken!

   9, 10. And as they came down from the mountain, He charged them that
   they should tell no man what things they had seen till the Son of Man
   were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves,
   questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean.
   These were Peter, and James, and John--the three most privileged
   disciples of Christ--probably the best scholars in that class which had
   the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, for its Teacher. Yet His plain language
   was without meaning to them--"questioning one with another what the
   rising from the dead should mean." I wonder whether, when our Lord
   comes the second time, we shall discover that the prophecies concerning
   His advent were wonderfully clear, but that we could not understand
   them till He came. Plain as His teaching concerning His Resurrection
   was, His disciples could not understand it till that great event had
   really occurred!

   11-13. And they asked Him, saying, Why say the scribes that Elijah must
   first come? And He answered and told them, Elijah verily comes first,
   andrestores all things; andhowit is written ofthe Son ofMan, that He
   must suffer many thing, and be set at nothing. But Isay unto you, that
   Elijah is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatever they
   wished, as it is written of him. John the Baptist had come, in the
   spirit and power of Elijah, and had reconstituted matters and prepared
   the people for the advent of the Savior, whose herald he was.

   14, 15. And when He came to His disciples, He saw a great multitude
   about them, and the scribes questioning with them. And straightway all
   the people, when they beheld Him, were greatly amazed, and running to
   Him saluted Him. Some relics of the glory on the mountain still
   remained upon His face, and the people were astounded. So, though
   deeply interested in the battle which was proceeding between the
   scribes and the disciples, they left them and turned to look upon that
   mysterious radiance which hovered about His brow.

   16. And He asked the scribes, What are you discussing with them? The
   circumstances of the disciples resembled a battlefield on which the
   enemy was winning the day and the loyal troops were about to die
   defeated--when suddenly, the great Commander, Himself, appears for
   their relief. His Presence is worth more than a thousand battalions of
   men--and He charges at once upon the adversary and puts them to rout!
   "He asked the scribes, What are you discussing with

   them?"

   17. And one of the multitude answered. One who had a peculiar reason
   for answering, just as, I trust there will be one in this multitude
   before me who will have a peculiar reason for listening to my message
   and a peculiar reason for remembering it after it is delivered--"One of
   the multitude answered." [Remember the Exposition was always before the
   sermon.]

   17-19. And said, Master, I have brought unto You my son who has a dumb
   spirit; and wherever he takes him, he convulses him: and he foams, and
   gnashes with his teeth, andpines away. And I spoke to Your disciples
   that they should cast him out; and they could not. He answered him, and
   said, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long
   shall I bear with you? Bring him unto Me. I suppose our Lord's rebuke
   was meant specially for His disciples. It was something like the speech
   of a schoolmaster who, having taught his pupils the same lesson a great
   many times, and labored hard with them, from year to year, yet finds
   them failing in the very elements of knowledge. Christ does not speak
   as if He were tired of His life and wished to get away from His
   disciples--but this is His way of saying how disappointed He is that
   these learners have learned so little.

   "How long shall I bear with you? Bring him unto Me." Those words struck
   my heart very forcibly as I read them-- "How long shall I bear with
   you?" Does not the Lord Jesus Christ have to put up with a great deal
   from every one of us? I applied His words to myself and I thought I
   heard Him saying to me, "How long shall I be with you? How long shall I

   bear with you?" Often, He must derive more pain than pleasure from
   communion with many of His people. How grieved He must often be to see
   their slowness to learn, their readiness to forget and the difficulty
   with which they can be brought to live the lessons which He so
   carefully imparts to them! Then note what His action is concerning the
   poor child-- "Bring him unto Me."

   20. And they brought him unto Him: and when He saw him, straightway the
   spirit convulsed him. As soon as ever Christ looked at him, "the spirit
   convulsed him." One look from Christ awakes the devil! Sometimes
   sinners are worse, for a time, when Christ looks upon them. The devil
   always has great wrath when he knows that his time is short. And he
   rages and convulses most violently when he is about to be ejected. The
   Jews have a proverb, "When the tale of bricks is doubled, Moses
   appears," and we may make it into a Scriptural proverb, "When the
   devil's torment of the heart is doubled, then Jesus appears to cast him
   out."

   20. And he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And Jesus, instead
   of curing him at once, gave his first attention to the other patient
   before him, namely, the father of the child. He was suffering from an
   equally bad disease, though the symptoms were different--and Jesus
   meant to cure him as well as his boy!

   21, 22. Andhe askedhis father, howlong has this been happening to him?
   Andhe said, from childhood. And oftentimes it has cast him into the
   fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if You can do anything,
   have compassion on us, and help us. He put himself on a level with his
   child and that is the best way to pray for your children--"Have
   compassion on us, and help us." It will be compassion on youas well as
   upon your son, if the Lord saves him!

   23. Jesus said unto him. Catching at his words, "If You can do
   anything"--

   23-29. If you can believe, all thing are possible to him that believes.
   And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears,
   Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! When Jesus saw that thepeople came
   running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, You deaf
   and dumb spirit, I charge you come out of him and enter no more into
   him. And the spirit cried, and convulsed him sorely and came out of
   him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But
   Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. And when
   He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, Why
   could not we cast him out? And He said unto them, This kind can come
   forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. There are some things which
   we are not fit to do until we have drawn very near to God and have been
   deeply humbled and, with sincere repentance and the gracious operation
   of the Holy Spirit, have been cleaned so as to receive so great a gift.
   Faith alone will not accomplish everything. Faith must be accompanied
   by prayer, and prayer must be, at least sometimes, in special cases,
   attended with fasting. The Lord makes reserves of His mercies which He
   does not give immediately. Even to the request of faith, He demands
   importunity on our part and heart-searching, and heart-cleansing before
   the blessing will be bestowed.
     __________________________________________________________________

Forgiveness and Fear

   (No. 2882)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   26, 1876.

   "There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." Psalm 130:4.

   THIS is good news, indeed--the best of news--and they will prize it
   most who are like the Psalmist was when he wrote these words. And who
   are they?

   First, they are those who are in soul-trouble--"Out of the depths have
   I cried unto You, O Lord." Some of you may, perhaps, think this subject
   is a very commonplace one, but the soul that is in deep spiritual
   trouble will not think so. Bread is a very commonplace thing, but it is
   very precious to starving men. Liberty is an everyday enjoyment to us,
   but it would be a great gift to those who are in slavery. O you who are
   in the depths of soul-trouble, like shipwrecked mariners who seem to be
   sinking in the trough of the sea, or being dragged down by a
   whirlpool--this text will bring sweet music to your ears! "There is
   forgiveness." There is forgiveness with God.

   This good news will also have a peculiar sweetness to those who have
   begun to pray. Read the second verse--"Lord, hear my voice: let Your
   ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications." Prayer makes men
   value spiritual blessings. They are asking for them. They are sincerely
   seeking them. They are knocking loudly at Mercy's gate in order to
   obtain them. And they who are in earnest in their prayers prove that
   they value the blessing they are seeking and they are delighted to hear
   that they are likely to secure it. Oh, that it might be said, for the
   first time, of someone here, "Behold, he prays." I am sure that such an
   one will be right glad to listen to even the simplest language that
   tells out these glad tidings--"There is forgiveness with God."

   And if, to soul-trouble and earnest prayer, there should be added a
   very deep sense of sin amounting, even, to utter self-condemnation,
   then I am quite certain that there is no carol that will have sweeter
   music in it than my text has! Read the third verse and see if you can
   truly repeat it--"If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who
   shall stand?" Do you feel that your iniquities condemn you? Are you
   compelled to plead guilty before God? Well, then, though you cannot
   claim acquittal on the ground that you have no sins, yet here is the
   blessed information that there is forgiveness for sinners! Stand in the
   dock where the guilty ought to stand and let the Judge condemn you. No,
   spare Him the trouble-- condemn yourself and, when you have done so,
   and have also trusted the great Atonement made by His dear Son, He will
   say to you, "There is forgiveness. Be of good cheer--your sins, which
   are many, are all forgiven you." I do not expect to say anything to
   delight deaf ears, but I do believe that the simple tidings I have to
   tell will have great weight with those who are in soul-trouble, with
   those who have begun to pray--and those who are self-condemned on
   account of sin.

   I am going to take the text thus. First, here is a most cheering
   announcement--"There is forgiveness with You." Secondly, here is a most
   admirable design--"That You may be feared."

   I. First, here is A MOST CHEERING ANNOUNCEMENT--"There is forgiveness
   with You."

   This announcement has great force and value because it is most
   certainly true. When a man hears some news which pleases him, he loses
   that pleasure if he has reason to suspect that it is not true. The
   first questions you ask, when someone tells you of some good fortune
   that concerns you, are of this sort, "Are you quite sure it is so? Can
   you give me good authority for your assertion?"

   Well, this news is certainly true, for it is consistent with God's very
   Nature. He is a gracious God. "He delights in mercy." Mercy was the
   last of His attributes that He was able to reveal. He could be great
   and good when the world was made, but He could not be merciful until
   sin had marred His perfect handiwork. There must be an offense
   committed before there can be mercy displayed towards the offender.
   Mercy, then, I may say, is God's Benjamin--His last-born, His favored
   one, the son of His right hand. I never read that He delights in power,
   or that He delights in justice, but I do read, "He delights in mercy."
   It is the attribute that is sweetest to Himself to exercise. When He
   goes forth to punish, as He must, His feet are, as it were, shod with
   iron--but when He comes to manifest His mercy, He rides, as David says,
   "upon the wings of the wind." He delights to be gracious and,
   therefore, I feel sure that there is forgiveness with Him.

   We are even more sure that it is so when we remember that God has given
   us the best pledge of forgiveness by giving us His dear Son. He could
   not be merciful at the expense of His justice, for His Throne is
   established in righteousness and that righteousness requires that He
   should by no means spare the guilty. How, then, could He display His
   Grace and mercy and yet be the just God? He did it thus. The offended
   One took the nature and the place of the offenders and here, on this
   earth, Jesus of Nazareth, who was "very God of very God," suffered all
   that we had brought upon ourselves, that the Law of God might be
   honored by executing its full penalty and yet that the Free Grace and
   mighty mercy of God might be equally manifest. If any of you doubt
   whether there is forgiveness with God, I pray you to stand on Calvary,
   in imagination, and to look into the wounds of Jesus. Gaze upon His
   nail-pierced hands and feet, His thorn-crowned brow, and look right
   into His heart where the soldier's spear was thrust--and blood and
   water flowed out for the double cleansing of all who trust Him. O
   Christ of God, it could not be that You should die and yet that sinners
   cannot be forgiven! It would be a monstrous thing that You should have
   bled to death and yet that no sinner should be saved by that death! It
   cannot be--there must be forgiveness--there is forgiveness since Jesus
   died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."

   Moreover, we have God's promise of forgiveness, as well as the gift of
   His Son. His Word says, "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." It is declared by the Apostle John, under the Inspiration of
   the Holy Spirit, that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses
   from all sin. Many other passages in the Bible teach the same glorious
   Truth--"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." "I, even I, am He that
   blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember
   your sins." "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions,
   and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed you."
   Time would fail me to mention all the Lord's promises of forgiveness,
   they are so many. And remember that it is the God who cannot lie who
   has given the promises, so you may be sure that they are all true and
   that there is forgiveness with Him!

   We are certain, also, that there is forgiveness, because there is a
   Gospel, and the very essence of the Gospel lies in the proclamation of
   the pardon of sin. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Go you into
   all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved." But no one can be saved without sin
   being pardoned-- therefore, there is pardon for the sin of everyone who
   believes and is baptized according to the Gospel command. Christ's
   ministers may all go home, for their office is useless, if there is no
   forgiveness of sins! We may shut up all our houses of prayer, for it is
   a mockery to God and man to keep them open if there is no forgiveness
   of sins! We may abolish the Mercy Seat, itself, and burn this blessed
   Bible if there is no forgiveness of sins! What value can there be in
   the means of Grace-- what can be the use or signification of any Gospel
   at all--if sin is not pardonable? But it can be pardoned! There is
   forgiveness. If you want evidence in confirmation of that declaration,
   there are hundreds of us who are prepared to prove that we have been
   forgiven--and there are hundreds of thousands, now alive, who know that
   their sins have been pardoned and that they have been absolved from all
   their guilt for Christ's sake! And there are millions of millions,
   beyond all count, before yon burning Throne of God who continually
   praise Him who loved them and washed them from their sins in His own
   blood!

   I bear my own personal testimony that I know there is forgiveness, for
   I have been forgiven. If it were the proper time to do so, I would ask
   all here who know that their sins have been forgiven, to stand up. If I
   did so, some of you would be astonished to see how great an army of men
   and women in this Tabernacle would declare that they, also, have been
   saved by Grace, and that they have washed their robes and made them
   white in the blood of the Lamb! Unless we are all de-

   ceived--and we are not, for we have the witness of the Spirit of God
   within us that we are not--and unless all who have fallen asleep in
   Christ have perished, there is forgiveness with God! This fact should
   make us very joyous because it is so certain. There is no need to
   dispute it--I hope none of you will do so. If any of you doubt it, I
   beg you to come and test it and try it for yourselves and, with the
   blessing of God, you will say with the Psalmist, "There is
   forgiveness."

   This fact gathers additional sweetness from another source, namely,
   that the declaration is in the present tense. "There is forgiveness."
   When? Now--at this moment there is forgiveness. Possibly you are 80
   years of age, but there is forgiveness. Or you may be very young--a
   little boy or girl, but there is forgiveness for the young as well as
   for the old! You tell me that you have already rejected many
   invitations? Yes, but there is forgiveness. It is to be had now,
   blessed be God, for, "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is
   the day of salvation." Believe right now in Jesus Christ, God's Son,
   and you have forgiveness now--in a moment! It takes no appreciable
   period of time for God to forgive sin. Swifter than the lightning flash
   is the glance from the eye of God that conveys peace and pardon to the
   soul that trusts in Jesus! You would need time to get a pardon signed
   and sealed by an earthly monarch, but time is out of the question with
   the God of Everlasting Love. A sigh, a groan, a genuine confession of
   sin, a believing glance of the eye to Christ on Cal-vary--and all is
   done--your sin has passed away, there is forgiveness and you have
   received it! Therefore, go and rejoice in it!

   You must not forget to notice, however, that this is a fact which
   refers to GodHimsel--"There is forgiveness with You"--and with nobody
   else. I charge you to spurn, with the utmost indignation, the so-called
   "absolution" by a so-called "priest," whether of the Church of England
   or the Church of Rome! Such absolution as that is not worth the foul
   breath that utters it! I marvel, sometimes, how any man can ever,
   apparently, delude himself and try to deceive his sinful fellow
   creature by daring to say, "I forgive you your sins." I suppose it is
   use and habit that makes men do strange things at which an
   unsophisticated conscience shudders, but, to me, the blasphemer's
   coarse oath that makes my blood curdle as I go down the street has not
   half the iniquity in it of the man who deliberately puts on certain
   specified vestments, claims to be a priest of the Most High God, and
   then says to a sinner like himself, "I absolve you." I think the time
   has come when all Christians ought, in every way they can, to shake
   themselves from these abominable priestcraft and lies altogether! The
   very dress we wear, the very position we occupy in the congregation,
   should be a protest against this wickedness in the sight of God--for
   wickedness it is, of the most extreme kind--though I believe the
   perpetrators of it do not always know what they do, so we may pray,
   "Father, forgive them and open their blind eyes."

   Go, Sinner, straight to God for pardon, through Jesus Christ! But
   never, never, go to man! As to confessing your sins to a man--pouring
   the dirty sewage of your filthy nature into another man's ear and
   making that ear the common cesspool of the parish--oh, that is
   intolerable even to ordinary decency--and much more to the purity which
   the Grace of God suggests! Go to Jesus, the one Mediator between God
   and men! Go and kiss His pierced hands and feet, and confess your sin
   to Him who made the propitiation for it! But go nowhere else, I charge
   you, at your soul's peril--lest, like Judas, who first went and
   confessed to a priest and afterwards went out and hanged himself, you
   should be driven to despair and a similar awful suicide! O God, as
   "there is forgiveness with You," deliver Your poor fallen creatures
   from the further dreadful degradation of bowing themselves down before
   sinners like themselves, confessing their sins and seeking pardon where
   it cannot be found! There is forgiveness, but that forgiveness is only
   to be obtained from God, through Jesus Christ, His Son.

   Notice, next, in the text, the unlimited character of this
   forgiveness--"There is forgiveness with You." You see, there is no word
   to limit it--it does not say that there is forgiveness only for a
   certain number--there is no such restriction as that. Nor does it say
   that there is forgiveness only for a certain sort of sin--there is no
   such limit as that. Nor is it said, "There is forgiveness up to a
   certain point, or forgiveness up to a certain date." No, but the
   declaration, "there is forgiveness with You," stands out in all its
   glorious fullness and simplicity, with no abridging or qualifying words
   whatever. Do not, poor Sinner, put a limit where God puts none, but
   build your hope of pardon and salvation on this declaration and go to
   God, through Jesus Christ, and you shall find that there is forgiveness
   for you--even for you, at this very hour! I pray that you may prove it
   to be so.

   Let me also add that the forgiveness which God gives to a sinner is
   complete. He blots out all sin. It is also sincere. He really does
   forgive when He says that He does. It is lasting, too. God does not
   forgive us today and accuse us again tomorrow. No, let me give you a
   better word than lasting--God's forgiveness is everlasting. He who is
   once forgiven is

   forgiven to all eternity! Forgiveness is one of the gifts of God that
   are without change--He never gives it and then regrets that He has done
   so. If you get forgiveness from God, you have the first link in an
   endless chain of mercies. You shall become God's child--His beloved. He
   will teach you, care for you, keep you, sanctify you, bless you,
   perfect you and, in due time, bring you to Heaven! Oh, the heap of
   blessedness which lie in this one gracious gift of God--the forgiveness
   of sins! I wish that, by any power of mine, I could induce all of you
   to seek this forgiveness. No, I retract that expression--I do not wish
   that any power of mine should do it, lest I should have the honor of
   it--but I do pray that God'spower may do it for all of you--that you
   may be made conscious of sin, believe in Jesus Christ and so find that
   perfect pardon which God is waiting and willing to give to all who
   trust His Son!

   II. Now I pass on to the second part of our subject which is A MOST
   ADMIRABLE DESIGN--There is forgiveness with You, that You may be
   feared." How does forgiveness cause men to fear God?

   First, it is clear that God's design in proclaiming forgiveness is the
   opposite of what some men have said and thought. We have known many who
   have said, "There is forgiveness, so let us keep on sinning." Others,
   not quite so base, have said, "There is forgiveness, so we can have it
   whenever we please." Holding this idea, they have trifled with sin and
   they have delayed to seek forgiveness, drawing--oh, I am ashamed to say
   it of my fellow men!--drawing the infamous inference that, as God is
   merciful, they may live in sin as long as they like and then find mercy
   at the last! I would like any man who has adopted that strangely cruel
   and wicked way of dealing with God's mercy to look straight at it for a
   minute. I think that if I had a friend whom I had grieved and I knew
   that he was ready to forgive me, I would not, therefore, put off the
   reconciliation and so grieve him still more! I would be very base,
   indeed, if I acted like that! Or if I were a child and I had vexed my
   father, but he was very gentle and forgiving, I think that if I were to
   say, "It does not matter much--father will forgive me whenever I ask
   him, so I shall not ask him for months, or perhaps years." If I did
   talk so, it would be very base on my part. I ask you, Brothers and
   Sisters, not to talk so and not to act so. It is not fair and just
   treatment of our gracious God! It is not even worthy of man. Why, if
   even a beast is treated kindly, it will scarcely return a kick for
   kindness. Some perverse animals will do that, but most will generally,
   at length, yield to kindness. And the long-suffering of God ought much
   more to lead you to repentance and not induce you to continue in your
   sins.

   This design of God is quite contrary to what some other men have said
   would naturally arise out of the Doctrine of Free and Full Forgiveness.
   So-called "priests" have said, "If men can have pardon by simply
   believing in Jesus, they will cast off all restraint, so, let us keep
   them under our thumb--tell them that there are certain 'sacraments'
   that they must attend and that they must look up to us and then we will
   get them into Purgatory. And then, when sufficient money is paid to us,
   we will get them out." But pardon--free pardon, perfect pardon, pardon
   given on the spot to simple faith-- they tell us that this would tend
   to demoralize people! Well, that is a subject on which they can speak,
   for nobody has demoralized people more than so-called "priests" have
   done! But it is evident that God does not agree with them. It is
   written here, by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "There is
   forgiveness with You, that You may be feared, "so that, instead of
   destroying any man's fear, or reverence, or religion, the gift of a
   free pardon is to be the very means of producing such a condition of
   heart and life! Let us look at this point for a minute or two.

   In the first place, if there were no pardon, it is quite certain that
   nobody would fear God at all. There is no forgiveness for the devil and
   all his legions--and there is not a devil that has any reverence or
   love or adoration for God. No, they abide in sullen despair. They know
   that there is no hope for them and, being shut up to despair because
   their sin is unpardonable, they rage and rave against the God of
   Heaven! You never read of a devil on his knees in prayer. Whoever heard
   of a devil saying, "Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord.
   Lord, hear my voice: let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
   supplications"? And why do the devils not pray like that? Why, because,
   among other reasons, there is no forgiveness for devils and, therefore,
   none of the right kind of fear of God! They tremble, I grant you. They
   have a certain sort of dread and, without pardon, there may be a dread
   and horror of God. But that is not what our text means, for the fear of
   God, in Scripture, does not signify dread--it signifies true religion,
   holy reverence and awe--"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
   wisdom." And, unless there is pardon of sin, it is clear that its
   absence drives the sinners to despair and prevents them from
   worshipping God.

   Again, if there were no pardon, there would be nobody to fear God, for,
   Brothers and Sisters, if God had not had mercy upon us, He would long
   ago have swept us away! It is mercy--even if it is not pardoning mercy,
   it is mercy--

   which permits us to live! If God had no pardon for any of the whole
   human race, there would be no necessity for reprieving men at all--the
   tree of humanity would long since have been cut down as a cumberer of
   the ground.

   Now turn to the positive side of this subject. When the Gospel is
   faithfully preached and attentively heard, the very hearing of it,
   under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, breeds faith in the soul, for
   "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." But,
   Brothers, suppose we had no pardon to preach--would there be any faith?
   Could there be any faith then? Have you ever heard of a man who
   believed in an unpardoning god? Did anybody ever yet hear of a sinner
   believing in a god who manifests no mercy and bestows no forgiveness?
   Only the heathen trust to such gods, which are no gods! The very fact
   that pardon is proclaimed and carried to the heart by the power of the
   Holy Spirit, produces faith in the soul--and faith is the root and
   foundation of all true fear of God.

   After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin
   brother and is born at the same time. Nobody ever repented until he
   heard of pardon. Let a man be certain that he cannot be pardoned and
   you may be quite sure that he will not repent. He may feel remorse. He
   may regret and lament his sin because of the penalty which follows it,
   but that gentle softening of the soul which makes us hate sin because
   it is committed against such a good and gracious God is not possible
   until, first of all, the heart has believed that there is forgiveness
   with God. Evangelical repentance is one of the fruits of the Gospel of
   forgiveness and no other tree can produce it. So, you see, Beloved,
   that because there is forgiveness, men exercise faith and they also
   experience repentance--and these two Divine Graces are a very large
   part of what is meant by the Scriptural term, "the fear of the Lord."

   It is also the good news of pardon that inclines the heart to prayer.
   You would never have heard of a man praying for mercy if there had been
   no mercy to be obtained! If Jesus had never died and the Gospel had
   never been sent into the world--if there had been no proclamation of
   pardon, it would never have been said of Saul of Tarsus, "Behold, he
   prays." No, prayer arises in the soul as a result of the telling of the
   glad tidings that pardon is to be had. And prayer, like faith and
   repentance, is a large part of "the fear of the Lord." The man who
   truly prays is certainly one who fears God.

   When a man really receives the pardon of all his sins, he is the man
   who fears the Lord. This is clearly the case, for pardon breeds love in
   the soul and the more a man is forgiven, the more he loves. Where great
   sin has been blotted out, there comes to be great love. Well, is not
   love the very core of the true fear of God? If a man really loves God,
   has he not discovered the very essence of true religion? But how could
   he love God if there was no pardon to be had?

   Pardon also breeds obedience. A man says, "Have I been forgiven? Then I
   will seek to avoid all sin in the future. Out of love to God I will
   labor to do that which He bids me do." And, surely, obedience is a very
   large part of the fear of

   God.

   And, oftentimes, this forgiving love of God breeds in the soul deep
   devotion andintense consecration to Him. There have lived and there are
   living now, men and women who have given their whole selves to Jesus,
   many of whom are laboring for Him even beyond their strength--yes, and
   many such men and women have died, for His sake, the most cruel deaths,
   without shrinking back or seeking to escape that terrible cross. Where
   came such a fear of God as that? Why, it could never have come into
   their hearts if they had not received the forgiveness of their sins for
   Christ's sake, but, having been forgiven, they came to love and
   fear--not with a servile fear, but with a holy awe--the Blessed One
   through whose precious blood they have been cleansed! Thus forgiveness
   of sin is essential to true fear of God--and wherever it is enjoyed, it
   is the main motive which moves them to fear God and brings them into
   that blessed condition. Is not that clear to all of you?

   I finish my discourse by asking and trying to answer this question--As
   there is forgiveness to be had, why should YOU not have it? I may not
   be able to point "you"out, though, often, God does direct my finger, or
   eye, or word, to the very person for whom there is forgiveness. So I
   ask again--As there is forgiveness to be had, why should you not have
   it? Young man under the gallery, why should you not have it? Young
   woman down in that area, why should you not have it? Suppose you should
   never get it? Suppose you should die without being forgiven? Oh, that
   would greatly aggravate all the ordinary pains of death! If you die
   unpardoned, your doom will be the more terrible because there is
   forgiveness with God, yet it is of no use to you!

   One of my predecessors, Dr. Rippon, had considerable influence with the
   government of his day. Those were what some foolish people call, "the
   good old days," when they used to hang people on a Monday morning, as a
   regular thing, and take little notice of it. It so happened that one
   who was related to a former member of this church was condemned to

   die. It was believed that he was innocent, so there was much
   intercession offered on his behalf to the government--and a pardon was
   granted and signed by King George III. Very Providentially, it happened
   that one of the members of the church, going to the prison, said to the
   governor, "I hear that you have eight prisoners to hang tomorrow." He
   answered, "I have nine for tomorrow." "No," said the other, "there were
   nine, but one of them has been pardoned." "I know nothing about that,"
   said the governor, "I have received no pardon and, unless I do receive
   one, I shall hang him tomorrow morning."

   The news came to Dr. Rippon, and he took the post chaise [a closed,
   four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage, formerly used to transport mail and
   passengers]--in those times, that was the only way of travelling--and
   rode down to Windsor. He went to the castle and, by dint of that
   modesty which is always becoming in a minister of the Gospel, if it is
   not carried too far, he pushed himself in and demanded to see the king!
   He managed, at last, to get to the ante-room, next to the one where His
   Majesty was sleeping. Hearing a noise, the king asked, "What is that?"
   His attendant answered, "Here is a Dr. Rippon who says he must see Your
   Majesty." "Show him in, then," he said, and Dr. Rippon saw the king in
   bed and said to him, "Your Majesty gave a pardon to such-and-such a
   man." "Yes, I know I did." "But they have not got it at the prison and
   the man is going to be hanged in the morning if I do not get back to
   London in time." So the king posted the good doctor back with another
   pardon--and the man was saved!

   Suppose he had been hanged? What would his parents have said? Well,
   they might have said, "There was forgiveness, yet he was hanged." I
   think that would have been the bitterest ingredient in their
   grief--that they had obtained forgiveness for him and yet, after all,
   that he was hanged. Happily, it was not so, but, Sirs, as there is
   pardon to be had--if you will not ask for it--as there is pardon to be
   had by confessing your sin and believing in Jesus, yet you will not
   seek it-- why, then, when you are lost, you will say to yourself, "Oh,
   what a fool I was! There was forgiveness, but I neglected to seek it!
   There was forgiveness, but I did not realize that I needed it, so I
   have perished by my own folly." I charge you, men and women, to
   remember that if you are lost, your doom will be far more terrible than
   that of those who have never heard the Gospel because you have had the
   way of salvation plainly set before you and I have again exhorted you,
   as best I can, to walk in it! Oh, how I wish I could exhort you with
   more earnestness, and in more persuasive words, but, perhaps even then
   there would be an equal failure! I implore you, do not put eternal life
   away from you! Do not refuse the pardon that the Lord Jesus Christ
   presents to all who trust Him! Trust Him, I pray you, trust Him now!
   And the pardon shall be yours.

   "But," says someone, "I am afraid of what I may do in the future. If I
   were forgiven now, I am afraid I should again act just as I have done
   before." Well, then, take the text as a whole--"There is forgiveness
   with You, that You may be feared." If you receive the forgiveness of
   God, you will have the fear of God put into your heart at the same
   time, for this is a part of the ancient Covenant--"I will put My fear
   in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me." "A new heart also
   will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Poor Sinner,
   here is a wonder of Grace for you--the past forgiven and the future
   guaranteed by a wondrous miracle of mercy worked within your
   heart--making you a new creature in Christ Jesus!

   Blessed Spirit, apply this message to the Lord's own chosen ones and
   save many precious souls through it, for the Redeemer's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALMS 32; 130.

   Psalm 32:1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered. No man knows the blessedness of pardoned sin but the man who
   has felt the weight of guilt upon his conscience. If you have ever been
   burdened and crushed under a load of sin, it will be a joy worth more
   than ten thousand worlds for you to get the burden lifted from your
   shoulders! "Blessed"--blessed beyond description--"is he whose
   transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

   2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in
   whose spirit there is no guile. He has no need to dissemble, for his
   sin is forgiven. David had tried to tamper with his conscience after
   his great sin. He invented all sorts of excuses and schemes to try to
   hide his guilt, but when, at last, he was fully convinced of the awful
   sinfulness of his sin, and when God had put it away forever--then--when
   the guilt was gone, the guile went, too.

   3, 4. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all
   the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my
   vitality was turned into the drought of summer Selah. As if he was
   parched and scorched with inward grief. The agony of his soul kept him
   from sleeping, prevented him from taking his necessary food and made
   him seem like a prematurely old man.

   5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I
   said I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and You forgave
   the iniquity of my sin. Selah. O blessed termination of a terrible
   condition of heart! Confession pulled up the floodgates of his soul and
   God caused the black stream to flow away and disappear! Friend, are you
   trying to conceal any sin or to excuse yourself in any wrong course?
   Then your soul will fret and worry more and more. But make a clean
   breast of it before God--in the humblest and most honest language you
   can use--and then you shall receive the Lord's full and free
   forgiveness!

   6. For this shall everyone who is godly pray unto You in a time when
   You may be found. Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not
   come near unto him. A man who can pray shall see even the ocean driven
   back, as Moses did! If you get near to God and stay near to Him, the
   floods of great waters shall never get near to you.

   7. You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You
   shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. The world is
   full of music to the man to whom God has said, "I forgive you." Do not
   rest, dear Friend, till you really know that you are forgiven, for if
   you do, you will rest short of all true happiness. But if you have
   sought God's mercy and had your sin forgiven, you are already at the
   gates of Heaven!

   8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go: I
   will guide you with My eye. When God forgives, He also sanctifies. When
   He has brought back the sheep that wandered off into the wrong road, He
   afterwards leads it in the right track. Notice how the Lord says, "I
   will guide you with My eye." A look from the Lord ought to be enough to
   guide us--we should not need a blow, nor even a word, but be ready to
   be directed by the very gentlest monition of God's gracious Spirit.

   9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
   understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
   they come near unto you. Do not be difficult to manage. Be not
   hard-mouthed. Be ready to be guided by the eye of God. Be not like
   stubborn beasts that must be held in with bit and bridle--and that
   often need the whip, too.

   10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. Wicked man, that is the
   portion that is to come to you--and it will surely come to you if you
   continue in your present evil course. This is the title deed of your
   future inheritance--do you like the prospect of such a possession as
   that? "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked."

   10, 11. But he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about
   Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all
   you that are upright in heart. Let your joy be demonstrative! Do not be
   ashamed to let others see how happy you are. The Lord has done great
   things for you--therefore, "be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you
   righteous, and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart." Be so
   jubilant that others shall be compelled to glorify God with you and to
   ask, "May not we also share this great blessing with you?"

   Psalm 130:1. Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O LORD. "Sinking,
   sinking, sinking--drowning, dying-- hope all but gone, almost
   everything gone--yet I have cried unto You with much fear and little
   hope. 'Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord.'"

   2, 3. Lord, hear my voice: let Your ears be attentive to the voice of
   my supplications. If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who
   shall stand? Judged by ourselves, on the ground of absolute justice,
   none of us can hope to stand before His Judgment Seat without being
   condemned. I trust that we all know and feel that this is true.

   4, 5. But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared. I wait
   for the LORD, my soul does wait, andin His word do I hope. Never yet
   has any poor soul perished that could use such language as this! It may
   be a long while before you get the full comfort of all the Lord's
   promises, but you are sure to have it, sooner or later, if you can but
   hope "in His Word." Well did good John Newton sing--

   "Rejoice, Believer, in the Lord, Who makes your cause His own! The hope
   that's built upon His Word Can never be overthrown!"

   6-8. My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the
   morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel
   hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is
   plenteous redemption. And

   He shall redeem Israel from all her iniquities. Children of God, plead
   that precious promise--"He shall redeem Israel from all her
   iniquities." And never rest till you are fully freed from the bondage
   of sin, for God will work a perfect work in you and then He will take
   you Home to be with Him forevermore!

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--202, 556, 559.

   --Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages
   Software, 1.800.297.4307

   PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING
   KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.Sermon #2883

   Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit

   Prisoners Delivered

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON, LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   APRIL 2, 1876.

   "As for you also, by the blood of your covenant Ihave sent forth yourr
   prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, you
   prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double
   unto you."

   Zechariah 9:11,12.

   THIS text primarily relates to Israel--to the Jews--and there can be no
   doubt whatever that there are great blessings in store for God's
   ancient people. Although blindness in part has happened unto Israel,
   yet, in due time, we know from the Word of God that the seed of Abraham
   will recognize our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the long-promised
   Messiah When that happy day comes, the Lord will give to the whole
   world times of amazing blessing. The fullness of the Gentiles also will
   then be experienced. Then, too, shall come the latter-day glory of
   Jerusalem and all nations shall rejoice with her.

   You notice that the text begins with the words, "As for you also,"
   which might be translated so as to run parallel with that pathetic
   exclamation of our Savior when He wept over Jerusalem and said, "If you
   had known, even you, at least in this, your day, the things which
   belong unto your peace: but now they are hid from your eyes." The
   Hebrew of our text might be rendered, "As for you, even you," and the
   meaning of the expression is, "There is some very special blessing for
   you, O Jerusalem! It is not for the heathen, but, as for you, O
   Zion--you seed of Abraham according to the flesh--there is something
   special in store for you." I think we ought to pray for the Jews more
   often than we do, and to look more hopefully upon the Jews than we
   usually do--and not to speak of them as an unbelieving race. The fact
   is, they have been, in some respects, too believing, for they have
   blindly clung to the old faith of their fathers instead of going on to
   know the Lord Jesus Christ. When they do accept Him, that firm
   adherence which they have shown to the traditions of their sires will
   make them grandly strong in faith in the only true Messiah. I suppose,
   however, that we have no Jews with us here, so it is no use, just now,
   for me to address them. But I may use the text as a message to
   ourselves. While I do so, may the Holy Spirit bless it to us all! When
   we read in the Scriptures concerning Israel, we may fairly translate it
   to mean, spiritually, the Church of God, for, as all who believe are
   the children of believing Abraham, so all who have been born-again, by
   the power of the Holy Spirit, belong to the chosen Seed and may be
   rightly called, "Israel." In this spiritual sense, how sweetly has our
   text been fulfilled in the experience of many of us who are the true
   Israel of God, though Abraham is ignorant of us and Sarah acknowledge
   us not!

   What a wonderful history "the Church of the living God" has had! She
   has been, so Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "persecuted, but not
   forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." I have sometimes seen, in
   Scotland, what they call vitrified forts which have, evidently, passed
   through the fire to such an extent that the whole of the wall has
   become vitrified into one firmly united mass--and the Church of God
   seems to me to have been like those vitrified forts, for the fire has
   been concentrated upon her seven times hotter than anywhere else. Yet
   to this day the Church of Christ still firmly stands! The Truth of God
   is still to the front and the name of Jesus is still--

   "High over all,

   In Hell, or earth, or sky

   Angels and men before it fall--

   And devils fear and fly."

   So shall it be even to the end!

   The 48th Psalm reminds us of the glory of the ancient "city of the
   great King," and of the terror that fell upon her adversaries--"For,
   lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and
   so they marvelled; they were troubled and hastened away. Fear took hold
   upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail." So shall it be
   with the present race of skeptics and rejecters of Christ! Hundreds of
   generations of skeptics have come and gone like the sere leaves of
   autumn. They were fresh and green for a little while and then they
   professed to be a shade to the Church with their philosophy and vain
   deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the
   world--but not after Christ. And before long they withered, fell and
   rotted into the soil from which they sprang. Yet still the Truth of God
   abides and "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
   truth," still stands fast, awaiting the grand consummation when the
   topstone shall be placed upon the glorious temple amid shouts of
   "Grace, Grace unto it."

   Looking into this passage, we notice, first, that there are some
   prisoners mentioned and they are said to be in a terrible plight Then,
   in the second place, there is an emancipation spoken of and the cause
   of that emancipation is mentioned.

   I. First, THERE ARE SOME PRISONERS MENTIONED AND THEY ARE SAID TO BE IN
   A TERRIBLE PLIGHT. We need not look long to find those prisoners, for
   some of them are here in our midst--and there are others here who were
   once imprisoned thus--but they have been set free.

   These prisoners are said to be in a pit. It was a common custom and
   still is, in the East, not to go to the expense of building prisons,
   but to make use of dry wells--and the authorities were not always very
   particular in seeing that they were dry. They just let the prisoner
   down by a rope, which they pulled up, leaving him in what was, usually,
   a very secure prison, indeed. No trouble was taken to fit up a proper
   cell. No money was expended upon ventilation, or anything of the kind.
   The pit was usually deep and dark--and a great stone was rolled over
   the mouth of it--and there the prisoner was left, in solitary
   confinement, often to die of hunger and thirst. If anyone thought or
   cared to bring him bread and water, it was well for him, but, in many
   cases, the prisoners were forgotten and nobody ever heard of them
   anymore. In fact, they were buried alive--and that was, spiritually,
   our condition when we were in the pit where there is no water.

   I look back, 20 years or so, ago, and see myself, as I then was, in
   that horrible pit--consciously in that pit. We were all there by
   nature, but we did not know it. But, at the time I am recalling, I
   didknow it. The Lord had opened my eyes and led me to see that I was in
   a deep, waterless pit by reason of the original sin in the fall of
   Adam. I saw that I was cast down into a deep pit from which I could not
   get out by my own exertions--with a nature averse to everything that
   was good--with a will that was strong for evil, but impotent for
   good--with a judgment that was out of gear--a taste that put bitter for
   sweet and sweet for bitter--a heart that had turned aside unto
   idols--with everything about me as wrong as wrong could be! I
   distinctly remember that I did not trouble so much about the original
   sin through the Fall as I did about my own actual sins and
   transgressions. Oh, those dreadful walls of guilt that rose up all
   around me! Dense was the darkness in which I was enveloped and the few
   gleams of light that ever pierced that darkness only made me see more
   clearly the huge black walls of my old sins--my youthful sins, not
   forgotten to this day, but remembered with deep regret--sins of
   thought, sins of imagination, sins of word, such sins as I was capable
   of committing at that period of my life. Well do I remember that pit of
   actual sin. Perhaps some of you are in it at this moment. It is a
   horrible pit for anyone to be in and it is peculiarly so to some men.
   If a man has lived for many years in sin, but only in his later
   life--perhaps when verging on old age--has begun to get enough of the
   Light of God to show him what he really is in God's sight, it is an
   awful thing for him to wake up and find himself in the pit of
   condemnation as the result of both original and actual sin!

   There was a man, once, who lay asleep and, as he slept, he dreamt that
   he was in a gorgeous palace with marble halls and gold and gems in the
   utmost profusion. But, as a matter of fact, he was all the while asleep
   in a loathsome hole where everything was polluted and foul. When he
   awoke, the gilded walls had all gone and the marble halls had all
   vanished-- and, realizing where he was, the fleeting pleasure of his
   dream was changed to the abiding misery of the actual facts of his
   sorrowful experience! Possibly I am addressing some who have just
   awakened out of their life's dream and have discovered where they
   are--where they are by nature and where they are by practice,
   too--down, down, down in a deep pit where there is no water! For, be it
   known to you that whenever a man finds himself lost by nature, and by
   practice, too, he very soon finds that he is also lost by the just
   condemnation of God--for the thrice-holy Jehovah cannot look upon a
   polluted heart without abhorrence! It is not possible for Him to see
   sin without being angry. Some people, in these degenerate days, have
   invented for themselves a god who equally loves all men whatever their
   characters may be--who looks

   upon loathsome imaginations and filthy thoughts with an altogether
   indifferent eye--and still goes on to bless, let men do what they may.
   But such a god as that is not the God revealed to us in this
   old-fashioned Book! Nor is he my father's God, nor mine, nor yours!
   Indeed, he is like the idols that are no gods at all! No, where there
   is sin, justice demands that there should be condemnation--and it also
   requires that there should be punishment as well. So this is the
   dreadful thing about our condition by nature--that when we were held in
   the bonds of sin, we were also condemned and lay in the condemned cell,
   only awaiting the hour of execution. That was our condition,
   spiritually--like prisoners in a pit.

   We are also told, in our text, there was no water Now, generally, in a
   pit, you do find some water--it drops from the clouds, if it comes from
   nowhere else. When Jeremiah was let down, with cords, into the dungeon
   of Malchiah, we read that, "in the dungeon there was no water, but
   mire: so Jeremiah sank in the mire." It is only natural that in deep
   holes sunk in the earth, the water should stand in a pool at the
   bottom. But this pit, of which our text speaks, has all the
   disadvantages and none of the advantages of an ordinary pit. It is
   called, as though with an emphasis, "the pit where there is no
   water"--and there are some ungodly men who are in just such a pit as
   that. There are others who are up to their armpits in water--very muddy
   stuff it is--I should not like to drink it, yet they seem able to
   quench their thirst with it. They are the men who take pleasure in sin
   and enjoy iniquity!

   But Brothers and Sisters, when God means to save a man, He makes him
   realize that he is in a pit in which there is no water. When a man has
   reached that point, all "the pleasures of sin" have vanished. He finds
   that he cannot any longer be pleased with that which once used to
   afford him great delight. Some of you know what this strange experience
   means-- that the very things you used to crave have become most
   loathsome to you. Your soul lusted after them and you said, in your
   youth, "If I could only have these things, I would be the happiest
   mortal on the earth." Well, you have had your fill of them and you do
   not want any more! You are sick of them, as one may eat honey till he
   loathes the very sight of it. I have heard of a poor flower girl in the
   streets of London who used to sell violets all day long, taking home at
   night those she had left. Having them always about her, she said that
   she hated the smell of violets--and God can make men hate the smell of
   their sweetest sins and flee from them with disgust! He can turn their
   sweet wine into the most sour vinegar so that they will be as glad to
   get away from it as they once were fond of running to it!

   When a soul is in this condition, in the pit where there is no water,
   it often happens that even the lawful comforts of earth lose their
   usual comforting force. Well do I recollect the time when I was in this
   waterless pit. It mattered very little to me what I ate or drank. It
   made but a slight difference to me whether it was day or night, for, by
   day I dreaded the wrath of God. And if I fell asleep at night, I dreamt
   of it and wondered, when I awoke, that I was not already in Hell. Even
   those youthful games and those lawful amusements into which, as a lad,
   I entered, lost all charm for me. If you have read John Bunyan's "Grace
   Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," you know that at the time when he
   was under conviction of sin, nothing comforted him at all. There seemed
   to him to be no brightness in the sky, no flowers on the earth, and no
   melody in the sweetest songs of the birds. Well, if it is so with any
   of you, dear Friends--if you are in a pit where there is no water--none
   whatever--I hope my text applies to you and that you belong to the
   special class of prisoners to whom the Lord thus speaks--"As for you
   also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners
   from the waterless pit."

   The Lord is speaking of those who secretly belong to the Covenant race
   of Israel, His own chosen and redeemed ones. Though you know it not as
   yet, your name is recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life. Though His love
   has not, as yet, been fully made known to you, He has ordained you unto
   everlasting life and, therefore, though you are at present in the pit,
   you cannot die there and you cannot always lie there. Though you are at
   present without water, you shall never perish of thirst. You may be
   brought to dire distress, but you shall then prove that man's extremity
   is God's opportunity. As the Lord lives, who chose you by His Grace
   long before He made the heavens and the earth, He will bring you, as
   His prisoners, out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, set your feet
   upon a rock and establish your goings! That is the first thing
   mentioned in the text--prisoners in a very terrible plight.

   II. Secondly, THE TEXT SPEAKS ABOUT EMANCIPATION. AND THE CAUSE OF THAT
   EMANCIPATION IS MENTIONED--"By the blood of your covenant I have sent
   forth your prisoners from the waterless pit."

   Delivered from that horrible pit! How did they get out? The text tells
   us that God sent them out of it. Oh, that awful pit of natural
   depravity--that dreadful pit of actual sin--that fearful pit of just
   damnation! Nobody ever yet came out of that pit except by Divine
   Power--nor need anybody ever wish to escape by his own power, for if he
   did so escape, he

   might be dragged back again into the dungeon. If a prisoner is released
   by the king himself, who will dare to re-arrest him? If the Lord,
   Himself, delivers us, where is the power that can put us back into the
   pit? It is Jehovah who says, "I have sent forth your prisoners out of
   the pit where there is no water." Some of us recollect the time when
   the Lord did thus send us forth. None but He could have done it, but He
   did it--and did it thoroughly! He snapped every fetter that was upon
   us, lifted us right up out of the abyss and fully and forever
   emancipated us--all glory to His ever-blessed name!

   Then our text tells us how God did it--"By the blood of your covenant."
   Oh, what a grand way of deliverance this is! Do you know what this
   expression, "by the blood of your covenant," means? There was a
   Covenant between God and His chosen people, made of old, before the day
   star had first cast his bright beams into the darkness. To make that
   Covenant sure, God's only-begotten and well-beloved Son had agreed with
   His Father that He would ratify it with His own blood. And, in due
   time, He came to this earth and fulfilled that Covenant by offering up
   Himself as the God-appointed Victim in the place of guilty men. Now,
   Brothers and Sisters, it is by that blood of the Everlasting Covenant,
   offered in our place, that we were set free from the bondage of sin! I
   heard, the other day, that some wise man had said that if a preacher
   wanted to be popular--by which I suppose he meant to draw many to hear
   the Gospel--He must preach blood, and fire, and smoke! I do not know
   what the smoke has to do with it but I do know that there is nothing
   that has such power as the precious blood of Christ which cleanses from
   all sin, and that, next to the blood of Jesus, there is nothing that
   has such power as the blessed fire which comes down from Heaven,
   touches the preacher's lips and makes him speak with fervor and
   enthusiasm of that precious blood!

   There is no man, either living or dead, who was ever sent forth out of
   the pit of soul-despair except by the blood of the covenant. I can
   assure you of one thing--the man who can do without the atoning
   Sacrifice of Christ has never known what true conviction of sin is. Men
   and women who received their "religion" by natural descent, or who
   jumped into it in the excitement of a revival meeting, may, perhaps, be
   content to do without the blood, but, if the Lord has put you into the
   pit where there is no water and brought you up out of it, you know that
   there was no deliverance for you until God, in human flesh, made
   Atonement for your sin by His blood. And, to this hour, if ever you are
   disturbed and doubtful concerning your true position in God's sight,
   you always come back to the blood of the Everlasting Covenant offered
   upon Calvary's Cross! And you sing--

   "Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till
   all the ransomed Church of God Is saved to sin no more."

   If, Sirs, you take away the atoning Sacrifice, you make that blessed
   Book to be a mere husk from which the kernel has been withdrawn. If you
   take away expiation by the precious blood of Jesus, you tear away the
   sinner's only ground of hope! Indeed, his only hope--and you leave us,
   of all men, most miserable. I know that when I understood that Jesus
   Christ bore, in my place, all that I deserved to bear of the wrath of
   God--and that His death had made the Law of God honorable, so that the
   Lord Jehovah could pardon me without doing an injustice to the rest of
   mankind and without suffering the honor and glory of His righteous rule
   to be tarnished--I grasped it at once. It seemed to me to be far better
   than the balm of Gilead to my wounds when the great Physician laid His
   pierced hand upon me and the blood of His Covenant cleansed me from all
   guilt. And I pray that many others here may have the same experience.
   Of one thing I am sure--if you really grasp this Truth of God, you will
   never let it go--you never can let it go! This precious blood of
   Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, will be to you,
   your hope, your rest, your joy, the seal of your Covenant with God and
   the cause of your walking at liberty forever, for if the Son shall make
   you free, you shall be free indeed!

   I should like to have said more upon this blessed theme, but time fails
   me, so I must only say, in passing--"Let every Christian remember that
   if once he knows the power of the blood of Jesus, there is a Covenant
   existing between him and his God, and he can say with David, "He has
   made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure."
   Believer, between your soul and the Maker of Heaven and earth there is
   a compact which can never be broken! Though earth's huge pillars bow
   and break, this Covenant stands forever sure. You being in Christ and
   Christ being in you, you shall be saved, world without end, for God has
   declared it and His truth stands fast forever!

   III. Thirdly, our text contains A RECOMMENDATION TO THOSE WHO ONCE WERE
   PRISONERS--"Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." I
   thought, dear Friends, that you were pulled up out of the pit--have you

   been made prisoners again? If it is so, it is very sad, but you can
   never be imprisoned as you were before. Perhaps you have not been
   living as carefully as you ought. Or, for some other reason your faith
   has become weak and so you have fallen into the pit again. But you are
   not now in prison as you were before, for now you believe you will get
   out again. No, better than that, you are surethat you will. Albeit that
   sometimes Giant Despair tells you that you will die in the dungeons of
   Doubting Castle, you know that you have a key called, "Promise," in
   your bosom--and though you have not used it as you should have done,
   you have the firm conviction that it will open any lock that old tyrant
   has made-- and you hope, some day, to employ it to such good purpose
   that you will again be free! But, Sirs, you had no business to get into
   that pit again. When the Lord once set you free, you should have taken
   good care not to go back again into bondage.

   It is a great mercy that you can never go back to such bondage as you
   once experienced. You are prisoners, it is true, but you are "prisoners
   of hope." Therefore, take the good advice of the text--"Return to the
   stronghold, you prisoners of hope." That same Lord Jesus Christ, who,
   by His precious blood, once set you free, is still a refuge from every
   storm and every enemy. And if you are wise, you will cry to Him to
   deliver you this very hour! I address myself to every Brother and every
   Sister in Christ who has, in any sense, and to any degree, become a
   prisoner again. My dear Friend, the Lord delivered you, years ago, did
   He not? Do you not recollect, with intense gratitude, what He did for
   you then? Well, He can deliver you again at this very moment! You
   remember how joyfully you sang--

   "He took my feet from the miry clay, And set me upon the King's
   Highway"? Well, He can do the same thing, again, and do it now. Go to
   Him at once! You do not need a better Deliverer than the Lord who is
   "mighty to save," do you? And as He was able to deliver you when you
   were so far gone as you used to be, He can surely deliver you now. You
   say that you are so foolish and so insensible that you cannot make
   yourself enjoy the means of Grace as you once did. It seems to you that
   as you get older you get more insensible. Well, but, my dear Brothers
   and Sisters, you are not spiritually dead, are you? And yet, when you
   were really dead in trespasses and sins, Christ quickened you! Then,
   surely He can bring you out of this state of torpor and restore you
   from this strange swoon into which your soul has fallen. Return to
   Jesus now, just as you came to Him at the first! If you cannot come to
   Him as a saint, come as a sinner!

   Oh, the many hundreds of times that I have done that! And I expect to
   do it many more times before I get to Heaven. "What?" someone asks, "do
   you have to do that Mr. Spurgeon?" Oh, yes, that I do! The devil says
   to me, sometimes, "you are no child of God." It is no use to begin
   arguing with him about that matter! The best way to answer him is to
   say, "Well, Satan, if I am not a child of God, I soon will be, for I
   will receive Christ as my Savior and that will make me God's child."
   "Then," says the devil, "you talk about your faith, but you have no
   faith to talk about." "Very well," I reply, "if I have not any, I soon
   will have some, for I will begin to believe in Jesus now." Then he
   says, "Your Christian experience, as you call it, is all a delusion."
   Well, I never argue with him about that, but I say, "Suppose it is a
   delusion, it is still true that 'Christ Jesus came into the world to
   save sinners' and He has promised to save all who trust in Him. So,
   here and now, I do trust Him and I am saved." Satan is a very old
   lawyer. He has been in the profession for many centuries and he knows
   how to raise all manner of quibbles and difficulties--and he can argue
   and reason in a very crafty fashion. So your best plan is not to answer
   him at all, except to say, "I have put my case into the hands of my
   great Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have anything to say, you
   must say it to Him."

   That is my earnest advice and it is the advice of the text, too, to all
   Christians who have, in any sense, come into bondage again--"Return to
   the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." If you do that, you shall soon
   come once more into light and liberty and joy and peace!

   IV. The last thing in our text is A DOUBLE BLESSING PROMISED--"Even
   today do I declare that I will render double unto you." If you turn to
   Christ, you shall get a double blessing! What does this part of the
   text mean?

   Well, it means that God has such abundant Grace to give that He will
   not only give you what you really need, but He will give you twice as
   much as that!All the flowers in God's spiritual garden bloom double.
   There never was any mercy of His which had not many other mercies
   wrapped up in it. Every one of them contains far more blessing than we
   thought it did. Now, dear Brother, dear Sister--can you open your mouth
   wide and ask from God some great thing? If you do so, you shall receive
   from God twice as much as you asked for! Do you feel a great need
   within your soul--a need that is

   truly dreadful? It craves so much that it seems to be like the two
   daughters of the horseleech, crying, "Give, give!" Well, God will give
   you so much that you shall have enough to satisfy that craving twice
   over! Have you had some very great trouble? Then believe in the Lord
   and you shall have double as much joy! Have you had deep depression of
   spirit? You shall have double as much of holy exultation and delight!
   Has the Lord laid His rod very heavily upon you and made you sorely
   smart? Then He will give you two kisses to every blow! Has He made you
   drink out of the bitter cup? Then He will bring you a double draught of
   the spiced wine of the juice of His pomegranate, two cups of that
   heavenly nectar for every cup of quassia that you have had! He will
   make you consolations to abound and super-abound far above all your
   tribulations!

   "Well," you say, "I am expecting something very great from the Lord." I
   am glad of it, but you will receive twice as much! The Queen of Sheba
   expected a great deal when she went to see Solomon, yet she had to say,
   "The half was not told me." So shall you find it with God. I read in
   the Scriptures that God is Love, but His love to me has been a thousand
   times better than I ever expected it would be! I thought that when I
   came to trust under the shadow of His wings, that I should have mercy
   and Grace and peace--but I never dreamt how much mercy, Grace and peace
   I would have! And, Brothers and Sisters, I believe it is better than
   before and that there is something brighter and sweeter than anything I
   have ever known yet to come! And it shall be the same with you. The
   Lord will go on to double your blessings and give you yet more and
   more, according to that blessed text, "Of His fullness have we all
   received, and Grace for Grace"-- Grace upon Grace.

   I especially beg you to notice that this is a present promise--"Even
   today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Then why should
   you not get some of this double joy this very moment? I know that you
   said, as you were coming to this service, "I do not think I ought to
   stay for the Communion--I do not feel fit to go to the Table of the
   Lord. I seem to be as lifeless as a log. If I go and sit there, it will
   merely be to eat the bread and to drink the wine, but not to enjoy real
   fellowship with the Lord." Ah, my Brother, my Sister, if that is true
   concerning you, it is to you that the text says, "Return to the
   stronghold." Turn to Christ as you did at the first and then it may be
   that your fellowship with Him will be sweeter than even that which you
   enjoyed when first you came to His Table! It is the Lord who says,
   "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Plead the
   promise in silent prayer right now--if you do so in faith, I shall be
   surprised if you do not get a double blessing from the Lord very
   speedily.

   Finally, note how true the promise is. When God says, "Even today do I
   declare that I will render double unto you," who among us dares to
   doubt His declaration? I have sometimes heard people say, when they
   have needed to be believed, "I declare to you that it is so." And you
   know that the law of the land now allows those of us who object to the
   taking of an oath, to make an affirmation and to say, "I do solemnly
   declare that such-and-such is the fact." And, in that fashion, God
   says, "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you."
   Well, then, take Him at His word and "turn you to the stronghold."
   While you are sitting here, trust the Lord to give you the double
   blessing that He has promised! If you do that, you may, each one, say,
   as you go home, "'Before I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots
   of Ammi-nadib.' I had no idea, when I went into the House of Prayer,
   that I could be so changed. I was singing, no, I mean, howling or
   growling--as I went up the steps--

   "'Dear Lord, and shall I always lie At this poor dying rate? My love so
   faint, so cold to You And Yours to me so great?' yet, when I came out,
   I was able to sing, and almost to shout--

   "'If ever I loved You, my Jesus, it is now.

   God grant that this may be the happy experience of many of you, for
   Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ZECHARIAH9.

   Verse 1. The burden of the word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach. Or
   Syria.

   1, 2. And Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as
   of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD. And Hamath also
   shall border thereby. Tyrus. That is, Tyre.

   2-4. And ZidOon, though it is very wise. And Tyrus did build herself a
   stronghold, and heaped up silver and the dust, and fine gold as the
   mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out and He will
   smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. This
   prophecy was literally fulfilled. Tyre was attacked by Alexander the
   Great and after withstanding a long siege, was destroyed by him. The
   strength of the city lay in the fact that it was built right out into
   the sea and that it was protected by a vast, massive hole. Also, as a
   great trading center, it possessed enormous wealth and so was able to
   hire mercenary soldiers. But all its power and its wealth could not
   preserve it from destruction! And although we read of Tyre in the New
   Testament, it is now only a place for the drying of the nets of a few
   poor fishermen, even as Ezekiel foretold that it would be (26:14). When
   God foretells destruction, it always comes. But, blessed be His holy
   name, when He promises blessing, that comes just as surely!

   5. Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also shallsee it, and be very
   sorrowful, andEkron; for her expectation shall be ashamed; and the king
   shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. When
   Alexander invaded the country, the Philistines expected that he would
   be hindered by the Tyrians, but, when Tyre fell, the Philistines were
   easily conquered. That shows you the meaning of the prophecy and how
   literally it was fulfilled.

   6. And a bastard. Or, stranger.

   6. 7. Shall dwellin Ashdod, andl will cut off thepride of the
   Philistines. Andl wiil take away his blood out ofhis mouth. That is,
   the prey that he had caught--"I will snatch it out of his mouth."

   7. And his abominations from between his teeth: but he that remains,
   even he shall be for our God, and he shall be as a governor in Judah,
   andEkron as a Jebusite. There is no doubt that after the days of
   Alexander, many Philistines became proselytes to the faith of the Jews
   and were absorbed into the Jewish nation, so that an Ekronite became
   like an Israelite--and this is a symbol of what God is doing all over
   the world! He takes men who are strangers and foreigners to the
   citizenship of Zion and puts them among His people, and treats the
   Ekronite as a Jerusalemite. Blessed be His name for this great act of
   Sovereign Grace.

   8. And I will encamp about My house because of the army, because of him
   that passes by, and because of him that returns: and no oppressor shall
   pass through them any more: for now have I seen with My eyes. And so it
   was. Alexander went to Jerusalem, after destroying Tyre, but he did not
   attack the city. There was a strange restraint resting upon him which
   prevented him from touching the house of the living God. I need not
   repeat the well-known story of how he was met by the high priest whom
   he recognized as the man whom he had seen in a dream, and so, though he
   smote Tyre and Philistia, he allowed the people of God to go free. But,
   after that time, something better happened. That great event is marked
   off by a new paragraph in our Bible--and well it may be.

   9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem:
   behold, your King comes unto you. Not Alexander the Great, but, "your
   King." "Your King comes unto you."

   9. He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and
   upon a colt the foal of an ass. What a beautiful and faithful
   description of our Lord Jesus Christ! We wonder that Israel cannot see
   the Messiah here. Had this verse been written afterthe coming of
   Christ, it could not more accurately have described the blessed Person
   and Character of our Lord Jesus. His very riding into Jerusalem upon an
   ass, with her colt trotting by her side, is most plainly foretold here.

   10. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from
   Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and He shall speak
   peace unto the heathen: and His dominion shall be from sea even to sea,
   and from the river even to the ends of the earth. This is our glorious
   King--the King whose conquests are not achieved by horses, chariots and
   battle-bows, but by the more powerful panoply of the Truth of God and
   love! Blessed are all who dwell beneath the rule of such a King as He
   is!

   11. 12. As for you also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent
   forth your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold,
   you prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render
   double unto you. Christ has come to set the prisoners free and to be
   the stronghold of His people. Therefore turn to Him and all manner of
   precious blessings shall be yours.

   13. For I have bent Judah for Me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and
   raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you
   as the sword of a mighty man. This is a truly wonderful passage,
   setting forth how God is going to use His people as the weapons by
   which He will conquer the world. He will bend Judah and make her into a
   bow, and

   take Ephraim, and make her into an arrow--and then he will shoot His
   strangely-fashioned shaft against His adversaries and ours! What does
   this mean but that He is going to use those of us who are His own saved
   ones, that He may conquer the world by us? And what a blessed battle
   this is! "Your sons O Zion against your sons, O Greece"--the simple
   Believer against the cultured man of reason without faith--the humble
   truster in the Lord Jesus Christ against the man who proudly boasts of
   his own learning and eloquence! How will this battle end? We know which
   side will win, for "the Lord of Hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is
   our refuge."

   14. And the Lord shall be seen over them. As He has in the midst of His
   people of old.

   14. And His arrows shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord God
   shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. Here
   you have a foresight of Pentecost and the grand era which succeeded the
   outpouring of the Spirit. Oh, that we might once again prove what God's
   Almighty Spirit can do!

   15. The LORD ofHosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and
   subdue with sling stones and they shall drink, and make a noise as
   through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners
   of the altar You remember that the mockers said, on the day of
   Pentecost, "These men are full of new wine." They were not, as Peter
   plainly declared, "these are not drunken, as you suppose." Neither does
   this prophesy mean that they would be so, but that the Spirit of God
   should fall so copiously upon them as to fill them, like bowls brimming
   over with precious liquid, or like the corners of the altar drenched
   for Elijah's sacrifice. It is a grand thing when Believers in Christ
   are thus filled to overflowing with the Spirit of God and Divine
   energy--they are the men who will win the battle for the cause of God
   and His Truth.

   16. 17. And the LORD their God shall sa ve them in that day as the
   flock of His people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted
   up as an ensign upon His land. For how great is His goodness, and how
   great is His beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new
   wine the maids.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Who Is on the Lord's Side?"

   (No. 2884)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY CHSPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
   9, 1876.

   "Then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, Whoever is on
   the LORD'S side--come to me! And all the sons of Levi gathered
   themselves together to him." Exodus 32:26.

   THOSE idolatrous people seem to have been awestruck by the appearance
   of Moses in their midst. You can picture them gathered around Aaron,
   worshipping the golden calf and performing their unclean rites--but, as
   soon as ever Moses marches into the camp, they recognize his commanding
   presence and his kingly authority. "Drag down that abomination," he
   cries! "And break it in pieces." And though, just now, they were
   adoring it, they implicitly obey him. The calf is hurled from its
   pedestal, burnt in the fire, ground to powder and mingled with the
   water that the idolaters drank. Then rings out the grand challenge of
   our text. The brave man who seems to stand like a solid rock amid the
   raging billows, feels it necessary to strike a decisive blow for
   Jehovah--and once and for all put an end to that shameful idolatry. So,
   taking his stand, as though to lift up the banner of Jehovah, he cries,
   "'Whoever is on the Lord's side--come to me!' And all the sons of Levi
   gathered themselves together to him"--the men who afterwards became the
   priests of the Most High God. Then came that just but terrible command
   to execute the idolaters--and three thousand of the people perished as
   a warning to the rest--and that cursed image-worship was stamped out of
   the camp, at least, for a time.

   Now, dear Friends, very much as Moses did on that occasion, needs to be
   done very frequently in every age. It is necessary that a banner should
   be displayed because of the Truth of God and that men should be called
   out to rally around it. And those who do so, those who are the most
   fearless and the most faithful, shall receive a great reward, even as
   we read in the Book of Deuteronomy that Moses bestowed a special
   blessing upon the tribe of Levi because its sons were faithful in that
   trying and testing time--"And of Levi he said, Let Your Thummim and
   Your Urim be with Your holy one, whom You did prove at Massah, and with
   whom You did strive at the waters of Meribah; who said unto his father
   and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his
   brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed Your word
   and kept Your covenant." Blessed are they, also, who in these days bow
   not down before the modern idols that so many worship! Blessed are the
   brave men who never question whether a certain course will "pay" or
   not, but who do the right thing, whatever the consequences of their
   action may be! These are they who, amidst the bright ones in Heaven,
   shall be doubly bright and who, here below, shall be the officers in
   the army of the Lord who shall be called to lead the way in the day of
   battle. I would that we had many among us who would come forward with
   brave decision and yield themselves up, without doubt or fear, to
   follow wherever the God of Truth and the Truth of God should lead them.
   High shall their renown be and great shall their reward be, even as it
   was with these courageous sons of Levi who so promptly responded to the
   challenge of Moses, "Whoever is on the Lord's side--let him come unto
   me!"

   What I am going to try to do is, first, to describe the conflict and
   show which is the Lord's side. Secondly, to point out to the Lord's
   followers what they must do. Thirdly, to remind the Lord's hosts of
   their encouragements and, fourthly, to repeat the question of the
   text--and to put forward proposals for enlistment in the army of the
   Lord.

   I. First, then, I have TO DESCRIBE THE CONFLICT WHICH IS NOW GOING ON
   AND TO SHOW YOU

   WHICH IS THE LORD'S SIDE. That is not a very difficult task and the
   conscience of each one of you ought to help me in its accomplishment.

   This is where "the Lord's side" begins--Belief in God against Atheism
   and other forms of unbelief. Infidelity assumes many forms--the doubt
   as to whether there is any God at all--the daring defiance of God if
   there is a God. Or the indifference which utterly neglects God, not
   caring about Him either one way or another. Believers are on the
   opposite side to all of these and you know that the side they are on is
   "the Lord's side." To fear Him, to reverence Him, to trust Him, to love
   Him, to serve Him, to worship Him--that is being on "the Lord's side."
   On which side are you, dear Friend? Are you a believer, a fearer, a
   truster, a lover, a worshipper of God, or are you a neglecter, a
   rejecter, a hater of Him?

   Here again are two sides--obedience to the commands of God, or a
   determination to please ourselves. Are we endeavoring to obey the moral
   law or are we pouring contempt upon that law and seeking to be happy by
   having our own way? How is it with you, my dear Friend? Are you making
   yourself into your only god? Are you allowing your own lusts and
   passions to be the supreme governing influence over you? Are you saying
   to yourself, "I will have my own way. I will do as I please. As long as
   I can make myself merry, I care nothing whatever about the commands of
   God"? If that is the way you talk, it is quite clear on which side you
   are. Between the will of the flesh and the will of God, there is no
   possible question as to which is "the Lord's side."

   Here is another battleground--Christ and His righteousness, or your
   self-righteousness--cleansing in Christ's blood and covering with His
   perfect righteousness, on the one hand and--on the other, salvation by
   your own works, salvation by your own prayers, salvation by your
   almsgiving, or by anything of your own. You know, at once, which is
   "the Lord's side" out of those two, for the Lord is always on Christ's
   side. Indeed, Christ, Himself, is God! Justification by faith is the
   side on which God is, but justification by the works of the Law is a
   lie--in fact, it is an impossibility! Now, dear Friends, on which side
   are you with regard to this matter of salvation by Christ or salvation
   by self? Are you "on the Lord's side" of that question?

   Here is yet another point from which to view this great conflict--the
   Gospel of the Grace of God, or the superstitions and lies of men. The
   Bible teaches us that sinners are saved by believing in Jesus Christ,
   but superstition says, "No, they are saved by being sprinkled with
   water through the subtle influences that trickle from priestly fingers.
   They are saved by baptism, saved by sacraments. Here, then, is a sharp
   conflict between salvation by Christ and salvation by priests. We know
   which is "the Lord's side" of that controversy, but, dear Friend, on
   which side are you? Do you go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ as your
   Great High Priest and do you trust alone to the merit of His atoning
   Sacrifice, or will you go crouching to your fellow creature and pour
   the infamous story of your sin into his ear and so defile him even more
   than he already is? And then will you come back deluded with the false
   notion that you have obtained "absolution" at his hands? We know that
   none can forgive sins save God, alone--this is the Lord's way of making
   reconciliation through the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. So, Friends,
   are you for Zion or for Rome? Are you on the side of Christ or on the
   side of antichrist?

   There is a fierce battle still raging in the world between Scripture
   and tradition--between this Grand Old Book and certain things which
   have been handed down by tradition from the fathers. They are said to
   be customs of the early church, or to have been ordained by various
   councils, or decreed by "infallible" popes. Well, dear Friends, are you
   on the side of God's Word or of man's word? Is your rule of life, "Thus
   says the Lord," or, "Thus say the fathers," or, "Thus say the
   councils," or, "Thus say the popes"? Who is on the Lord's side in this
   matter? There is a stern fight still to be fought over this
   question--the battle has long been raging and it will continue to rage
   until the victory is won by the Truth of God. I am looking forward to
   the time when there will be only two parties left to fight--the men who
   will have this text emblazoned on their standards, "One Lord, one
   Faith, one Baptism," and who will have nothing but the Bible for their
   rule of conduct--and those bearing the other banner in praise of the
   inventions of men and the traditions of the fathers. They will cling to
   their errors, I have no doubt, as long as they can, but the Lamb will
   overcome them--and they who are on "the Lord's side" will also come off
   more than conquerors through Him that has loved them!

   There are two sides to all the moral questions in the world. There is
   holiness, for instance. You all know on whose side that is. And there
   is unholiness--and you have no difficulty in deciding on whose side
   that is! Then, as to order, peace, quietness, love, generosity and so
   on, you all know on whose side they are. And you equally know on whose
   side disorder, strife, disaffection, tumult, selfishness and
   covetousness are. You are well aware, Brothers and Sisters, that
   wherever there is anything that is right, true, pure, holy and of good
   report, that is "the Lord's side." Therefore, always

   be on that side. But if there is anything that is impure, unchaste,
   unlovely, unjust--that is not "the Lord's side" and it should not be
   His people's side. At the present time this dear land of ours seems as
   if it were going to be swallowed up by the demon of drunkenness.
   Temperance, righteousness, sobriety--these are all on "the Lord's side"
   of that question, so let every Christian see that he takes the same
   side as the Lord does. I need not go into all the questions that are
   prominent at the present time because they keep on changing their
   positions--and sometimes it is one question that is most prominent and
   sometimes another--but to almost every question which comes up, there
   is "the Lord's side" and there is another side. And the question must
   always be asked, "Which is the Lord's side?" And I trust as soon as
   that question is answered, you will say, "That is the side for me to
   take--the side upon which the Lord is."

   II. Now, secondly, I am TO POINT OUT TO THE LORD'S FOLLOWERS WHAT THEY
   MUST DO TO SHOW THAT THEY ARE ON HIS SIDE.

   And the first thing is, they must acknowledge it. The Truth of God
   deserves to have bold adherents and brave proc-laimers. Righteousness
   ought not to be claimed as the portion of men who are ashamed to
   acknowledge it. Suppose that those sons of Levi had slunk away to their
   tents and had said, "Oh, yes, we are on the Lord's side, but we do not
   mean to expose ourselves to any risk in dealing with these idolaters."
   That would have been like the coward spirit of a soldier who shirks his
   proper place on the field of battle. He is too modest, too retiring to
   fight--that is only another way of saying that he is a coward and
   unworthy of the uniform he wears! In like manner, it is a mean,
   beggarly spirit that will not lay down life and limb, substance and
   honor--and everything else that one has--for the cause of God and His
   Truth. Oh, for more of the true spirit of chivalry among those who call
   Jesus their Lord and Master! It is a shame that they should ever blush
   to acknowledge His name! They might rather blush with shame to think
   that they have ever been ashamed of Him! I count it nothing, Brothers
   and Sisters, to speak for the cause that everybody thinks to be good,
   or to float with the stream by agreeing with what the multitude reckons
   to be right. Every timeserver can do that! But, to swim against the
   stream, to speak unpopular Truths of God, to declare that which God has
   taught you, even though nobody else believes it, to beard the lion in
   his den, to stand--like Athanasius--against the whole world for God and
   for His Christ-- this is being a man, indeed! No, more--this is being a
   Christian! And the time shall come when this shall be reckoned the
   noblest kind of man whom even God, Himself, has made. So, if you are on
   God's side, admit it!

   Then, next, rally to the standard. Moses cried, "Whoever is on the
   Lord's side--come to me!" If you are a Christian, you should unite with
   other Christians. I believe, Brothers and Sisters, that it is the duty
   of all converts to test the various sections of the professing church
   by the Word of God and then to cast in their lot with that part which
   holds the Truth of God most fully and clearly. And, having
   conscientiously done that, to rally with the hosts of God in the great
   battle against wrong. Oh, you converts who have never joined the
   church, what are you doing? I beseech you, think over this matter, pray
   over it and remember that in the olden times, they first gave
   themselves to the Lord and afterwards they gave themselves to His
   people--according to the will of God. And so ought you to do. Believers
   ought not to be solitary stones, lying by themselves--they should be
   built up into "a holy temple in the Lord, built together for a
   habitation of God through the Spirit." So, dear Friends, if you are on
   "the Lords side," admit it and join with those who also are on that
   side.

   Then, next, if you are on "the Lord's side," be willing to be in the
   minority. It is true that minorities have generally come in for kicks
   and blows rather than kisses and caresses, but, at the great Day of
   Judgment, all such wrongs will be righted. And, after all, it has often
   been a minority--yes, and even a minority of one----that has done great
   things for God, after all! Just now I mentioned Athanasius. You
   remember that when the whole of Christendom seemed to swing round to
   Arianism, it was Athanasius, standing alone, "Athanasius contra mundum"
   as he truly said, who brought the Church back to belief in the Deity of
   Christ! And in the days of Luther, who can ever tell what a pivot and
   hinge that one lone man was for Germany and Europe? And in Scotland,
   what force there was in the one brave man, John Knox, whose preaching
   and prayers Queen Mary feared more than an army of soldiers! Few
   followed these brave leaders at the first, for following meant the
   stake, the scaffold, prison, suffering, shame, reproach and death--yet
   these were the men and women who did the true work of God, after all,
   and who fought the good fight of faith!

   Be you followers of them. Run not with the multitude to do evil--rather
   choose the narrow way that leads unto life, though few there are that
   find it. From the days of Noah the followers of the Lord have usually
   been in the minority. If the rightness of any course could be decided
   by the counting of heads, the devil would mostly be in the right--but
   we do

   not count in that way. We test every question by the Word of God, not
   by the votes of men! If the Lord has said anything, believe it, even if
   no one else does. If the Lord has revealed any Truth to your
   conscience, hold to it, even though, to all others, it should seem to
   be a lie and, verily, I say unto you, you shall have your reward! The
   sons of Levi were in a minority in comparison with the great host of
   idolaters in the camp of Israel, yet they came out boldly for the Lord,
   and are, therefore, held in honor even to this day!

   Further, you must be aggressive if you are on "the Lord's side." These
   sons of Levi, as soon as they declared that they were on the side of
   Jehovah, had to come forth to smite and slay His enemies. So must you,
   if you are a follower of the Lord. There is nothing that the devil
   likes better than to be left alone. I am often asked, "Why do you not
   preach what you believe and leave other people's doctrine alone?" Ah,
   just so! Why don't I? And why did not the Lord Jesus Christ let the
   devil alone and let false teachers alone? And why does not the Gospel
   let error and falsehood alone? When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the
   world, one part of His work was to destroy the works of the devil. The
   demons said to Him, "Let us alone: what have we to do with You, You
   Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us?" His answer was, "Hold
   your peace and come out of him." And when the demons say to us, "Leave
   us alone," we reply, "That is the very thing that we cannot do and that
   we dare not do!" We must not let falsehood, and sin, and error alone!
   Christ Himself said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
   I came not to send peace, but a sword." His faithful servants are to
   follow His example--to quarrel with error, to fight against sin--to be
   aggressive against everything that is opposed to our Lord and His
   Truth!

   The devil is quite ready to make a league of peace with us, or to agree
   to a truce and say, "Now, do not go on fighting any longer. Let us
   shake hands and be friends. There can be no reason why I should not
   continue to be the prince of the power of the air, and Christ should
   also have His disciples--only let them be very decorous and quiet--and
   mind their own business." But we will make no such wicked league or
   truce as that, for we are to resist the devil! As Peter writes, "whom
   resist steadfast in the faith." The sons of Levi had to kill the
   adversaries of God and so must you, spiritually, who are on "the Lord's
   side."

   You must also let love to God rule all nature's ties if you are on "the
   Lord's side." Moses expressly commended Levi for this--"Who said unto
   his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he
   acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children." They were so
   jealous for the Lord of Hosts, that they would not tolerate idolatry in
   their nearest kith and kin! Happily, Brothers and Sisters, we have not
   to fight anybody with a sword of steel. God forbid that any of us
   should ever take the life of a fellow creature! Our one weapon is the
   two-edged sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God! The force we
   use is the force of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. But, I
   charge you, never do a wrong thing, or even a questionablething in
   order to please father, or mother, or wife, or child. And never allow
   any wrong to go unrebuked in the dearest friend you have, for,
   "faithful are the wounds of a friend." Some have condoned sin to please
   a wife or a husband, but they who are faithful to God must also be
   faithful to the members of their own household. This may involve
   persecution for themselves, but they must be willing to bear it for
   Christ's sake--and they must not yield an inch, or an iota, in any
   matter of principle, or any question of truth and right, even to the
   beloved of their heart. Can you do this? If so, you are worthy to be
   counted among those who are on "the Lord's side."

   Once more, they who are on "the Lord's side" must do as they are told.
   They must be prepared to obey all Christ's commands to the letter--and
   also in the spirit of them--right to the end of life. I am ashamed of
   the way in which some professing Christians ignore so much of the
   Bible, shutting their eyes to Christ's commands, or, like, Nelson,
   turning their blind eye to those they don't wish to read. Finding
   themselves in a certain community, they believe what the community
   believes without ever testing it and trying it by the Word of God. They
   do not want to know too much and if anybody tries to teach them a Truth
   of God which they do not know, they are unwilling to learn it lest it
   should unsettle them in their ecclesiastical position. I bless God that
   when I was converted to Christ, I laid down this rule for myself--
   "Whatever the Lord teaches me in His Word, I will follow. If it should
   lead me into a path where I shall be quite alone because I can find
   nobody to believe as I believe, yet will I believe and teach that which
   the Holy Spirit reveals to me in the Word." At this moment I have not
   an atom of respect for any authority in matters relating to Divine
   Truth except the authority of God--and I would strongly urge all young
   people to try all catechisms, creeds, customs, doctrines, practices and
   everything else by that Infallible test--"To the Law and to the
   Testimony: if they speak not according to this Word, it is because
   there is no Light of God in them."

   III. Thirdly, I am to remind THE LORD'S HOSTS OF THEIR ENCOURAGEMENTS.

   First, we may be encouraged to be on "the Lord's side" because it is
   the cause of right and truth. To me it seems to be a sufficient reward
   to a man to know that he is defending a right cause even if he has to
   die for it. Do you crave the applause of human hands and voices? Do you
   covet the glance of approving eyes? If so, your self-respect has
   already fallen below the point which it ought to mark. Are you right in
   the course you are now pursuing? If you are, you need not ask for
   anything more. To be right and yet to be poor--to be right and to be
   abused, or even to be put to death--is, surely, sufficient for any
   follower of the Lord!

   Better still, if there can be any better, remember that you are on
   God's side. He who is Almighty looks upon you as His friend! Or,
   rather, say that He who is Almighty is your Friend! He is much more
   than that, for He is your All-in-All. You may shelter yourself beneath
   His wings. Behind the bosses of His buckler you may hide yourself in
   perfect security!

   Moreover, Jesus the Crucified is withyouif you are on "the Lord's
   side." There He stands, whose head was crowned with the cruel thorns
   and whose hands and feet were pierced by the terrible nails. Blessed is
   every soldier of the Cross, for he has Christ for his Captain and where
   His flag waves, victory must surely come!

   Further, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, all the saints of God are
   with us--the countless hosts of the redeemed before the Throne of God,
   above, are all on His side and ours--and so are all the holy angels
   "that excel in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening unto the
   voice of His Word." All the unfallen intelligences in the universe are
   on "the Lord's side." Therefore let us not be afraid, who are enrolled
   beneath the banner of the Cross, and let others cast in their lot with
   us, for they will be siding with a noble host that has gone on before
   us! The lineage of the saints of God is a very high one. Talk of the
   blood royal or imperial--bah, a single drop of the blood of the martyrs
   flowing through our veins is far more to be desired! To walk as they
   walked, "of whom the world was not worthy"--those first confessors of
   the destitute, afflicted, tormented"--this is to be a member of the
   blood royal of Heaven, the highest nobility that can be gained in this
   world! How many of you, young men and young women, or older men and
   women, are ready to say, "We are on the Lord's side"? The air all
   around us is crowded with the spirits of just men made perfect! They
   are watching to see how we run the Christian race and wrestle for the
   prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus! And they sing a new song of
   praise unto the Lord as He leads one and another to contend earnestly
   for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints--to stand out
   boldly for Christ and Him crucified--and to speak, or serve, or suffer
   as best shall glorify the Lord Most High!

   IV. Time and strength both fail me, so I cannot say more upon that
   point, though much more might be said. I am, in closing my discourse,
   TO REPEAT THE QUESTION OF THE TEXT AND TO MAKE PROPOSALS FOR ENLISTMENT
   IN THE ARMY OF THE LORD. I should like to act as a recruiting sergeant
   and to enlist some new soldiers for King Jesus.

   "Whoever is on the Lord's side? Well," says one, "I wish to be." Well,
   I will gladly help you enlist. You know what the sergeant does when he
   enlists a young man--the first thing he does is to give him
   something--a shilling. And if you intend to be a follower of the Lord,
   you must receive something or, rather, you must receive SOMEONE--even
   the Lord Jesus Christ, for, "as many as received Him, to them gave He
   power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
   name." You cannot be on "the Lord's side" unless you receive the Lord's
   Christ as your Savior! But as soon as you accept Him as the free Gift
   of Jehovah's Free Grace, you are enlisted into the army of the Lord!
   Will you take Him on those terms? Will you have the Lord Jesus Christ
   as your Captain? I pray His gracious Spirit to make you say, "Yes, that
   I will, by His Grace."

   Next, the sergeant puts the ribbons in the young man's hat and, if you
   receive Christ, the next thing you have to do is to confess Christ
   openly by being baptized. Our Captain's own words, as recorded in the
   Gospel according to Mark, are these--"He that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved"--and what He has joined together, no one has the right
   to put asunder. So, get the colors in your hat, young recruit, if you
   really are enlisted on "the Lord's side."

   When you have done that, the next thing for us to do is to take you to
   the barracks and drill you. You will not be fully fitted to fight the
   Lord's battles until you have been drilled and trained by your new
   officers. So, submit yourself to the discipline of the Church of
   Christ. Be willing to take your place in the ranks with your Brothers
   and Sisters, to follow the New Testament Church order, to be taught
   what are the first principles of the Christian faith and to be
   instructed yet further in the things of God, so that, afterwards, you
   may be able, in your turn, to instruct others. Christ's commission

   runs thus, "All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth. Go you
   therefore, and teach (make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them
   (those who are made disciples) in the name of the Father, and of the
   Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things
   whatever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto
   the end of the world." So, you see, we are to teach beforewe baptize
   and afterwards still further to teach those who have been made
   disciples and who have been baptized into the triune name of Father,
   Son and Holy Spirit.

   Then, we shall want you to put on your full regimentals. What are the
   regimentals of a Christian? The garments of holiness, the livery of
   love and the whole armor of God. We pray the Lord to clothe you from
   head to foot in the Divine Panoply wherein all the warriors of the
   Cross should be arrayed--the girdle of truth, the breastplate of
   righteousness, the shoes of the Gospel of Peace, the shield of faith,
   "the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word
   of God." There is nothing like having your Bible always with you and
   being able to turn to any passage that you need when you are
   confronting the foe, for, "It is written," is a wondrous weapon against
   the devil, as Christ Himself proved! Satan flees from this sharp sword.
   And other adversaries of the Lord and His people feel the force of the
   Word when they will not yield to anything else.

   Then, when you are fully armed, drilled and trained, we shall expect
   you to wage war for King Jesus. And the first war must be a civil
   war--war within your own soul--war to the bitter end against every sin,
   every evil habit, every false word! All iniquity must be driven out of
   your spirit at the point of the bayonet, and no quarter must be given
   to any enemy of the Most High God. Then even while the civil war is
   raging, we shall want you to carry the war into the enemy's territory.
   Attack the foe on all sides--speak to your friends about Christ. So
   live that they will see Christ's life reproduced in you, at least in a
   measure. Plead with those with whom you work or live--the servants in
   the house, or your companions, all sorts and conditions of men--tell
   them all about Jesus Christ! If we were once to have a church fully
   awakened and zealous for Christ and His Truth, we would soon have the
   persecuting times back again. The early Christian Church was very
   enthusiastic--they went everywhere preaching the Word. Somebody says,
   "Ah, they lived in the days of persecution." But it was not the
   persecution which made them enthusiastic--it was their enthusiasm that
   brought upon them persecution for Christ's sake! And probably if we
   were as good Christians as we ought to be, we would not be half as well
   liked by the world as we now are! And if there were more noise and
   opposition made against the followers of Christ, it would not be at all
   a bad sign! If those who hate righteousness, hated Christians more
   heartily than they now do, it might be a token that God was more
   manifestly at work in us, making us more "out-and-out" for Him than we
   are at present.

   Now, then, you who are on "the Lord's side" in this congregation--you
   who really believe in Jesus--I invite all of you to confess your faith
   in Him if you have not already done so. No, more than that--in the name
   of Jesus in whom you believe, I exhort and command you to confess your
   faith in Him! Be not ashamed to avow your convictions. Do not try to
   conceal yourselves from your fellow Christians. Come out and come out
   soon--and may the numbers of this church, or of some other church be
   greatly swollen by the addition of those who are truly upon "the Lord's
   side." I wish I could persuade some of you not to put off this
   confession any longer, but to say, "I love my Savior, and I mean to
   come out and confess that I am on 'the Lord's side.' I have been far
   too long hesitating and halting between two opinions, but I will not
   let another week go by without saying, as plainly as words can say it,
   'I have given myself to Christ and now I wish to give myself to His
   Church.'" May God bless you all for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EXODUS32:1-29.

   Verse 1. And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of
   the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said
   to him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us, for as for this
   Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not
   what is become of him. They needed something to look at-- something
   visible that they could adore. It was not that they meant to cease to
   worship Jehovah, but they intended to worship Him under some tangible
   symbol. That is the great fault of Ritualists and Romanists--they aim
   at worshipping God, but they must do so through some sign, some symbol,
   some cross, some crucifix, or something or other that they can see.

   2, 3. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings which are
   in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and
   bring them unto me. And all the people broke off the golden earrings
   which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. People are often
   very generous in their support of a false religion and, to make idol
   gods, they will sacrifice their most precious treasures, as these
   idolaters willingly gave their golden earrings!

   4. And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a engraving
   tool, after he had made it a molten calf and they said, These are your
   gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt No doubt
   they copied the Egyptian god which was in the form of a bull, which the
   Holy Spirit, by the pen of Moses, here calls a calf. The Psalmist
   probably also alludes to it when he speaks of "an ox or a bullock that
   has horns and hoofs." It seems strange that these people should have
   thought of worshipping the living God under such a symbol as that!

   5. And when Aaron sawit, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made
   proclamation, andsaid, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD. "To Jehovah."
   They intended to worship Jehovah under the form of a bull--the image of
   strength! Other idolaters go further and worship Baal and various false
   gods, but, between the worship of a golden calf and the worship of
   false gods, there is very little choice. And between the idolatry of
   the heathen and Popery, there is about as much difference as there is
   between six and half a dozen!

   6. And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings,
   and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to
   drink, and rose up to play. I t was usual to worship false gods with
   music and dancing and with orgies of drunkenness and obscene rites--and
   the Israelites fell into the same evils as they had seen among their
   neighbors.

   7. And the LORD said unto Moses. Just in the midst of his hallowed
   communion, the Lord said to him.

   7. Go, get you down; for your people, which you brought out of the land
   of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. God would not acknowledge them as
   Hispeople. He called them Moses' people--"your people, which you
   brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves."

   8-10. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded
   them: they have made them a molten calf, andhave worshipped it, andhave
   sacrificed thereunto andsaid, these are your gods, OIsrael, which have
   broughtyou up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I
   have seen this people and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: now
   therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and
   that I may consume them: and I will make of you a great nation. For
   Moses began at once to pray for the people--to interpose between God
   and the execution of His righteous wrath and, therefore, the Lord said
   to him, "Let Me alone...that I may consume them."

   11. And Moses besought the LORD his God, andsaid, LORD, why does Your
   wrath wax hot against Your people? See how he dares even to say to God,
   "They are Yourpeople, though they have acted so wickedly. 'Why does
   Your wrath wax hot against Your people?'"

   11-13. Which You have brought forth out of the land ofEgypt with great
   power, and with a mighty hand? Therefore should the Egyptians speak and
   say, For mischief did He bring them out, to slay them in the mountains,
   and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce
   wrath and repent of this evil against Yourpeople. Remember Abraham,
   Isaac, andIsrael, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own Self,
   andsaid unto them, I willmultip-ly your seed as the stars of Heaven,
   and all this land that I have spoken of willI give unto your seed, and
   they shall inherit it forever. Moses pleaded the Covenant which the
   Lord had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel--and there is no plea
   like that. Although it might have been to his own personal interest
   that the people should be destroyed, Moses would not have it so. And he
   pleaded with God for the sake of His own honor, His faithfulness and
   His Truth, not to run back from the Word which He had spoken.

   14, 15. And the LORD repented of the evil which He thought to do unto
   His people. And Moses turned and went down from the mount. Does it not
   seem sad for Moses to have to go down from the immediate Presence of
   God and to stand among the idolatrous and rebellious people in the
   camp? Yet that is often the lot of those whom God employs as His
   servants--they have, as it were, to come down from Heaven to fight with
   Hell upon earth.

   15-17. And the two tablets of the testimony were in his hands: the
   tablets were written on both sides, on the one side and on the other
   were they written. And the tablets were the work of God, and the
   writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tablets. And when
   Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto
   Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. For Joshua was a younger
   man than Moses, and also a soldier, so his ears were quicker to hear
   what he took to be "a noise of war in the camp."

   18. And hie said, It is not thee voice of them that shout for mastery,
   neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the
   noise of them that sing do I hear. Moses knew that it was not a
   battle-cry either of the victors or the vanquished--but the song of
   idolatrous worshippers.

   19. And it came to pass, as soon as he came near unto the camp, that he
   saw the calf and the dancing and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast
   the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount. In
   righteous indignation, preserving those sacred tablets from the profane
   touch of the polluted people by dashing them to fragments in his holy
   anger

   20. Andhe took the calf which they hadmade and burnt it in the fire,
   andgroundit to powder, andstrew it upon the water, and made the
   children of Israel drink it. Think of the courage of this one man to go
   single-handed right into the middle of the idolaters' camp and deal
   thus with their precious god!

   21-24. And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto you, that
   you have brought so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the
   anger of my lord wax hot: you know the people, who they are set on
   mischief For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us:
   for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of
   Egypt, we know not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whoever
   has any gold, let them break it off So they gave it to me: then I cast
   it into the fire, and there came out this calf. Which was a lie. Aaron
   was a poor weak-minded creature, easily persuaded to do wrong. And when
   his stronger-minded and more gracious brother was absent, he became the
   willing tool of the idolatrous people--and yet Aaron is called, by the
   Psalmist, "the saint of the Lord," and so he was, taking him as a
   whole. One black spot on the face of a fair man does not prove him to
   be a Negro. And so one sin in the life of a man who is usually holy,
   does not put him among the ungodly.

   25-28. And when Moses saw that the people were naked, (for Aaron had
   made them naked unto their shame among their enemies) then Moses stood
   in the entrance of the camp, and said, Whoever is on the LORD'S
   side--come to me! And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together
   to him. Andhe said unto them, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Put
   every man, his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate
   throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his
   companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did
   according to the word of Moses. The rebellious, the idolatrous, the men
   who had defied the authority of God were to be summarily executed on
   the spot.

   28, 29. And there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
   For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves today to the LORD, even every
   man upon his son, and upon his brother; that He may bestow upon you a
   blessing this day. Such a colossal crime as that must be expiated
   before the Lord could again bless the chosen race.
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ's Sympathy With His People

   (No. 2885)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.

   "For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid
   those who are tempted." Hebrews 2:18.

   THAT which is the most simple lesson the Gospel has to teach is often
   the most difficult lesson for the Christian to learn. That simple
   lesson is that we must not look to ourselves for anything good, but
   that we must look to the Lord, alone, for all our righteousness. The
   lesson is short, as well as simple. It is easy to repeat but, as often
   as our faith is severely tried, we find how apt we are to forget that
   which is the very Alpha of the Gospel--that man, in himself, is wholly
   lost and that all his hope of help and salvation must rest on Christ,
   that apart from God there is nothing upon which faith can fasten
   itself--and that without the atoning Sacrifice and justifying
   Righteousness of Christ, the quickening and sanctifying work of the
   Holy Spirit and the everlasting love of the Father, there is neither
   joy, nor peace, nor comfort, nor hope to be found anywhere. This seems
   to be a very easy lesson, yet even aged Believers, when their hair is
   getting gray and they are about to enter the land of perfect peace and
   rest, still find the temptation to unbelief too much for them and they
   begin to look for something good in the creature--and to seek for
   happiness in themselves--instead of seeking all good in God.

   I want to try to teach you this lesson again. And to also learn it
   myself, for I need to learn it as much as you do--the lesson of looking
   away from our temptations and from our own weakness and inability to
   repel those temptations--to Him who, having Himself suffered in being
   tempted, "is able to aid those who are tempted." Let us fix our eyes
   upon our great High Priest and leave Satan and all his insinuations,
   his blasphemies and his temptations out of the question. Or, rather,
   let us bring them to Christ and see them all finished in Him! I am
   going to address three separate characters that are represented
   here--first, the confirmed Believer Secondly, the young beginner. And,
   thirdly, the backslider And then, summoning the attention of the whole
   company here assembled, I shall try to commend the comfort and
   instruction of the text to you all.

   I. First, let me speak TO ADVANCED CHRISTIANS.

   You all have your trials and those trials are of an advanced character.
   The troubles with which the plants of God's right-hand planting are
   assailed when they are saplings are quite inconsiderable compared with
   those which come upon them when they are like cedars firmly rooted. As
   surely as our strength increases, so will our sufferings, our trials,
   our labors, or our temptations. God's power is never given to a man to
   be stored up unused. The heavenly food that is sent to strengthen us,
   like the manna given to the Israelites in the wilderness, is intended
   for immediate use. If the Lord sends you much, you shall have nothing
   beyond what you can use for Him though, blessed be His holy name, if
   you have but little, you shall have no need! When the Lord puts upon
   our feet the shoes of iron and brass which He has promised us in His
   ancient Covenant, He intends that we should wear them and walk in
   them--not that we should put them into our museum and gaze upon them as
   curiosities. If He gives us a strong hand, it is because we have a
   strong foe to fight. If He gives us a great meal--like that which He
   gave to Elijah--it is in order that, in the strength of that meal, we
   may go for 40 days or even longer.

   Perhaps, my Brother or Sister, you are, just now, in great trouble. You
   have grown in Grace and your troubles have also grown. You feel that
   you need someone to whom you can tell your trouble--your trouble very
   likely arises from the

   absence of your Lord. Let me remind you that in this respect you are
   very like the Israelites in the wilderness, when Moses had been absent
   from them for 40 days. They said, "What shall we do? Our leader is
   gone. He who was king in Jeshurun has departed from us and we are left
   like sheep without a shepherd." So they went--I dare not say that they
   went for counsel, but they went--to the high priest. And you remember
   what they said and what he did. Alas, he gave them no good counsel, for
   he was as unwise as they were--and as untried. He had always had Moses
   by his side ever since the day that the Lord had said, "Is not Aaron
   the Levite your brother?...He shall be to you instead of a mouth and
   you shall be to him instead of God." Aaron had never been left without
   his great leader and so, in his absence, he failed miserably and led
   the people in the making and worshipping of the golden calf!

   How different it will be with you who mourn the loss of the Light of
   your Lord's Countenance, if you go to our Great High Priest, the Lord
   Jesus Christ! He knows the meaning of your present trial, for He had
   once to cry, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" You tell Him
   that your "soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death," and He
   tells you that it was so with Him, also, on that night in which He was
   betrayed, when, "being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly: and His
   sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the
   ground." No untried Priest is He! He can sympathize and He can aid you.

   Take another case--that of Hannah, the "woman of a sorrowful spirit."
   She was in a peculiarly trying position. Her husband's other wife had
   children, but she had none. Though she was greatly beloved of her
   husband, her adversary vexed her sorely to make her fret. Day by day
   this was thrown in her teeth, that, because of some sin, God had not
   granted her the desire of her heart. A trial in one's own house is one
   of the saddest places where it can come--the saddest, perhaps, with the
   exception of a thorn in the flesh which comes still closer home. So
   poor Hannah, having that trial at home, thought she would go up to the
   sanctuary in Shiloh. There, she "prayed unto the Lord, and wept sorely,
   and she vowed a vow." But "she spoke in her heart; only her lips moved,
   but her voice was not heard." So Eli, the high priest, thought that she
   was drunk and, instead of comforting and consoling her, he spoke
   harshly to her, depressed and broken as her spirit was. You, my
   Brothers, and you, my Sisters, too, may have some trouble which you
   dare not tell to another, though it is sorely vexing you and threatens
   even to break your heart. But when you go to the Great High Priest, He
   will understand all about it! He will not need you to explain your
   sorrow to Him, for He knows exactly what it is. And He will apply the
   healing balm to your sorrowful spirit and send you on your way full of
   peace and comfort!

   I offer, then, to you who are advanced Believers, this very comforting
   reflection--in Christ's sufferings you are quite certain to find
   something akin to your own and, in Christ's heart, you are quite sure
   to find a deep well of Divine Sympathy! So whatever your trial may be,
   you need not hesitate to go to Him, or doubt that His loving heart will
   overflow with sympathy towards you!

   But, more than that, while I would console you by reminding you that
   Christ has suffered even as you have, I would also comfort you with the
   reflection that this very day He still suffers with you. Suppose, now,
   that a man could be so high in stature that his head could be in Heaven
   while his feet were on earth, yet, whenever his feet suffered, his head
   would suffer, too. In the Canticles, the spouse says of her Heavenly
   Bridegroom, "His head is as the most fine gold...His legs are as
   pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold." As John saw Him, "in
   the isle that is called Patmos," "His eyes were as a flame of fire and
   His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace." This
   suggests to me a parable--the feet of Christ, which form His Church on
   earth, still glow "as if they burned in a furnace." The glorious Head
   of the Church, up in Heaven, "is as the most fine gold," but there is
   not the least glow of heat, in the feet on earth, which is not felt by
   the Head in Heaven. There is not a pang that rends your heart which
   Jesus does not feel. There is not a sorrow that cuts deeply into your
   soul which does not also cut into His! So you can still sing--

   "He feels in His heart all our sighs and our groans

   For we are most near Him, His flesh and His bones.

   In all our distresses our Head feels the pain,

   They all are most necessary, not one is in vain." Does it not comfort
   you to know that Christ can sympathize with you and that He must
   sympathize with you--can, because He has suffered--must, because He
   still suffers?

   I may also add, for your comfort, that all this--Christ's suffering as
   you do and His suffering with you, must tend to shield you in your
   trials. A country minister, preaching upon the text, "Is there no balm
   in Gilead; is there no physician there?" made the remark that Christ is
   a good Physician. "Ah," he said, "Christ is not like those doctors who
   come and

   say they are sorry for you, whereas, in their hearts, they are glad you
   are ill, for, if you and others were not ill, there would be no work
   for them. Or else," said the preacher, "they look down upon you and
   pity you, but not half as much as if they, themselves, had your
   complaint and felt all the pains that you are feeling. But suppose," he
   added, "that the doctor had all your pains, himself--suppose you had
   the headache and that he looked down on you and had your headache?
   Suppose when you had palpitation of the heart, he had palpitation of
   the heart, too--why, he would be very quick to cure you! Certainly he
   would not let you lie there a moment longer than was necessary because
   he, himself, would be suffering with you." Now there is just one
   objection that may be made to the countryman's argument--that is, that
   the physician might be willing to raise the patient up at once because
   he was suffering with him--yet he might say, "Here are two of us in the
   same plight, but my skill fails me here. If I could deliver you, you
   can well imagine that I would gladly do so, for, in so doing, I would
   deliver myself as well. But, alas, it is beyond my power! I cannot
   lighten your burden, nor my own--we can only sit down together and
   mingle our tears--but we cannot assist one another."

   But it is not so with the Good Physician, for He has both the will and
   the power to heal us! One motion of that eternal arm and every cloud
   that is wrapped about the sky shall be folded up like a worn-out
   vesture, and cast away! Jesus speaks and the boisterous billows cease
   their raging and the wild winds are hushed to sleep. "Let there be
   light," He says, and over the thick darkness of our affliction and
   adversity comes the bright gleam of joy and prosperity! He did but lift
   up His voice and "kings of armies did flee apace." O Jesus, our Lord,
   when You come forth for the deliverance of Your people, who can stand
   before You? As the wax melts before the fire and as the fat of rams is
   consumed upon Your altar, so do our trials and troubles melt and vanish
   away when You come forth for the deliverance of Your people! Remember,
   Believers, that you not only have the love of Christ's heart, but you
   also have the strength of Christ's arm at your disposal! He rules over
   all things in Heaven, earth and Hell--so rest in Him, for He still
   bears the scars of His wounds to show that He has suffered even as you
   do. Still does He prove Himself to be Man, seeing that He suffers with
   you, yet is He also "very God of very God," into whose hands all power
   in Heaven and earth is committed! He can, He must, He will deliver His
   people and bring them out of all their trials into His eternal Kingdom
   and Glory!

   II. Secondly, I am going to speak TO ANXIOUS ENQUIRERS AND YOUNG
   BEGINNERS.

   I hear a plaintive voice, over yonder, saying to me, "I know, Sir, that
   the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all
   sin. And I know that the moment I believe in Him, I have nothing to
   fear concerning the past, for that sin is blotted out once and for all.
   But my fear is that if I commence a Christian life, it will not last
   long. I am afraid I shall be like Pliable and turn back at the Slough
   of Despond. Or if my neighbors jeer at me, I fear that I shall be
   ashamed to go forward in spite of their opposition. Even if I get over
   that, I feel that I cannot trust my own evil heart which is so apt to
   deceive me. If old temptations should be overcome, new ones will be
   sure to arise and I cannot help fearing as to what will become of me. I
   have seen some who made a fair show in the flesh, turn back and go
   straight to perdition--and I tremble lest it should also be so with me.
   How can I hope to withstand the imperious lusts which were too strong
   for me when first they allured my simple heart? How much more shall
   they be too mighty for me, now that sin has gathered the force of habit
   and practice and, like an iron net, has enfolded me in its cruel grip?
   When I was a youth, I could not stand against this great enemy of my
   soul--how, then, shall I be a match for him now that I have grown old
   and feeble? The old Adam will be too strong for the young Melancthon!"

   Well, dear Friends, I have seen some persons who have been truly
   converted to God who have been greatly troubled with this fear. Indeed,
   in some instances I have even known of poor men kneeling down and
   praying that God would let them die, then and there, sooner than that
   they should live to prove that their feelings were only a delusion and
   that their supposed repentance was merely a passing excitement. Some of
   us can fully sympathize with those who pray such a prayer as that, for
   we have often felt that the most terrible death would be preferable to
   the disgrace of bringing dishonor upon the name of Jesus by turning
   back to the City of Destruction after we had once started for the
   Celestial City. But, my dear Friend, if the Lord has begun a good work
   in your soul and led you to trust in Jesus as your Savior, my text will
   just meet that fear of yours, for the Apostle here says that Christ "is
   able to aid those who are tempted." You will be tempted--I will not
   delude you with the notion that you will not--and you cannot, by
   yourself, stand up against that temptation! But Christ, "in that He
   Himself has suffered, being tempted, is able to aid those who are
   tempted." This Truth of God we set before you as a shield against all
   these dark, mysterious thoughts--Christ can and He will, if you trust
   in Him, protect you from the sin and the temptation which you rightly
   dread!

   "But how is this to be done?" someone asks. Well, first of all, Christ
   can do it by the force of His own example. He can show you as He has
   done in His Word. But He can also show you by His Spirit opening up
   that Word, how He was once subject to the same temptation that now
   assails you. Are you poor, and are you tempted to use wrong means to
   get rich? Christ can tell you how, in the wilderness, "when He had
   fasted forty days, and forty nights, He was afterwards hungry," and
   Satan came to Him and said, "If You are the Son of God, command that
   these stones be made bread." Are you a man in a high position and are
   you tempted to do some daring and reckless deed? Christ can remind you
   how, when He was on a pinnacle of the Temple, Satan said to Him, "If
   You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down." Or do you seem, just now,
   to have great power within your reach if you will but stain your hand
   to grasp it? Christ can tell you how Satan showed Him all the kingdoms
   of the world and the glory of them, and said to Him, "All these things
   will I give You if You will fall down and worship me." Then He will
   remind you how He passed through all these ordeals without sin, for the
   prince of this world could find nothing in Him to respond to his
   temptations. He was tried and tested again and again, but no trace of
   alloy could be discovered even by the devil himself! Though He was
   often shot at by His great adversary, He was never wounded by the fiery
   shafts! So, inspired by His glorious example, you may say--

   "Through floods and flames if Jesus leads I'll follow where He goes."

   You not only have Christ's example to keep you from sin, but you also
   have His Presence. Do you know what this means? Let me give you an
   example of it. There was a certain merchant who had been, again and
   again, tempted to an act of sin. It was the usual custom in his
   trade--everybody else did it. But he knew that it was wrong and his
   soul revolted against it. As he sat in his counting house, he saw,
   pictured before his mind's eye, his wife homeless and his children
   crying for bread. And the demon whispered to him, "Do it. Do it." Then
   another picture flitted before his eyes--he and his wife and children
   were rich--their home was filled with good things and again the
   adversary said, "Do it. Do it." He saw the advantages that were to be
   gained by doing it, but he went home and pondered the whole matter. His
   soul was heavy and a stern struggle was proceeding within him. Then he
   went to his chamber and shut himself in and, falling upon his knees,
   told all his difficulty and temptations to his Father in Heaven. Then,
   suddenly, not before his eyes, but to Faith's inner eyes, there
   appeared a vision of the Crucified Christ who showed him His pierced
   hands, and feet, and side, and then said to him, "He that takes not his
   cross and follows after Me is not worthy of Me. You have not yet
   resisted unto blood, striving against sin."

   The merchant, fixing his tearful eyes upon his Savior, remembered
   Paul's words, "Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners
   against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds." He came
   down from his bedroom, his soul was glad, for his mind was made up and
   he said to himself, "I will not do it. I can be poor, but I cannot
   sin." Others marked the man and wondered at the change in his
   appearance. He walked erect, no longer like one bowed down beneath a
   heavy burden. Many men marvelled at him and asked what had happened to
   him, but none could tell. The secret was that the Crucified Christ had
   appeared to him and had given him the support of His Divine Presence.
   That was sufficient to aid him in the time of temptation, for Christ,
   having Himself suffered, being tempted, was able to aid His faithful
   follower when he, also, was tempted.

   I know that I am addressing someone who says--I will use, as far as
   possible, his own words--"Look here, Sir, I have always been in the
   habit of being a jolly fellow, meeting with a number of companions to
   drink, chat, sing and so on. I do not know that we did very much amiss,
   but still, I could not do it again if I became a Christian. Suppose,
   now, that I should be invited to join the same company tomorrow--I am
   not sure what I might do--I might refuse their invitation, but if I
   were asked again and again, and they jeered at me for refusing, I might
   give in. Suppose that I did not yield? There is another difficulty. I
   have been a man of such-and-such a character and have formed
   such-and-such ha-bits--now, how in the world am I to overcome those
   habits? How am I to become a Christian and to continue so to the

   end?"

   These are very proper questions and I answer--You are utterly helpless
   apart from Him who is able to aid those who are tempted. But if you
   believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, He will give you a new nature. That
   new nature, it is true, will not at once cast out the old nature--your
   old nature will still be there, but the new nature will struggle
   against it and, ultimately, through the effectual working of the Holy
   Spirit, the new nature will prevail over the old nature and you will be
   "a new creature in Christ Jesus." Old things will have passed away and
   all things will have become new. You will say,

   as a young convert did when he came to join the Church, "I don't know
   which it is, but either everything else is changed, or else I am." It
   was in himself, of course, that the great change had been worked, but
   that changed the aspect of everything else!

   Let me give you a little parable to illustrate this point. A lion and a
   tiger used, frequently, to roam the forests together in search of prey
   that might satisfy their bloodthirsty appetites. But one day an angel
   came, touched the lion and changed him into a lamb. The next day the
   tiger came and wanted the lion to go with him to his feast of blood. Do
   you think it was difficult for him to refuse the invitation? Oh, no! "I
   have no inclination to go," he said. The tiger laughed scornfully and
   said, "Aha, you have become pious, have you? Now you will go to the
   sheepfolds and sneak behind the shepherds' heels--you that were once so
   brave!" And the tiger despised him and said, "You are miserable to be
   thus tied up like a dog and not to dare to come and do as we have
   always done." "No," said the lion, "it is not that I dare not go with
   you, but I have no wish to go. I am not miserable because I cannot go
   with you on such an errand--I would be miserable if I did go. The fact
   is, I cannot now do what I once did, for I am not what I once was. My
   new nature has brought me new loves, new hatreds, new preferences, new
   pursuits--so I cannot go with you on your bloodthirsty expedition."

   If God has worked a similar change in you--and transformed the lion
   into a lamb and the raven into a dove--it will not be difficult for you
   to be kept from sin, for you will hate sin with perfect hatred and have
   no fellowship with it! And besides that, as your nature will be
   renewed, day by day, by the Holy Spirit, with a constant infusion of
   everything that is good, gracious and Godlike, do you not see that sin
   shall no longer be like a strong spear to pierce you, but as a fragile
   reed which shall snap against the armor of proof which your soul shall
   wear?

   Let me remind you who are thinking of going upon pilgrimage, but are
   afraid of the lions and the dragons in the way, that He, under whose
   banner you hope to enlist, never allowed one soldier who was in His
   service to perish. If you become a sheep under the care of the Good
   Shepherd, remember that--

   "His honor is engaged to save The meanest of His sheep."

   If you are a mariner, bound for the Fair Havens of eternal felicity,
   recollect that the Lord High Admiral of the seas of Providence and
   Grace has safely convoyed into port every vessel that has yet been
   committed to His charge! Not one has ever been wrecked or lost in any
   way. Trust yourself to His protection and guidance and He will bring
   you, also, safely in. What if your temper is, naturally, furious? What
   if your evil propensities have been indulged until they have become as
   giants holding you in cruel captivity? What if your passions boil, burn
   and blaze like Vesuvius in eruption? What if your temptations should
   come upon you as the Philistines came upon Samson? He to whom you
   commit the keeping of your soul shall make you master over all--and you
   shall yet be, with the great multitude whom no man can number, more
   than conqueror through Him who has loved you! Oh, that the Holy Spirit
   would constrain many of you, straightway, to leave your old master and
   to enter the service of the Savior! You will never find a better master
   than the Lord Jesus Christ!

   "Ah," said a sailor, 70 years of age, who had heard a sermon that had
   deeply affected him and, I trust, had been the means of renewing his
   nature, "I am going to haul down my old flag today. I have sailed under
   the colors of the Black Prince all these years, but they are coming
   down today--and I am going to run up the blood-red Cross in their
   place-- and I hope to sail under that flag until I die." So may it be
   with many of you! Say, "O Satan, we have served you far too long!
   Miserable is your service, despicable are your ways, degrading is our
   position and awful must be our end if we remain in your power." Then
   turn to the Lord and appeal to Him. Say, "O God, help us! We cry to
   You. Bring us, we pray You, from under the tyrant's sway. Help us to
   yield ourselves up to You this very hour. Take our hearts, black as
   they are, and wash them in the precious blood of Jesus Christ, Your
   well-beloved Son. Change the hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Make
   us to be Your servants while we live and to enter into Your rest and
   Your Glory when we die."

   I have thus, I hope, spoken somewhat to the comfort of young beginners
   and anxious enquirers.

   III. Now, in the third place, I am going to speak briefly TO
   BACKSLIDERS.

   Where are you, Backslider? I cannot pick you out, but there is an eye
   that sees you, and that weeps over you. Ten years ago you used to sit
   down at the Communion Table. Twenty years ago you were a reputable
   member of the church, but you fell, and, oh, what a fall was yours!
   Since that time you have not wholly forsaken the House of God, though
   you have wandered here and there--but you have never dared to call
   yourself a Christian again. You lost the Light of God's

   Countenance long ago and you find the service of Satan very hard, yet
   you think you must go downward to despair. You feel that you are in the
   iron cage of which Bunyan wrote--and you fear that you will never get
   out of it. Poor Backslider, I cannot mention your name without a tear
   and if I, a fellow creature, thus weep over you, much more does that
   compassionate Savior who suffered, being tempted, and who is able to
   aid those who are tempted!

   Hark! If you will but incline your ear, you may hear a note that will
   cheer your heart and yet break it, too! 'Tis God who speaks and He is
   having a controversy with Himself over you. Justice says, "Destroy
   him!" But Mercy says, "Spare him!" The very Gospel which you have
   despised witnesses against you, but, at the same time, pleads for you.
   The Lord still says to backsliders, as He did to His ancient people
   when they wandered from Him, "Turn, O backsliding children, says the
   Lord, for I am married unto you." "Married unto you!" This marriage
   bond cannot be broken! You have played the harlot and gone after many
   lovers, but your first Husband hates putting away and even now invites
   you to return to Him. So--

   "To your Father's bosom pressed, Once again a child confessed From His
   house no more to roam, Come, OpoorBackslider, come!"

   I may even be addressing some who once drank from the cup of Communion,
   but who have turned aside to drink the cup of devils. I may be speaking
   to some to whom, for years, the Sabbath has been a day for business
   instead of a day for worship. Yet you could never get the sound of the
   Sabbath bell out of your ears and, even now, you cannot forget the
   profession you once made, nor the joys you once knew--and you cannot be
   easy in your sins. There is a spark of heavenly fire that still lingers
   within you and it will not die out, even though you seek to quench it
   that it may not hinder you from going after your lusts. That is God's
   grip still upon you! Oh that I might be His ambassador of peace to
   fling wide the doors of His mercy to you! Poor Prodigal, you are clad
   in rags! The sty is your only sleeping place and the swine your only
   companions--you would gladly fill your belly with the husks that they
   eat, but you must not, for you are a God-made man, and swine's food can
   never satisfy you. As you stand here, perhaps there is a tear trickling
   down your cheek because of the many years that you have spent in sin
   and you are saying, "I would arise and go to my Father, but I fear that
   He has forgotten me." Oh, say not that! But do as the prodigal
   did--arise and come to your Father, for He will give you such a
   reception as the prodigal received! You shall have the kiss of
   forgiveness upon your brow, the best robe of your Savior's perfect
   Righteousness shall be cast all around you, the ring of everlasting
   love shall be placed upon your finger, the shoes of peace shall be
   fitted to your feet, you shall eat the fat things of the promises of
   God, there shall be music in your ears, music in your house, music on
   earth and music in Heaven, itself, because he that was dead is alive
   again, he that was lost is found!

   This should be your consolation--"In that He Himself has suffered,
   being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted." Did I hear you
   say, "But I cannot see how Christ was ever in the same position that I
   am in, for He was never a backslider"? That is quite true, but what are
   your trials? First, you are tried by the burden of sin that is resting
   upon you--and Christ had the sins of all His people resting upon Him,
   so He knows what that burden means. Next, you are tried by the loss of
   the Light of God's Countenance--so was He, for He cried, "My God, My
   God, why have You forsaken Me?" Then you say that you have lost all
   your friends--so had He, for in His time of trial, "they all forsook
   Him and fled." You say, also, that you are despised, that you are the
   subject of the song of the drunk and the mirth of the mock-er--so was
   He, for He could truly say, "Reproach has broken My heart." So Christ
   can sympathize--not with your sin, for He never had any of His own--but
   with your sorrow, which is the consequence of sin, for He had to bear
   all that before you did!

   IV. Now I have to close by speaking TO THE WHOLE ASSEMBLY. I think I
   might liken you, on a large scale, to that little band of
   pilgrims--Christiana, Mercy, Matthew, James and the rest of them who
   started from the City of Destruction--who, when they came to the
   Interpreter's House, were put under the escort of Mr. Great-Heart. I am
   not Mr. Great-Heart--I am but one of the children--but our great Savior
   is Mr. Great-Heart, and He is going with us all the way to the
   Celestial City! We are but like those boys and girls and we are afraid
   of what we may meet on the road. There are lions in the way, but Mr.
   Great-Heart can kill them, or restrain them from hurting us. There is
   Apollyon in the valley, but our Great-Heart is more than a match for
   the arch-fiend. We shall have to go through the Valley of the Shadow of
   Death, yet each one of us shall be able to say, "I will fear no evil,
   for You are with me." We shall have to go through

   the Enchanted Ground, but, as Christ will be with us, we shall not fall
   asleep there to our grievous hurt. We shall have to go through Vanity
   Fair and to bear the jeer and the jibe of the mocking mob, but we can
   bear all that, for we shall have our great Captain with us.

   But--and here comes the dark thought to some--we shall at last come to
   the dark river without a bridge. Mr. Great-Heart--whom Bunyan meant to
   be the minister, had to go through the stream with the rest. But when
   we come to the river, our Mr. Great-Heart, Christ Himself--will go
   through the river with each one of us! He will put His almighty arm
   around us and when we get where our feet cannot feel the bottom, He
   will say to each one of us, "When you pass through the waters, I will
   be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you." To
   die with Jesus is better, even, than living with Him except that higher
   style of living with Him beyond the river of death, for--

   "Jesus can make a dying bed

   Feel soft as downy pillows are,

   While on His breast I lean my head

   And breathe my life out sweetly there." In this sense, our text shines
   like a cluster of stars. Jesus died, Jesus rose again--in that He died,
   He can sympathize. In that He rose again, He can aid. Lay hold of this
   text whenever you think of death with any gloomy cast in your mind. And
   let us go on our way, each one singing--

   "Since Jesus is mine, I'll not fear undressing

   But gladly put off this garment of clay.

   To die in the Lord is a Covenant blessing,

   Since Jesus to Glory through death led the way."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 CORINTHIANS 6:1-18.

   2 Corinthians 6:1. We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you
   also that you receive not the Grace of God in vain. God's servants are
   called to take many different positions. They are ambassadors under one
   aspect. They are workers under another. As ambassadors, they are
   ambassadors for Christ. As workers, they are workers together with God.
   Oh, how much it costs to win a soul! I mean, not only how much it cost
   the Savior, so that He broke His very heart over it and poured out His
   life's blood--but also how much it must cost the messenger of peace! He
   must know how to beseech and implore--and when even this fails, he must
   still go on toiling, laboring as a worker together with God.

   2. (For He says, I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the day of
   salvation have I succored you: behold, now is the accepted time;
   behold, now is the day of salvation). I trust that if I am addressing
   any who say that it is too late for them to be saved and that their sin
   is too great to be forgiven, this text will drive away that unholy and
   unwarranted fear--"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the
   day of salvation." Then the Apostle goes on to speak of himself and the
   rest of the Apostles and other preachers of the Word.

   3, 4. Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed:
   but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God. As those
   early servants of the Lord really did.

   4-10. In much patience, in afflictions in necessities, in distresses,
   in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watching, in
   fasting; bypureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by
   the Holy Spirit, by love unfeigned, by the Word of Truth, by the power
   of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the
   left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as
   deceivers, andyet true; as unknown andyet wellknown, as dying, and,
   behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always
   rejoicing; aspoor, yet making many rich; as having nothing andyet
   possessing all things. All these things Paul and his Brothers were to
   be and to do in order to win souls for Christ. Just as the hunters in
   the cold North seek after furs and try all sorts of schemes to catch
   the wild creatures on which they grow. They will trap them, or snare
   them, or shoot them, but, somehow or other, they will get them. They
   will be on the alert all day and all night, too. They will learn the
   habits of every creature they have to deal with, but they will get the
   furs somehow. And so must the true minister of Christ be willing to be
   anything, to do anything, to suffer anything, to bear reproach and
   shame, to be nothing, or to be all things to all men--if by any means
   he may save some.

   11, 12. O you Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is
   enlarged. You are not straitened in us, but you are straitened in your
   own hearts. If they were not saved, it was not because Paul did not
   open his mouth to speak to them and to warn and invite them, nor
   because he did not open his heart and feel in it the movements of a
   sacred compassion for them. Now, having thus spent himself in his
   endeavor to bring them to Christ, he writes to those whom he did bring.

   13. Now in return for the same. There must be some wages for this
   blessed work. The Apostle wisely puts it on that footing, as if,
   surely, they were indebted to him, but the payment that he seeks is, of
   course, no personal gain to him. He only puts it in that form, but it
   is a gain to them.

   13. (Ispeak as unto my children), be you also enlarged. ' 'There has
   been so much earnest labor to secure your conversion, so be you also in
   earnest to bring in others. Get large thoughts of God; be fully
   consecrated to Him, spend and be spent for Him. Follow a good example."
   Paul could well urge them to that consecration when he had given
   himself so completely to the work of winning souls--"Be you also
   enlarged."

   14. Be you not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Not in any
   way--neither in marriage which is the chief of all forms for yoking,
   nor yet in business or other partnerships.

   14. For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And
   what communion has light with darkness? You must be in the same world
   with them, but keep yourself distinct from them. Go not into their
   society by your own choice, nor seek your pleasure with them.

   15-18. And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has he
   that believes with an infidel? And what agreement has the Temple of God
   with idols? For you are the temple of the living God as God has said, I
   will dwell in them, and walk in them; andl will be their Godand
   theyshall be Mypeople. Therefore come out from among them, and be you
   separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will
   receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons
   and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
     __________________________________________________________________

Restless! Peaceless!

   (No. 2886)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   21, 1876.

   "But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose
   waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God, to the
   wicked." Isaiah 57:20,21.

   AMONG the greatest privileges of the Believer in Christ are those
   choice blessings, rest and peace. Believing in Christ Jesus unto
   eternal life, he knows that his sin is pardoned, that he is a child of
   God, that Omnipotence will preserve him even to the end and that he
   will, by-and-by, be with Christ where he is not only to behold, but
   also to share His Glory forever and ever. Consequently his heart is at
   rest, for he leaves all that concerns him--whether in the present or
   the future--in the hands of his Heavenly Father, casting all his care
   upon Him who cares for him. And, therefore, he has peace, perfect
   peace, in his soul. This peace and rest which the Believer enjoys even
   here and now will deepen and increase until, in eternity, they will
   reach their perfection and the child of God will, forever and
   forevermore, in the blessed state above, be without even the slightest
   disturbance of heart and will rest in the Presence of God with his
   glorified spirit as full of joy as it can possibly be. The Apostle Paul
   truly writes, "We which have believed do enter into rest." But he also
   adds, just as truly, "There remains therefore a rest to the people of
   God."

   These choice privileges of rest and peace belong, however, exclusively
   to Believers. "The wicked" have no portion in them. They are, according
   to the testimony of Holy Writ, like the restless sea which is never
   quite quiet, even in its greatest calm--and is never to be trusted for
   a resting place, but, ever and anon, is lashed into fury, seething like
   the contents of a huge cauldron and hurling up from its depths the mire
   and dirt which have lain there unseen--such is the condition of the
   unregenerate heart of unrenewed man.

   There are two things in our text of which I am going to try to speak.
   The first is, a fact observed--"the wicked are like the troubled sea
   when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." The second
   is, a sentence pronounced, and it is pronounced by God, Himself--"There
   is no peace, says my God, to the wicked."

   I. First, then, here is A FACT OBSERVED--that the wicked are like the
   troubled sea. Who are these wicked people who are like the restless
   waves of the turbulent ocean? I take the term to describe two classes
   of sinners.

   First, by the expression, "the wicked," as used in the Scriptures, we
   must often understand overt transgressors-- persons who are living in
   the indulgence of open and known sin. Then, secondly, there is another
   class of sinners--not open transgressors, like the others I have
   mentioned--still, they have heard the Gospel and they have rejected
   it--and, consequently, since we cannot put them down in any other
   category and since their sin has a special aggravation about it because
   of the Light of God and privileges which they have enjoyed and yet
   despised, or neglected, they also must be put down with "the wicked,"
   for they, too, "are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest." Let us
   begin with those whose sins, as Paul says, "are open beforehand, going
   before to judgment." Why are they unrestful and unpeaceful?

   First, because they are themselves swayed by restless passions. There
   are some sins which will not let a man be quiet as long as he indulges
   in them. Take the sin of lust, for instance--who can ever satisfy its
   cravings? Let a man once indulge his evil passions and can those
   passions ever be satisfied? No, they keep on getting more and more
   hungry as a man would become the more thirsty through drinking brine.
   Does lust ever, of its own accord, cease its cravings? No, it is as
   insatiate as the grave, itself, and it will suck a man's very life away
   unless the Grace of God shall mercifully and miracu-

   lously interpose. If you, young man, give yourself up to what is
   erroneously called the pursuit of pleasure, it is quite certain that
   you will not find rest for your soul in that direction! You have taken
   a dose of poison that will make your blood hot and feverish and that
   will cause true rest to flee from your pillow. This is a subject upon
   which I cannot say more, in this public assembly, except to add, with
   the preacher of old, "Know you, O young man, that for all these things
   God will bring you into judgment!" Let the solemn admonition of good
   Dr. Doddridge come home to your heart and say you with him--

   "How will my heart endure

   The terrors of that day

   When earth and Heaven before His face,

   Astonished, shrink away?"

   Then listen to his earnest exhortation--not only listen to it, but at
   once obey it--

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

   Take, next, the sin of anger. There are some persons who very soon get
   angry, but they do not, as quickly cool down. Or, if they do, they
   nurse their hatred and watch for any opportunity of paying back their
   adversary in the base coin of revenge. Let me say to such a man--You
   cannot enjoy real rest and peace unless you fully and freely forgive
   all who have wronged you. You may try to lay a salve upon your
   conscience and to preach peace to your heart, but if resentment still
   lingers in your bosom--and especially the resentment which seeks an
   opportunity to display itself in an act of ill-will-- you cannot rest.
   There are some animals that seem born to fight and if they cannot tear
   others in pieces, they seem as if they must tear themselves, or, like a
   serpent, which, in its rage, will poison itself. Such is anger! Such is
   malice! And you, O man, must get rid of these evil things if you
   desires to know what real rest means!--

   "Sin, like a venomous disease,

   Infects our vital blood.

   The only balm is Sovereign Grace

   And the Physician God.

   Madness by nature reigns within--

   The passions burn and rage

   Till God's own Son, with skill Divine,

   The inward fire assuage."

   Such, too, is envy--a very common sin which is not spoken of as often
   as it should be. This is the sin of the poor man who cannot bear to see
   another man better off than he is. This is the sin of the sick man who
   is envious of the healthy. Yes, but envy may be found not only among
   the poor, but also among princes--not only among the sick, but also
   among the strong. And when a man once becomes so envious that another
   man's joy is his sorrow and another man's gain is his loss--and he
   cannot be content with his own lot because another man has more honor,
   or more money, or more friends than he has--he has a poisoned arrow
   rankling within him which will breed a thousand woes and make rest of
   heart impossible to him. Envy even grows by feeding upon itself!
   Therefore I charge you, whatever you do, get rid of it if you desire to
   find real rest!

   Pride is another enemy of peace and rest. If you see a proud man, you
   may feel sure that he is not a restful man. It is in the Valley of
   Humiliation that the flowers of peace will be discovered. As for the
   pompous people who are so high in their own esteem that they look down
   on all others--pity them, my Brothers and Sisters--do not get angry
   with them. It is a sad disease from which they are suffering--their
   brain is turned, so deal gently with them. Think as kindly of them as
   you can and pray to God to heal them. Mind, also, that you do not catch
   their complaint, for it is very contagious and there are many who are
   proud of their humility--and who condemn the pride of others when, all
   the while, they are really still prouder, themselves!

   Then there is avarice. And when a man is once possessed by the desire
   to amass gain, there is no peace or rest for him. Suppose he acquires
   what he reckons to be wealth? It ceases to be wealth as soon as he has
   gained it. He thought that if ever he should secure a certain sum which
   he had set his heart on, he would retire from business, but, having
   saved that amount, he now regards it as quite insufficient and ten
   times as much is the mark at which he now aims. If he should ever

   succeed in hoarding that amount, he will find that he is further off
   the goal of his desire than he was when he started. Some there are, I
   do verily believe, who, if they could claim the whole world as their
   own, would want the sun and moon and stars as well, for nothing could
   ever satisfy them. Once get into the grip of avarice and rest is
   impossible.

   And it is also much the same with ambition--not the desire to use one's
   capacities to the fullest, especially for God's Glory and the good of
   our fellow creatures--but that craving for so-called "glory" which
   makes a man court the homage of his fellow men and which will not let
   him be content unless he is set up on a high pedestal for fools to
   stare at! Ah, Sir, if you are ambitious in that sense, you and peace
   have parted company and are not likely to meet again! But if you will
   do the right thing and leave your reputation in the hands of God--and
   especially if you will leave those lofty pathways which, after all,
   lead only to the grave--then may you find peace. But you cannot find it
   as long as any of these evils that I have mentioned are reigning within
   your heart.

   The first reason, then, why the wicked man's heart is like the troubled
   sea is because there are evil passions within it which will not let it
   rest.

   The next reason is because the wicked man is agitated by the memory of
   his old sins. Suppose him to have been for some years engaged in an
   evil course--in dishonesty or unchastity? He cannot, even if he tries,
   forget his sins. They have burnt themselves into his very soul and,
   what is even worse than the memory of sin--every sin breeds other sins
   so that every time you sin, you have a still greater tendency to commit
   more sin! This is a fact that is strangely true both as to the body and
   as to the soul--we wear tracks for ourselves where there were none
   before. If we have, at first, to force our way through the brush of
   conscience and to cut down, as it were, the old timber of our early
   instruction and the gracious examples set before us in our childhood,
   by-and-by we make a trail for ourselves and then a beaten track so that
   it becomes always easier and yet easier to sin. No, more than that,
   there seems to be a pressure put by habit upon a wicked man so that
   what he once did from choice, he comes, at last, to do because he must.
   Sin in the soul is like leaven in the dough--it heaves, ferments and
   though it was, perhaps, put into you 20 years ago or more--it will go
   on fermenting and working until the whole of your manhood shall be
   soured by it!

   Beside all this, the ungodly man is like the sea for restlessness
   because, like the sea, he is governed by a greater power than his own.
   The sea feels the force of the moon and is agitated and stirred by the
   mysterious agency of the winds. And the wicked man is under the
   dominion of the prince of the power of the air. If, for a while, he
   would be at rest, Satan will not permit him to be in peace. He puts
   opportunities of sinning before him and then excites the desire to
   indulge in the evil thing. Satan is no myth--they who think that he is
   cannot, surely, have opened their eyes--or else they would have
   discovered in their very unbelief, his existence and that he had given
   them that unbelief! Those who have stood foot to foot with Apollyon and
   fought with him and overcome him in the hour of temptation, will never
   doubt that there is a great fallen spirit who strives to lead men into
   sin! Satan and his myriads of followers still lie in wait for the
   ungodly, or openly drive them into fierce lusts and evil passions so
   that they sin again and again.

   Nor is this all. For wicked men--those who go into open sin--are kept
   by the action of others from becoming quiet. If it were not for the
   restraints of society, what horrible places would those be where the
   utterly dissolute and abandoned assemble! Even as it is, every now and
   then we read in the newspapers records of the doings of so-called
   "gentlemen" that reveal to us something of what goes on when Bacchus
   rules or riots. Then there are the brutalized beings at the other end
   of the social ladder, the "fiends" who use their boots so heavily upon
   their wives. Put a few dozen of them together and let them have their
   own sweet will--do not restrain them at all and see what they will do!
   Only God knows what wondrous patience He has with such men when they
   get together and egg each other on in sin. I have often marvelled that
   He does not speedily put an end to their blasphemy and indecency and
   cruelty. Yet they are spared, notwithstanding their sin--but they
   cannot rest, for one will not let the others be quiet. And if, at any
   time, a good resolution should be formed by one of the company, another
   laughs that resolution down and keeps the whole society "like the
   troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt."

   I do not wonder that a wicked man cannot rest because such a man is out
   of gear with the entire universe of God. Lift up your eyes to yonder
   starry orbs and remember there is not one of them disobedient to the
   law of its Maker. The comet which was thought to be eccentric, obeys in
   all respects its great Creator's will. Everything that you can see,
   from the tiny atom of dust that is borne along by the wind, up to the
   huge Atlantic billow in which the leviathan feels at home, is under the
   power of the Divine Law. From the archangel before the Throne of God,
   down to the gnat that dances in the

   summer sunbeam, everything is obedient to the Lord of All--except the
   wicked man--and he says, "I will not obey Him." Well, as he is out of
   gear with all the rest of the universe, is it any wonder that he is
   restless as the waves of the sea and that there is no peace for him? If
   you were to set yourselves to disobey the physical laws of the
   universe--for instance paying no regard to the law of gravitation but
   leaping from a church spire, or falling down a precipice--you know what
   would come of such madness! If you ever set yourself up in opposition
   to the law, you may depend upon it that the law will got the mastery
   over you. And the man who lives in disobedience to God's moral Law will
   find that it will be the same with him and he will have no rest forever
   and ever. As God's servant, I must say to you, very plainly, and very
   ear-nestly--You cannot possibly find rest and peace in the course you
   are now pursuing. May God enable you to escape from your sins and to
   trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, that you may have both joy and peace in
   believing!

   Now I have to speak, very briefly, to those who cannot be put down
   among the outwardly and notoriously wicked. I thank God that you
   cannot, but still, you have heard the Gospel, perhaps for many years,
   and you understand it, yet you have never received it. There is
   reconciliation with God to be had, yet you remain His enemy. Now, I
   will not say, for a moment, that the moral man who is not a Christian,
   is to be put in the same category as the immoral. In many respects, he
   does not do as much harm in the world as the other man does. But let me
   tell you this, my Friend, if you sin against the Light of God and
   knowledge, there may be an intensity of guilt in your sin which may not
   be found in the man who is apparently worse than you are! He may never
   have had such teaching and advantages, nor such a tender conscience as
   you have had and hence his sin, bad as it is, like that of Sodom and
   Gomorrah, may be such that it shall be more tolerable for him at the
   Day of Judgment than for you who have not sinned one tenth as much
   according to the judgment of others, but who have sinned against the
   Gospel--sinned against the dying Savior's blood--sinned against the
   Holy Spirit! God grant that you may never run this terrible risk!

   Let me say to you, who are living without Christ, that however
   excellent and amiable you may be, I know that you are like the troubled
   sea when it cannot rest. I know some special times when you cannot
   rest--when you hear of others being converted--your brothers or sisters
   coming forward to confess Christ--your friends or relatives rejoicing
   in Jesus as their Savior. "Ah," you say to yourself, "they are restful
   and peaceful, but I am not." I know how you feel, on Communion nights,
   sometimes, when you have to go away, or to look on at others gathered
   around the Table of the Lord. You do not feel easy, then, do you? And
   you feel very uneasy, too, when any of your companions die--those who
   are very much of your own sort. You attend their funeral and the
   thought strikes you, "Shall I die as they have done, without Christ and
   without hope? Shall I pass away from under the sound of the Gospel
   without having given any evidence of conversion?" You do not feel easy
   then, I know and, sometimes, you feel very much like the troubled sea
   when conscience begins to call you to account.

   John Bunyan, in his "Holy War," gives a graphic description of what
   happened to Mr. Conscience when Mansoul was being besieged by
   Immanuel--and that is very much what has happened to some of you. They
   said that he was out of his wits, but he was never more truly in his
   wits than when he was crying out for Mansoul to yield to the great King
   Shaddai! And I feel sure that some of you have felt, upon the door of
   your conscience, the blows of the great battering-ram that Bunyan
   describes--and you have been ready to open it! Still you are not at
   rest, for you have not come to Christ who alone can give you rest. It
   is still true, as Dr. Watts wrote, long ago--

   "In vain the trembling conscience seeks Some solid ground to rest upon!
   With long despair the spirit breaks, Till we apply to Christ alone." If
   you hear the Gospel faithfully preached, you cannot be at rest. Some of
   you try to be satisfied with a false peace, but, by God's Grace, we
   will plague you yet to Christ. We will love you to Christ. We will
   incessantly worry you till, at last, you yield yourself up to Jesus!
   Some of you are getting on in business. God has been very gracious in
   preserving you in life, restoring you from sickness, or keeping you in
   health. You have a better situation now than you ever had before, yet
   you are not restful. You feel grateful to God for all His goodness to
   you, yet you say, "There is something more needed." Yes, and that
   something is the one thing necessary. I am thankful that God is
   prospering you, but I hope you will never be able to rest until you
   have that one thing necessary--the Grace of God!

   Some of you are very thoughtful and when you get alone for half an
   hour, it is very awkward for you, for there are certain problems that
   you cannot solve and they sorely perplex you. Worst of all are your
   forecasts of the future. Some-

   times, you look ahead and you picture yourself upon a sick bed and you
   say, "Can I die triumphantly as I am?" You know you cannot! And then,
   sometimes, you picture yourself rising from the dead, when the angel's
   trumpet blast is sounding and the quick and the dead are standing
   before the Judgment Seat of Christ. You cannot bear to think of that
   Great White Throne and the separation of the righteous from the wicked,
   for you know where you shall go unless a great change is worked in you!
   Though not outwardly wicked, you do not belong to the sheep--then you
   must go with the goats. And when you think of this and the future
   stands, for the moment, present before your mind's eye, your spirit is
   "like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire
   and dirt." I would that you had rest. God grant it to you this very
   hour! May Toplady's prayer be your prayer, also--

   "Oh, may I never rest

   Till I find rest in You!

   Till of my pardon here possessed,

   I feel Your love to me!

   Turn not Your face away,

   Your look can make me clean.

   Me in Your wedding robes array

   And cover all my sin.

   Tell me, my Good, for whom

   Your precious blood was shed.

   For sinners? Lord, as such I come,

   For such the Savior bled."

   II. Now, secondly, and only for a minute or two, in our text there is A
   SENTENCE PRONOUNCED--"No peace"--you notice that the words, "there is"
   are in italics because they are not in the original. So the text runs,
   "No peace, says my God, to the wicked."

   It is God Himself who says it! There may be a truce, for God is slow to
   anger, but there is "no peace." God is at war with you if you are among
   "the wicked." You may be under the delusion that there is peace, but
   God's voice of Truth shatters that delusion to pieces. There can be no
   peace where there is unpardoned sin. Until you have humbled yourself
   before God and sought and found mercy, God is at war with you and you
   are at war with Him. There can be no peace where there is no purity.
   God has no peace with sin and never can have. Like a devouring fire,
   His holiness burns against sin and you must be made pure--your nature
   must to changed, the love of sin must be killed in you and you must as
   vehemently love that which is good and right--or else God's voice still
   thunders from Heaven's burning Throne, "No peace! No peace! No peace!"

   "But I will go to church and receive the sacrament," says one. You will
   get no peace that way, except a false peace that is worse than none!
   "But I will attend the means of Grace with the Dissenters," says
   another. You will get no peace that way, if that is all that you do. If
   your sin is unforgiven by God and if your nature is unchanged by the
   Holy Spirit, all the religiousness in the world will bring you no
   peace! "But I will weep an ocean of tears and I will offer prayers
   continually." No peace will come to you that way as long as you remain
   wicked, for God says. "No peace! No peace!" And "wicked" you must
   remain until Jesus washes you white in the fountain filled with His
   precious blood and until the Spirit of God renews your nature--

   "Not all the outward forms on earth, Nor rites that God has given, Nor
   will of man, nor blood, nor birth, Can raise a soul to Heaven! The
   Sovereign will of God alone Creates us heirs of Grace-- Born in the
   image of His Son, A new peculiar race. The Spirit, like some heavenly
   wind Blows on the sons of flesh-- Creates a new--a heavenly mind-- And
   forms the man afresh."

   "Oh," says another, "but I will promise to be better and to do
   better--I will amend my ways!" So you may and so you should! But my God
   still says unto the wicked, "No peace!" What say you to all this?
   Behold your God in arms against you! Omnipotence comes forth to war
   against you, the creature of an hour! Will you submit? Be wise, I pray
   you! Cast down your weapons, cry for mercy, accept the reconciliation
   which Christ has worked. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has suffered,
   "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." If you will
   but trust Him, what He did shall be accounted as yours. That is to say,
   the punishment that He suffered shall be reckoned as if you had
   suffered it and the righteousness He worked shall be counted as if you
   had worked it! And God shall accept you in His Son's place and for His
   Son's sake. More than that, the Spirit of God will overshadow you and
   give you a new heart and a right spirit and take away the heart of
   stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Are you willing
   now to yield and end this unequal war--and be at peace with God? Then
   the Lord who gave His Son once, gives you His Son over again into your
   heart and He says, "Peace! Peace! Go in peace, your sins, which are
   many, are forgiven you."

   He who with his heart forsakes his sin and unfeignedly believes in
   Jesus shall have the peace of God which passes all understanding! But
   he who will keep his sin and so remain among the wicked, or who will
   keep his self-righteousness and so refuse the salvation of Christ, has
   nothing to go home with but this, "No peace! No peace!" And, oh, to die
   with that terrible knell ringing in one's ears! To look up to God and
   to hear Him say, "No peace!" To have the prayers of your friends for
   you, but to feel no peace! To lift your eyes to Heaven, but to find
   prayer freeze upon your soul as you hear again this sentence from God
   the Judge, "No peace!" And then follows the eternity in which there is
   no peace! God grant this may not be the sad portion of any one of us,
   but may the Lord give to each of us peace, perfect peace, for Jesus'
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 23; ISAIAH 55.

   We will first read that choicest of all the Psalms--the twenty-third.
   It is like a precious pearl shining with a mild luster. This Psalm is,
   among the other Psalms, what the lark is among the other birds--it
   soars and sings till it is lost in the heights to which it ascends!

   Psalm 23:1. The LORD is my Shepherd. What a precious title the Psalmist
   used in speaking of his God! It is right to call the Lord a Shepherd.
   "The Shepherd of Israel" is a very blessed and true title for Him, but,
   "myShepherd" is best of all. I wish, Beloved, that each of you would
   truthfully say with David, "'The Lord is my Shepherd.' He owns me and
   as I am His property, He will preserve me, protect me, provide for me,
   guide me and be everything to my weakness, folly and necessity that a
   shepherd is to a sheep." "The Lord is my Shepherd."

   1. I shall not want "Not only do I not want at the present moment, but
   I shall never want. I may sometimes foolishly fancy that I shall come
   to want, but I shall never as long as God provides for me. How could
   such a Shepherd as He is-- Almighty and All-Sufficient--ever allow one
   of His sheep to lack any good thing? No, 'I shall not want.' All the
   world besides may want, but I shall not while Jehovah is my Provider.
   Famine may be in the land--there may be neither dew nor rain and even
   the brook Cherith may at last be dried up, but since Jehovah is my
   Shepherd, I shall not want.'" As a guarantee of His care of us in the
   future, we turn to our experience in the past and the present. What is
   our experience of our great Shepherd even now?

   2. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. Here is blessed rest and
   here is also gracious provision for the needs of the sheep. The pasture
   is sweet and tender and there is so much of the green grass that it
   cannot all be eaten--and the superabundance makes a soft bed for the
   tired sheep! "He makes me to lie down in green pastures." Repose, O
   Believer, in the abundant provision of God's Grace! A sheep sometimes
   needs to lie down. It is as necessary for its health that it should
   have time to digest its food as that it should have proper and
   sufficient food to eat. May the Lord graciously give to each of you the
   sweet rest of meditation and contemplation--that blessed rest to which
   faith attains when it grows into firm confidence and full assurance, so
   that you may be able to say with David, "He makes me to lie down in
   green pastures." But our spiritual life is not to be all spent in lying
   down--there must some a time for going forward, so David adds--

   2. He leads me. What a peerless Guide He is, since Infallible Wisdom is
   His! And how gracious and condescending it is on His part to go first
   in the way which He means us to take! David does not say, "He drives
   me," but, "He leads me."

   2. 3. Beside the still waters. He restores my soul: He leads me in the
   paths of righteousness. ' 'In each one of them He is my Exemplar in
   every virtue, for He, Himself, has endured all temptations that are
   incident to my life's pathway and, all the way, 'He leads me in the
   paths of righteousness.'"

   3. For His name's sake. "Not because of any goodness in me, but because
   of the goodness that is in Him and for the glory of His holy name, 'He
   leads me in the paths of righteousness.'" "Also, 'He restores my soul.'
   When I wander, He restores my soul to the right road. When I become
   empty, He restores my soul again with good things. He restores my

   soul."

   4. Yes, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will
   fear no evil' 'Not only shall there be none, but I will fear none." A
   sense of the Lord's Presence lifts a Christian above fear! You know how
   often it is true that we "feel a thousand deaths in fearing one." But
   if we have a sense of our Savior's Presence, when we really do walk
   through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not a trace of fear shall
   come across our peaceful souls!

   4. For You are with me. The Presence of Christ is all that His people
   can ever need. The All-Powerful, Ever-Faithful,
   Infinitely-Compassionate One being with us--what cause for fear can
   possibly remain?

   4. Your rod and Your staff they comfort me. "To see Your scepter and
   even to feel Your chastising rod--to know that You are a King and that
   You rule over Israel--to know that as a Shepherd You carry "a crook to
   guide Your flock, shall be enough to comfort my heart and to sustain my
   spirit." How sweet is the next verse!

   5. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. How
   calmly the Psalmist writes! He realizes that he has enemies, yet he
   means to sit down to a feast! He is not going to snatch a hurried
   mouthful or two, but "a table" is "prepared" for him as though for a
   banquet! His enemies may look on while he is feasting, but they cannot
   take away his enjoyment of the feast.

   5. You anoint my head with oil. He receives a fresh anointing for new
   service, even the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

   5. My cup runs over.''I have all I want and even more than I need, so
   that others, not as favored as I am, may come and catch some of the
   droppings from my overflowing cup! It is so full, O Lord, that it
   cannot hold all that You gave me! Until You enlarge my capacity, I
   shall still have to say, "My cup runs over." The Psalmist's next words
   also have much meaning and force in them.

   6. Surely. There are no ifs, no doubts, no fears about the matter.
   "Surely."

   6. Goodness and mercy shall follow me. "These two holy angels shall
   watch over my footsteps and follow me wherever I go--'Goodness' to
   preserve me and 'Mercy' to pardon me! 'Goodness' to supply my needs and
   'Mercy' to blot out my sins." And these angels shall follow me.

   6. All the days of my life. "Not merely now and then, but all my
   days--my dark days as well as my bright ones-- these heavenly
   messengers will never forsake me,"

   6. And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. This life begins
   here, for this earth is but the lower part of God's House. And when the
   time shall come for us to leave this earth, we, who are the Lord's own
   children, shall only go upstairs to the higher rooms to "dwell in the
   house of the Lord forever." This, then, is the portion of the children
   of God. But there are some to whom David's language will seem strange.
   They cannot sing this sweet Psalm, for their life is as restless as the
   waves of the sea. No quiet pastoral poem could set forth their joy, for
   the sound of war is heard in the streets of their city of Mansoul. If
   any such souls are seeking rest and peace, let them hearken to the
   voice of God as it speaks to them from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah,
   chapter fifty-five.

   Isaiah 55:1, 2. Ho, everyone who thirsts, come you to the waters, and
   he that has no money; come you, buy, and eat; yes, come buy wine and
   milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for that
   which is not bread? And your labor for that which satisfies not?Why
   have you sought rest where it can never be found? Why have you craved
   delights which can never satisfy you? Cease from such folly!

   2. Hearken diligently unto Me. Thus speaks the Lord Jehovah--"Hearken
   diligently unto Me."

   2, 3. And eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
   in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul
   shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.' 'With
   you" who have any desire for

   it--"with you" who hunger and thirst after righteousness and who have
   no other recommendation than that, poor as it is. "I will make an
   everlasting covenant with you."

   3, 4. Even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him. The Son
   of David--"great David's greater Son"-- and God's own well-beloved and
   only-begotten Son, even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. God says "I
   have given

   Him"--

   4-7. For a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.
   Behold, you shall call a nation that you know not, and nations that
   knew you not shall run unto you because of the LORD your God, and for
   the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you. Seek you the LORD
   while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near: let the
   wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let
   him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our
   God, for He will abundantly pardon. Blessed be His holy name!

   8-13. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My
   ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
   are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
   For as the rain comes down, and the snow from Heaven, and returns not
   there, but waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it
   may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My word be
   that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but
   it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the
   thing whereto I sent it For you shall go out with joy and be led forth
   with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you
   into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
   Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the
   briar shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a
   name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--661, 614, 658.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Dire Disease Strangely Cured

   (No. 2887)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   28, 1876.

   "With His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.

   "By whose stripes you were healed." 1 Peter 2:24.

   IT is well for the preacher, every now and then, to go back to the very
   beginning and once again traverse the whole ground of the Gospel, just
   as the schoolteacher does when, after his pupils have advanced to some
   of the higher branches of study, he deems it desirable to make sure
   that they are well grounded in the very elements of knowledge, for he
   knows that it is quite possible for him to be doing mischief in leading
   them on to the higher forms of study unless they are thoroughly
   familiar with the first principles. So he goes back to the beginning
   over and over again--and a wise preacher will do likewise. As for
   myself, it is not at all grievous to speak, in the simplest terms, of
   Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation and, for you, it is safe as Paul
   said in writing "the same things" to the Philippians. I have always
   noticed that those who love Christ best and who know the most about His
   great salvation are just the very people who delight to hear again and
   again--

   "The old, old story Of Jesus and His love."

   To persons of that sort, the Gospel message never grows stale! It is
   like that familiar song, "Home, Sweet Home," which had such a strange
   influence over our soldiers in the Crimea, only that whereas the
   playing or singing of that tune brought on such an attack of
   homesickness that the men who heard it, when far from their native
   land, were rendered quite unfit for duty! In our case, the familiar
   story of Jesus and His dying love, and His substitutionary sufferings
   will never cease to charm our ears and fire our hearts with holy ardor
   in His blessed service. I am also quite sure that to those who least
   relish the Gospel and who know the least about it, it is beyond measure
   important that they should hear it as often as they possibly can--for
   it may be that one of these days it will find an entrance into their
   hitherto closed hearts.

   Therefore, preacher, ring that bell again and again! It may be that
   when you rang it before, their ears were stopped up, so that they did
   not catch its sweet silvery note. So, ring it again, Brother, for it
   may be that the next time you do so, the Holy Spirit will unstop those
   ears that have been so long shut to the Gospel--yes, even though the
   blessed bell has been ringing close to them for 70 years or more and
   they have grown gray, or white, without having ever caught the
   sweetness of its melodious music! So, ring that bell again, Brother!
   Yes, even if they are dying, let them still hear it, for the dying
   have, through the mercy of God, at last heard and heeded it and so have
   begun to hear the harps of angels only a few moments afterwards!

   I am going, at least on this occasion, to do what I urge other
   preachers often to do--that is, keep to the simplicities of the faith,
   trying to show how the dire disease of sin is strangely cured by the
   stripes that fell upon our Lord Jesus Christ--for both the Prophet and
   the Apostle say that we are healed by or with "His stripes"

   I. So, I begin by saying THERE IS A DISEASE IMPLIED.

   You cannot heal men who are not sick, or wounded. It matters not how
   matchless the medicine is--even though it is the substitutionary
   suffering of the Son of God, Himself--if it is to heal, it must heal
   some malady or other and, Brothers and Sisters, it is quite true that
   there is a dreadful disease which has attacked the whole human race!
   You scarcely need that I should tell you that it is the disease of sin.
   It came to this earth when that old serpent, the devil, tempted Mother

   Eve. Then did this dire disease begin to course through human veins and
   it has descended to every individual of the whole race and, at this
   moment, it lurks within each one of us. "Lurks," did I say? No, it is
   worse than that, for it has manifested itself--it has displayed its
   venom and virulence, it has shown itself in the life and, like the
   leprosy upon the brow of the man suffering from that dreadful
   disease--it is visible upon us all!

   The disease of sin is exceedingly injurious. There are some diseases
   that affect the heart and sin has turned the heart of man to a stone.
   There are some other diseases that afflict the eyes and sin has blinded
   man's understanding--his mental and spiritual eyesight. There are some
   diseases that affect the hands and, in our natural condition, we cannot
   work for God's Glory, or grasp Gospel blessings because the disease of
   sin has spiritually withered our hands. We never know at exactly what
   point the danger from any disease may be the greatest, for it is not
   always that which appears upon the surface which is most to be dreaded,
   as there are hidden places in the system which may be seriously
   affected without giving eternally any indication of the mischief. The
   Lord desires truth in our inward parts, but sin is the enemy of truth
   and it is only the Lord who can make us to know wisdom in our hidden
   parts, for sin has made us foolish, even as Solomon says that
   "foolishness is bound in the heart of a child." Sin has injured us in
   more ways than I can tell. When man fell, it was no slight accident
   that happened--it was the utter ruin of humanity that occurred! There
   is something grand, at least in appearance, about humanity, even in its
   ruined condition, for it is the work of God, but, alas, the bat, the
   owl and the viper and many other unclean creatures have made human
   nature to be their foul den. "Lucifer, son of the morning," is not the
   only one who has fallen as from Heaven, for this is also true of the
   whole race of mankind!

   You see, then, that this disease of sin is most injurious. There are
   some diseases that make men quite helpless. We have seen a man who
   could not do a day's work even if his very life depended upon it. He
   could not lift so much as his hand--and he had to be fed, nursed and
   cared for by others, for he was paralyzed. And, in a spiritual sense,
   so far as anything in the nature of good works is concerned, sin has
   paralyzed man altogether. Indeed, it has taken his very life away from
   him so that he is truly said to be "dead in trespasses and sins."

   Sin is also a disease which frequently becomes loathsome. In some men
   who have had the opportunity of indulging their evil propensities and
   passions to the utmost, sin has become so loathsome that even their
   fellow men have had to put them away by themselves. What are our
   prisons and many of our asylums but moral morgues where we have to shut
   up leprous men and women lest they should 'contaminate the whole race.'
   I said that sin is a disease which frequently becomes loathsome--I
   meant loathsome to men--for it is always loathsome to God and to the
   holy angels. I suppose that the most lascivious ulcer which ever
   sickened the pitying gaze of a sympathizing onlooker could not be so
   disgusting to the mind of the most delicate man or woman as the
   slightest sin is to the mind of God. His righteous soul loathes and
   abhors it and He says of it, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I
   hate!"

   Frequently, also, sin makes men a source of danger to others. It is
   really always so, although we do not always know it, for every evil
   example is contagious, every foul word is infectious and there is
   something about even the most moral man which it would not be safe for
   others to copy. Certainly, if he has that dreadful disease of unbelief
   in his heart, it would be wrong for any other person to imitate him in
   that respect, whatever excellences may stand side by side with it!

   In some cases this disease of sin becomes very painful. I wish it were
   painful to every unhealed man and woman, for they might then be anxious
   to be cured of it. And let me tell you that there is no disease to
   which our flesh is heir that can bring such pain to a man as sin can,
   when once his conscience is quickened by the Holy Spirit! I think I
   know, as well as most men, what physical pain means, but I would sooner
   lie bedridden, suffering all the pains that could be crowded into a
   human body and lie like that for 70 years than endure the tortures of a
   guilty conscience, or the pangs of a soul under sentence of
   condemnation! I know that when I was under conviction of sin, I could
   sympathize with Job when he said, "My soul chooses strangling and death
   rather than my life." It is a terrible thing to see yourself as in a
   mirror with all your wounds bleeding and to feel that you must say,
   "They have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with
   ointment." It is a truly awful experience to see a devil in each wound
   and to realize that you are, yourself, the worst of devils--and to hear
   the curse of God, like distant thunder, rumbling far away, yet
   constantly coming nearer and near-er--and to live in dread of the storm
   of everlasting wrath beating upon your unprotected head! Yes, the
   disease of sin is painful to the last degree to men whose consciences
   are not "seared with a hot iron."

   Worst of all, this disease causes death. There is no human being in
   whom sin has not already caused spiritual death-- and no one in whom it
   will not cause eternal death unless God, in His Almighty Grace, shall
   prevent it. "The soul that

   sins, it shall die," is a declaration that is only too terribly true!
   What that death will be, I shall not, at this time, attempt to show,
   but such words as these, coming from the lips of Christ, may tell
   you--"These shall go away into everlasting punishment," "into the fire
   that shall never be quenched; where their worm dies not, and the fire
   is not quenched." May none of you ever have to endure that death which
   never dies--that dread eternal death of which the Lord of Life so
   positively speaks! Yet, as surely as God lives, you will experience
   even that dread doom unless this mortal malady is healed!

   II. Now, turning from the disease, let me point out to you THE MEDICINE
   MENTIONED IN THE TEXT-- "With His stripes we are healed."

   Brothers and Sisters, you know right well that the medicine here meant
   is the substitutionary suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ on His
   people's behalf. I cannot imagine how anyone can read the chapter from
   which our first text is taken without seeing that "the Lord has laid on
   Him the iniquity of us all," "the chastisement of our peace was upon
   Him; and with His stripes we are healed." This is strange
   medicine--that the wounds of Jesus should heal the wounds which sin has
   made--that the wounds upon His back and shoulders where the cruel
   scourge struck Him, should, by their blueness, bring spiritual healing
   to us--yet so it is. And this is the onlyremedy for the malady of sin.
   There have been many remedies recommended by various quacks--some have
   come with their so-called "sacraments." Some with their ceremonies,
   some with their philosophies--but they are all quacks and their
   medicines have no healing power! The only cure for the wounds of sin is
   to be found in the stripes of Jesus!

   Let me put this point very plainly before you. Jesus Christ stood in
   the place of the sinner and bore--that the sinner might not have to
   bear--the righteous anger of God because of the sinner's guilt. They
   who say that we represent God as being angry and only to be appeased by
   the sufferings of His Son, know that they altogether misrepresent the
   Truth of God that we believe. What we say is that the Infinitely Holy
   God could not righteously have pardoned sin without having first
   vindicated His Justice and the majesty of His Law. I do not think that
   the enlightened conscience of man could ever have been contented
   without an atoning sacrifice. There is a necessity, not only with God,
   but also with us, for a sacrifice for sin--we must have it, or else our
   conscience cannot rest. This was the question I used to ask when I was
   in the depths of soul trouble--"How can God be just and yet forgive my
   sin?" I wanted Him to forgive me, but I did not want Him to do it
   unjustly, for, if I could have obtained the forgiveness of my sin at
   the expense of His Justice, I do not think that such forgiveness could
   ever have appeared to me to be consistent with the Character of God!

   It was only when I understood that God could be both just and the
   Justifier of all who believe in Jesus that my soul rolled herself upon
   that blessed Truth of God and enjoyed such a luxury of rest as she had
   never even dreamt of before! Yes, God is infinitely just! His Justice
   is as stern as if it had never been blended with His Grace, yet He is
   as merciful and gracious as if justice had never been one of His
   attributes! This wonderful blending is gloriously manifested in the
   Atonement of Jesus Christ, where, mark you, God Himself--for Christ is
   God, as He says, "I and My Father are One"-- God, Himself, the
   righteous Judge, becomes the innocent Sufferer, standing in the
   culprit's place and sheathing in His own heart the gleaming blade that
   must, otherwise, have been bathed in human blood! O Sirs, it is what
   Jesus bore that will heal you--what Jesus bore when He stood in the
   place of sinners and offered to Infinite and inflexible Justice a full
   recompense for the crime, guilt, sin and transgression of all who
   believe in Him!

   Look away from your sin to the great Sin-Bearer! We will not trace Him
   through all His sufferings, but begin with the "stripes" He endured in
   the Garden of Gethsemane. Can you bear to look upon that terrible
   agony, to hear His piercing cries and to see His copious tears? Above
   all, can you bear to look upon His bloody sweat? His three favored
   disciples could not, for, "He found them sleeping for sorrow." Can you
   bear to look upon Him as the rough men, guided by Judas, the traitor,
   seize Him and lead Him away to the various halls of judgment and charge
   Him with sedition and blasphemy? Can you endure to see Him forsaken by
   every friend He had and denied by that impetuous follower who had said,
   not, long before, "Though I should die with You, yet will I not deny
   You"? Can you bear to see Him surrounded by the brutal Roman
   soldiers--maltreated, mocked and spit upon by the unfeeling mob of
   railing legionaries? Can you bear to gaze upon His crown of thorns? Can
   you bear to listen to the blows from that awful scourge as they fall in
   quick succession upon His blessed back and shoulders?

   I must not go on to tell the sad, sad story at full length--it is too
   sorrowful to relate--but you know how, at last, they fastened Him to
   the tree of the curse, then lifted Him up upon the Cross, dislocating
   all His bones as they dashed it into the socket in the earth which they
   had prepared to hold it. You have read of the fever which came upon Him
   till His

   mouth was dried up like an oven and His tongue clung to the roof of His
   mouth. Yet, after terrible as all this was, it was only the shell, the
   externals of His bodily suffering! The suffering of His soul was the
   very soul of His suffering. It was by the smiting of His body and the
   more terrible smiting of His soul--the suffering of His entire Manhood
   in unison with His Godhead--that He took away the sin of His people and
   opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers!

   Let me urge all of you who are diseased through sin to go for healing
   to those blessed wounds of Jesus! Long ago I learned the secret of this
   wondrous way of healing and, now, whenever my wounds bleed afresh, I go
   again to the--

   "Fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel's veins"-- for it is
   "with His stripes" that I am healed.

   III. Now, thirdly, I want to say a little about THE HEALING HERE
   MENTIONED.

   Our second text speaks of it as a thing that was done in the past--"By
   whose stripes you were healed," so I would like you, my dear Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, to remember when you were healed years ago. Do
   you recollect the place where Jesus met with you? I remember, to a
   yard, where He revealed Himself to my soul. Some of God's saints do
   not, but that does not matter in the least! A living man must have been
   born, at some time or other, even if he does not know when his birthday
   was. And as long as we have been healed, we need not be anxious to know
   when it took place. Still, it is helpful if we can recollect when God
   gave us healing through the wounds of His beloved Son.

   Let me try to describe the process of healing. First of all, the
   stripes of Jesus heal us by taking away the guilt of sin. That is the
   all-important work. By nature and by practice, too, we are guilty. But
   when we look to Christ's stripes, we see our guilt laid upon Him and,
   as it cannot be in two places at one time, we know that it is not on us
   any longer. The moment that a poor sinner sees Christ bearing His
   burden of guilt and trusts Christ as his Burden-Bearer, his burden is
   all gone. We sang, a little while ago, that blessed hymn about
   Substitution in which one line says--

   "Now there's no load for me." There wasa load on me, but Jesus took my
   load upon Himself, so--

   "Now there's no load for me."

   That was the grandest of all God's transactions, when He took sin off
   the sinner and laid it upon His sinless Son! As the Prophet Isaiah
   says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone to
   His own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Or
   as the Apostle Paul says, "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew
   no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Yes,
   the sinner who believes in Jesus is no longer accounted guilty by God!
   Though black as night, before, the moment he looks to Christ, he
   becomes white as the newly-fallen snow. Though he was a stranger to God
   and condemned for his sin, as soon as he believes, he becomes "accepted
   in the Beloved" and he may shout with the Apostle Paul, "Who is he that
   condemns? It is Christ that died, yes, rather, that is risen again, who
   is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us!"

   The stripes of Jesus are also an Infallible remedy for the disease of
   despair What thousands of men and women in this world have been ready
   to lay violent hands upon themselves while under a sense of sin! They
   never had even half a glimpse of comfort till they were told that Jesus
   took their sin and carried it, in His own body, up to the tree and
   there forever made an end of it, that they might be saved! I should
   like those who do not believe in Christ's substitution for sinners to
   have to deal with some troubled souls who have come to me. Ah, you may
   evoke, you may charm, you may use fine language and talk about the
   "moral influence" of the Sacrifice of Christ--but what use will all
   that be to those who are on the borders of despair? Will you take from
   us, who have to deal with sin-sick souls, the only balm we have to give
   them? I have done with Christianity, I have done with the Bible, I have
   done with all preaching if you can once convince me that the
   Substitution of Christ is not a fact! This Truth of God is, to me, the
   kernel, the core, the marrow, the vital essence of the Gospel! With
   this remedy in my hands, I can turn despair into confidence! But, take
   this away and there remains nothing for me to preach to the despondent
   and the despairing. Let the man who can disprove it--if disproved it
   can be, and that I do not believe--recollect that he will have taken
   away from the sky of many of us the only sun that shines and from our
   life the only joy we have, for, if this Truth of God is gone, all is
   gone! O bleeding Savior, if You did not suffer in our place, it would
   have been better for us if we had never been born! But we know that
   Your stripes do heal the disease of despair, so we will still pass on
   the remedy to all whom we find in that terrible condition.

   Bring the stripes of Jesus home to a man--they heal his soul of a
   thousand other ills, such as this--the idea of trifling with sin. That
   is a very common disease. It is incidental to sin that men sin and
   think nothing of it. "Oh," they say,

   "What is sin? We are poor frail creatures and we make mistakes, but
   what of that?" That is man's estimate of sin, but, O You bleeding Son
   of God, when we once get a clear view of Your wounds--

   "Sin does like itself appear."

   See God's only-begotten Son dying on the Cross that sin may be put away
   and you will never again think it a trifle! The Sacrifice of Calvary
   was upon a scale so vast that there is no human method of measuring it.
   God, the Creator, Provider and Judge of All, has taken upon Himself our
   Nature and made expiation for our sin by His own death in the midst of
   the utmost ignominy, shame and agony! Now, sin could not have been a
   little thing to need such an Atonement as that to put it away--and the
   man who believes in Jesus, henceforth looks on sin in the right light
   and never trifles with it again.

   It also corrects his estimate as to eternal things. The other day he
   said, "What do I care about Heaven or Hell? What is the Day of Judgment
   to me? These are bugbears to frighten children! What is it to me
   whether God is angry or not? Eternal things are for old women to think
   about--I mind the main chance and make all the money I can." Ah, but a
   sight of Christ on the Cross cures all that! Now eternity seems to be
   everything and time insignificant! Now to be reconciled to God, to live
   to His Glory seems to be the one thing necessary! The Cross of Christ
   is the great rectifier of human judgments. We trifle no longer with
   eternal things, but they become of infinite concern to us.

   Then, next, the wounds of Jesus cure us of the love of sin. By nature,
   we love sin, but when we understand what sin cost Christ, we cannot
   love it any longer. If you had a very favorite knife which you prized
   much, but someone took it-- and with it murdered your mother--you would
   loathe the instrument with which so foul a deed was done! And sin that
   you prized and played with has the blood of Christ on it. It cut Him to
   the very soul! So now you hate it. You say to yourself, "How can I love
   that cursed thing that made my Savior bleed?" There is no cure for the
   love of sin like the blood of Christ!

   And it cures us, yet again, because it awakens the dull, inanimate soul
   which had long been indifferent to God, into life and love. When a man
   knows that Jesus died for him, he must love Him and serve Him. He
   cannot help doing so. You may tell him about the punishment of sin in
   terms of terror and you may describe the Glory of God in the most
   glowing language, but you cannot win a human heart. The deaf adder will
   not hear with such charming, but, O Jesus, if You say to a sinner, with
   Your own lips, "I love you and I have given Myself for you," the
   iceberg-soul thaws into feeling, the granite begins to throb and the
   man says, "Love You, my Savior? Oh, how can I have lived so long
   without loving You? Love You?

   "'Yes, I love You, and adore-- Oh, for Grace to love You more!'"

   Nothing cures the hearts of coldness towards God like a sense of
   blood-bought pardon--and that will dissolve a heart of stone!

   And so, let me add there is no form of mischief which sin takes, but
   the stripes of Jesus, when we come to know them, will heal us of them.
   If you love the world too much--yes, if you love it at all--come and
   drink from my Master's cup and it will make you feel yourself a
   stranger in the earth and you will set no store by this world any more.
   If you have been redeemed, you must have been a slave, so you will bow
   yourself in the dust with gratitude to your Redeemer. We see
   advertisements of medicines which are said to cure all diseases, but
   this is a medicine which will cure all ills. There is no form of the
   disease of sin upon which the stripes of Christ have not been
   tried--and the wondrous medicine has healed in every instance! Oh, whom
   has it not healed? We have seen the harlot healed and she has become a
   joyous Magdalene singing chastely and sweetly the love song unto Him
   that washed her from her sins in His own blood! We have seen the thief
   touched with this sacred heal-all and he has become a saint amidst the
   seraphim above! We have seen a persecutor who has but taken a draught
   of this medicine and he has begun to preach--and he has preached right
   on and he has said, 'Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints,
   is this Grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the
   unsearchable riches of Christ." Yes, we have seen men lying at the very
   gates of Hell, in their own estimation, despairing, feeling the
   serpents of remorse twisting their desperate coils about them
   everywhere and the venom coursing through their blood--and they have
   lifted up themselves and smiled--and the serpents have dropped off
   them, as they have looked to the Son of Man, as the bitten Israelites
   looked to the bronze serpent--and they have been healed at once! I
   would that any here who doubt this, would try it for themselves. "Oh,
   taste and see that the Lord is good," for there never was a soul yet
   that received this medicine of the stripes of Jesus who was not thereby
   healed!

   IV. Now, to close, WHAT IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO GET THIS HEALING?

   The answer is, first, you must believe this to be true. You must
   believe in the wondrous mystery of God Incarnate. There were many
   witnesses to Christ's Incarnation and death and there are four
   narrators of the story of His life and Sacrifice. There were many who
   saw Jesus risen from the dead and saw Him till He rose to Heaven--they
   knew that they saw Him and many of them died as martyrs because they
   said so. They were simple, honest witnesses--not ecclesiastics trained
   in twisting language and inventing fictions. They were fishermen and,
   many of them, poor men, with a few of another rank, but they all saw
   Jesus and they saw His miracles. They saw Him tread the sea and they
   saw Him die--and saw Him after He was risen--and they tracked Him till
   He went up into Glory! And they received His Spirit and, in His name,
   they worked miracles--and they were quite sure that what they testified
   was true. Some of us have believed their testimony and we have been
   healed by this medicine. And if you would be healed, you must receive
   it yourselves.

   I think I hear you say, "Why, I have always believed the Bible to be
   true." Well, then, next, you must take the medicine. What does the
   physician put at the beginning of his prescription? A great "R," which
   stands for the Latin word, "Recpe."What does that mean? "Take." "Take
   of such-and-such a drug so much, and of another, so much." That is what
   the Gospel says--"Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."
   That word I leave with you, Recipe-- take--receive. Take what? Why,
   take the sufferings of Christ to be instead of your sufferings! Trust
   in Him to save you now because He died for all who trust Him! Rest
   yourself on Him now!

   "Suppose I should trust Him and He should not save me?" Ah, Soul, that
   were to suppose Him to be a liar--and that cannot be! He that believes
   in Him is not condemned. Or, as He put it Himself, "He that believes
   and is baptized shall be saved." You have to come to Him just as you
   are and trust Him to save you, relying upon the merit of His blood and
   righteousness to stand for you before the Justice of God. Can you do
   that? "Why," says one, "it seems so simple!" And are you going to
   quarrel with it because it is simple? Are you as foolish as Naaman who
   would not wash in Jordan because it was so simple? He wanted the
   Prophet to perform a great many ceremonies, but he would not at first
   bring himself down to wash, that he might be clean! Surely, my Friend,
   you are not such a fool as that! I will give you credit for more sense.
   "But do you really mean that if I trust my soul with Christ, believing
   He can save me, I am saved?" Mean it? Mean it? If that is not so, I am
   not saved myself, for this is where I stand! I have believed in Jesus
   Christ and rested myself on Him. and if He does not, cannot, or will
   not save me and I should ultimately be ashamed of my hope, I must be
   damned--for I have not a second hope! You have heard of the fox that
   had three holes to run to--but the Christian has only one--and if that
   is stopped up, "There is none other name under Heaven given among men,
   whereby we must be saved." "God so loved the world that He gave His
   only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
   have everlasting life."

   I do not know what you think about sermons. Perhaps you imagine that
   preaching is very easy work. It is not so to me. After having been laid
   aside sick, I tell you that if I could crawl to this pulpit on my hands
   and knees, it would be a delight to me to once again proclaim my
   Master's Gospel! But, at the same time, I feel that I may have very few
   more opportunities of preaching and, as the Lord lives, before whom I
   stand, my anxious desire is that every time I preach, I may clear
   myself of the blood of all men--that if I step from this platform to my
   coffin, I may have told at least all I knew of the way of salvation! I
   wish you unconverted ones could bring yourselves to take this Word of
   God home to yourselves, for, some day you will hear the Gospel for the
   last time--you will listen to the last invitation--and thismay be the
   last time you will hear the story of the dying Savior.

   Will you have Him now, or not? With some of you, it is now or never!
   Hark to the ticking of the clock! As the pendulum swings to and fro, it
   says to some of you, "Now or never! Now or never! Now or never! Now or
   never!" Will you trust your soul with Jesus? If you will, the soft
   persuasions of His blessed Spirit are guiding you that way. Cast your
   guilty soul on Him and you are saved! But if you will have another
   Savior, or be your own Savior and reject Christ, I am clear of your
   blood! And when we stand before that dread tribunal when Heaven and
   earth shall shake, and reel, and pass away like a mist before the
   rising sun, you will have no one but yourself to blame that you are
   lost! God save you, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW27:27-54.

   Verses 27-30. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the
   Praetorium and gathered unto Him the whole band of soldiers. And they
   stripped Him and put on Him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a
   crown of thorns, theyput it upon His head, anda reedin His right hand.
   And they bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King
   of the Jews! And they spit upon Him, and took the reed and struck Him
   on the head. Ridicule is very painful to bear at any time and soldiers
   have been masters of that cruel art when they have been encouraged in
   it by their leaders. Remember, Brothers and Sisters, who it was that
   bore all this shameful treatment from these brutal men--your Lord and
   the angels' Lord--the Maker of Heaven and earth who had deigned, for a
   while, to veil his Deity in human flesh! And there He stood, to be "set
   at nothing"--to be made nothing of--by those rough Roman legionaries,
   the creatures of His own hands whom He could have destroyed in a moment
   by a word or a wish! What matchless condescension our gracious Redeemer
   displayed even in His own deepest degradation and agony!

   31, 32. And after that they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him,
   and put His own raiment on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him. And as
   they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; he they
   compelled to bear His Cross. And I think that he must have been a glad
   man to have such an honor thrust upon him, yet you need not envy him,
   for there is a cross for you, also, to carry. Bear it cheerfully. If
   anything happens to you by way of ridicule for Christ's sake and the
   Gospel's, bow your shoulder willingly to the burden and, as knights are
   made by a stroke from a sword held in their sovereign's hand, so shall
   you be made princes of the realm of Christ by bearing the Cross after
   Him!

   33. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to
   say, a place of a skull We do not know why it was so called. There have
   been many conjectures concerning the name, but they are only
   conjectures. It was probably just a little knoll outside the gate of
   the city--the common place of execution for malefactors. The special
   points to be noted are that Jesus suffered outside the gate, in the
   regular place of doom--the Tyburn or Old Bailey of Jerusalem--and so
   was numbered with the transgressors.

   34. They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall A stupefying
   draught was usually given to the criminals who were crucified, to
   mitigate their agony. But Christ did not wish for that to be done in
   His case.

   34. And when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink He came to earth
   that He might suffer and He would retain all His faculties while
   suffering. He would have every nerve made into a straight road for the
   hot feet of pain to travel over, for He would drink, even to the last
   dregs, every drop that was in the cup of suffering for His people's
   sin.

   35, 36. And they crucified Him, and parted His garments, casting lots
   that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet, They parted
   My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots. And
   sitting down they watched Him there. Some of them gloating their cruel
   eyes with the sight of His suffering. Others watching Him out of mere
   curiosity. But there were some, hard by the Cross, who stood there to
   weep in sympathy with Him--a sword piercing through their own hearts
   while the Son of Man was being put to death.

   37. And set up over His head His accusation written, THIS IS JESUS, THE
   KING OF THE JEWS. And so He is. When will the Jews acknowledge Him as
   their King? They will do so one day. Perhaps they will do so when
   Christians begin to think and speak more kindly of them than they
   usually do. When the hardness of heart on our part towards them shall
   pass away, it may be that their hardness of heart towards Christ will
   also pass away. Long have they been despised, oppressed and persecuted
   in many lands, so that, by some means, they might be brought to look,
   in penitence, upon Him whom they crucified--and to claim Him as their
   Lord and Savior!

   38-40. Then were there two thieves crucified with Him, one on the right
   hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled Him,
   wagging their heads and saying, You that destroyed the temple, and
   build it in three days, save Yourself If You are the Son of God, come
   down from the Cross. That is the devil's old Doctrine--"Save yourself.
   Look out for yourselves. Live for yourselves. Be selfish." But Christ
   could never act like that. He came to live and die for others. "Save
   yourself," was not the Doctrine that He either preached or practiced.
   And this is another old taunt of Satan and those who follow him--"If
   You are the Son of God, come down from the Cross and we will believe in
   You." There are plenty who would be willing to believe in Christ, but
   not in Christ Crucified. "He was a good Man," they say, "a great
   Prophet, no doubt far in advance of His times," and so on. But, if you
   talk like that, you are not on safe ground, for if Christ was not the
   Son of God, at any rate He professed to be and He made people think He
   was--and if He was

   not, He was an impostor and not a good Man at all! You must either
   repudiate Christ altogether, or take Him with His Cross--it must be
   Christ Crucified, or no Christ at all.

   41-44. Likewise also thee chiefpriest mocking Him with the scribes and
   elders said, He saved others; HimselfHe cannot save. If He is the King
   of Israel, let Him now come down from the Cross, and we will believe
   Him. He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him:
   for He said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also. Those who were
   crucified with Him and were sharers of His misery.

   44-46. Which were crucified with Him, cast the same in His teeth. Now
   from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth
   hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,
   Eli, Eli, lama Sabach-thani? That is to say, My God, My God, why have
   You forsaken Me? This was the climax of His grief--not merely to suffer
   intense agony of body, not only to be mocked alike by priests and
   people--but to be forsaken of His God. Yet this was necessary as a part
   of the penalty that was due to sin. God must turn away from anyone who
   has sin upon him, so, as sin was laid upon Christ, God had to turn His
   face even away from His well beloved Son because He was bearing His
   peoples' sins upon the accursed tree.

   47-49. Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This
   man calls for Elijah. And straightway one of them ran, and took a
   sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him
   to drink. The rest said, Let Him be, let us see whether Elijah will
   come to save Him. Mocking Him even in His prayers, for they well knew
   the difference between Eloi and Elijah!

   50. Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the
   ghost You know what He said when He cried with a loud voice--"It is
   finished."

   51-54. And, behold, the veil of the Temple was torn in two from the top
   to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks split; and the
   graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose,
   and came out of the graves after His Resurrection, and went into the
   holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they
   that were with Him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquakes, and these
   things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly that was the
   Son of God.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Christ Is All"

   (No. 2888)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
   4, 1876.

   "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised,
   Barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is All and in all."
   Colossians 3:11.

   PAUL is writing concerning the new creation and he says that, in it,
   "There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised,
   Barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is All." The new
   creation is a very different thing from the old one. Blessed are all
   they who have both seen the Kingdom of Heaven and entered into it. In
   the first creation, we are born of the flesh--and that which is born of
   the flesh is, even at the best, nothing but flesh and can never be
   anything better. But in the new creation, we are born of the Spirit and
   so we become spiritual and understand spiritual things. The new life in
   Christ Jesus is an eternal life and it links all those who possess it
   with the eternal realities at the right hand of God above.

   In some respects the new creation is so like the old one that a
   parallel might to drawn between them, but, in far more respects, it is
   not at all like the old creation. Many things are absent from the new
   creation which were found in the old one--and many things which were
   accounted of great value in the first creation are of little or no
   worth in the new-- while many distinctions which were greatly prized in
   the old creation are treated as mere insignificant trifles in the new
   creation. The all-important thing is for each one of us to put to
   himself or herself the question, "Do I know what it is to have been
   renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who creates anew? Do I know
   what it is to have been born twice, to have been born-again--born from
   above by the effectual working of God, the Holy Spirit? Do I understand
   what it is to have spiritually entered a new world wherein dwells
   righteousness?" It is concerning this great Truth of God that I am
   going to speak and, first, I shall say something upon what is
   obliterated in the new creation. And, secondly, upon what stands in its
   place.

   I. First, as to WHAT IS OBLITERATED IN THE NEW CREATION. "There is
   neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, Barbarian,
   Scythian, slave nor free."

   That is to say, first, in the Kingdom of Christ there is an
   obliteration of all national distinctions. I suppose there will always
   be national distinctions in the world until Christ comes, even if they
   should then be all terminated. The mischief was worked when men tried
   to build the city and tower, in the plain of Shinar, and so brought
   Babel, or confusion into the world. The one family became transformed
   into many--a necessary evil to prevent a still greater one. The unity
   at Babel would have been far worse than the confusion has ever been,
   just as the spiritual union of Babylon, that is, Rome, the Papal
   system, has been infinitely more mischievous to the Church and to the
   world, than the division of Christians into various sects and parties
   could ever have been. Babel has not been an altogether unmitigated
   evil. It has, no doubt, worked a certain amount of good and prevented
   colossal streams of evil from reaching a still more awful culmination.

   Still, the separation is, in itself, an evil and it is, therefore, in
   the Lord's own time and way to be done away with. And spiritually it is
   already abolished. In the Church of Christ, wherever there is real
   union of heart among Believers, nationality is no hindrance to true
   Christian fellowship. I feel just as much love toward any Brother or
   Sister in Christ who is not of our British race as I do toward our own
   Christian countrymen and countrywomen. Indeed, I sometimes think I feel
   even more the force of the spiritual union when I catch the Swiss tone,
   or the French, or the German breaking

   out in the midst of the English, as we often do here, thank God. I seem
   to feel all the more interest in these beloved Brothers and Sisters
   because of the little difference in nationality that there is between
   us. Certainly, Beloved, in any part of the true Church of Christ, all
   national distinctions are swept away and we "are no more strangers and
   foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of
   God."

   Under the Christian dispensation, the distinction or division of
   nationality has gone from us in this sense. We once had our national
   heroes--each nation still glories in its great men of the heroic age,
   or in its mythical heroes--but the one Champion and Hero of
   Christianity is our Lord Jesus Christ who has slain our dragon foes,
   routed all our adversaries, broken down the massive fortress of our
   great enemy and set the captives free! We sing no longer of the valiant
   deeds of our national heroes--St. George, St. Andrew, St. Patrick, St.
   Denis and the other so-called "saints" who were either only legendary,
   or else anything but "saints" as we understand the term! We sing the
   prowess of the King of all saints, the mighty Son of David who is
   worthy of our loftiest praises! King Arthur and the Knights of the
   Round Table we are quite willing to forget when we think of "another
   King, one Jesus," and of another Table, where they who sit are not
   merely good knights of Jesus Christ, but are made kings and priests
   unto Him who sits at the head of the festal board. Barbarian, Scythian,
   Greek, Jew--these distinctions are all gone as far as we are
   concerned--for we are all one in Christ Jesus. We boast not of our
   national or natural descent, or of the heroes whose blood may be in our
   veins. It is enough for us that Christ has lived, Christ has died and
   Christ has "spoiled principalities and powers" and trampled down sin,
   death and Hell even as He fell amid the agonies of Calvary.

   Away, too, has gone all our national history, so far as there may have
   been any desire to exalt it for the purpose of angering Christian
   Brothers and Sisters of another race. I wish that even the names of
   wars and famous battlefields could be altogether forgotten, but if they
   do remain in the memories of those of us who are Christians, we will
   not boast as he did who said, "But 'twas a famous victory." Nor will we
   proudly sing of--

   "The flag that braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze."

   As Christians, our true history begins--no, I must correct myself, for
   it had no beginning except in that dateless eternity when the Divine
   Trinity in Unity conceived the wondrous plan of Predestinating Grace,
   electing love, the Substitutional Sacrifice of the Son of God for the
   sins of His chosen people, the full and free justification of all who
   believe and the eternal glory of the whole redeemed family of God! This
   is our past, present and future history! We who are Christians take
   down the Volume of the Book wherein these things are written and we
   make our boast in the Lord--and thus the boasting is not sinful.

   As to laws and customs, of which each nation has its own, it is not
   wrong for a Christian to take delight in a good custom which has been
   long established, or earnestly to contend for the maintenance of
   ancient laws which have preserved inviolate the liberty of the people
   age after age. But, still, the customs of Christians are learned from
   the example of Christ--and the laws of Believers are the precepts laid
   down by Him. When we are dealing with matters relating to the Church of
   Christ, we have no English customs, or French customs, or American
   customs, or German customs. Or, if we have, we should let them go and
   have only Christian customs henceforth. Did our Lord Jesus Christ
   command anything? Then, let it be done! Did He forbid anything? Then
   away with it! Would He smile upon a certain action? Then perform it at
   once! Would He frown upon it? Then mind that you do the same! Blessed
   is the Believer who has realized that the laws and customs for the
   people of God to observe are plainly written out in the life of Christ
   and that He has become to us, now, "All and in all."

   Christ, by giving liberty to all His people, has also obliterated the
   distinctions of nationality which we once located in various countries.
   One remembers, with interest, the old declaration, "Romanussum," ("I am
   a Roman"), for a citizen of Rome, wherever he might go, felt that he
   was a free man whom none would dare to hurt, else Roman legions would
   ask the reason why! And an Englishman, in any country wherever he may
   be, still feels that he is one who was born free and who would sooner
   die than become a slave, or hold another man or woman in slavery. But,
   Brothers and Sisters, there is a higher liberty than this--the liberty
   with which Christ has made His people free! And when we come into the
   Church of God, we talk about that liberty and we believe that
   Christians--even if they have not the civil and religious rights which
   wepossess--should still be as free in Christ as we are. There are still
   many in various parts of the world who

   do not enjoy the liberties that we have, who, notwithstanding their
   bonds, are spiritually free, for, as the Son has made them free, they
   are free, indeed!

   Christ also takes from us all inclination or power to boast of our
   national prestige. To me it is prestige enough to be a Christian--to
   bear the cross Christ gives me to carry and to follow in the footsteps
   of the great Cross-Bearer. What is the power, in which some boast, of
   sending soldiers and cannon to a distant shore, compared with the
   Almighty Power with which Christ guards the weakest of us who dares to
   trust Him? What reason is there for a man to be lifted up with conceit
   just because he happens to have been born in this or that
   highly-favored country? What is such a privilege compared with the
   glories which appertain to the man who is born-again from above--who is
   an heir of Heaven, a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ--and
   who can truthfully say, "All things are mine, and I am Christ's, and
   Christ is God's."

   What is the wondrous internationalism that levels all these various
   nationalities in the Church of Christ and makes us all one in Him?
   Spiritually we have all been born in one country--the New Jerusalem is
   the mother of us all. It is not my boast that I am a citizen of this or
   that earthly city or town. It is my joy that I am one of the citizens
   of "a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God."
   Christ has fired all of us who are His people with a common enthusiasm.
   He has revealed Himself to each one of us as He does not unto the world
   and, in the happy remembrance that we belong to Him, we forget that we
   are called by this or that national name and only remember that He is
   our Lord and that we are to follow where He leads the way! He has
   pointed us to Heaven as the leader of the Goths and Huns pointed his
   followers to Italy and said, "There is the country whence come the
   luscious wines of which you have tasted. Go and take the vineyards and
   grow the vines for yourselves." And so they forgot that they belonged
   to various tribes and they all united under the one commander who
   promised to lead them on to the conquest of the rich land for which
   they panted. And now we who are in Christ Jesus, having tasted of the
   Eshcol clusters which grow in the heavenly Canaan, follow our glorious
   Leader and Commander as the Israelites followed Joshua, forgetting that
   we belong to so many different tribes, but knowing that there is an
   inheritance reserved in Heaven for all who follow where Jehovah-Jesus
   leads the way!

   The next thing to be observed in our text is that ceremonial
   distinctions are obliterated. When Paul says that "there is neither
   circumcised nor uncircumcised," he recalls the fact that, under the
   Law, there were some who were peculiarly the children of promise to
   whom were committed the oracles of God. But there is no such thing as
   that now. Then there were others who stood outside the pale of the
   law--the sinners of the Gentiles, who were left in darkness until their
   time for receiving the Light of God should come. But Christ has fused
   these two into one and now, in His Church, "there is neither Greek nor
   Jew." I marvel at the insanity of those who try to prove that we are
   Jews--the lost ten tribes, forsooth! I grant you that the business
   transactions of a great many citizens of London afford some support to
   the theory, but it is only a theory--and a very crazy one, too! But
   suppose they were able to prove that we are of the seed of Abraham
   after the flesh? It would not make any difference to us, for we are
   expressly told that "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor
   uncircumcised"--for all Believers are one in Christ Jesus!

   The all-important consideration is--Are we Christians? Do we really
   believe in Jesus Christ to the salvation of our souls? The Apostle
   truly says, "Christ is All," for He has done away with all the
   distinctions that formerly existed between Jews and Gentiles. He has
   leveled down and He has leveled up. First He has leveled down the Jews
   and made them stand in the same class as the Gentiles, shutting them up
   under the custody of the very Law in which they gloried--and making
   them see that they can never come out of that bondage except by using
   the key of faith in Christ. So our Lord Jesus has stopped the mouths of
   both Jews and Gentiles and made them stand equally guilty before God,
   for, on the other hand, He has leveled up the outcast and despised
   Gentiles and has admitted us to all the privileges of His ancient
   Covenant, making us to be heirs of Abraham in a spiritual'sense,
   "though Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel acknowledge us not." He
   has given to us all the blessings which belong to Abraham's seed
   because we, too, possess like precious faith as the father of the
   faithful had. So, "now in Christ Jesus we who sometimes were far off
   are made near by the blood of Christ. For He is our Peace, who has made
   both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
   having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
   contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of two, one new man, so
   making peace." Oh, what a blessing it is that all national and
   ceremonial distinctions are gone forever and that "Christ is All" to
   all who believe in Him!

   A more difficult point, perhaps, is that of social distinctions. But
   that also has gone from the Church of Christ. "There is neither slave
   nor free," says the Apostle. Well, blessed be God, slavery has almost
   ceased to exist! Among Christians it has become a by-word and a
   proverb, though there was a time when some of them pleaded for it as a
   Divinely-ordained institution. But, oh, may the last vestige of it
   speedily disappear and may every man see it to be both his duty and his
   privilege to yield to his brother man his God-given rights and
   liberties! Yet, even in such a free country as ours happily is, there
   are still distinctions between one class and another and I expect there
   always will be. I do not suppose there can ever be in this world, any
   system, even if we could have the most profound philosophers to invent
   it, in which everybody will be equal. Or, if they ever should be all
   equal, they would not remain so for more than five minutes. We are not
   all equal in our form, shape, capacity and ability--and we never shall
   be! We could not have the various members of our body all equal--if we
   had such an arrangement as that, our body would be a monstrosity! There
   are some members of the body which must have a more honorable office
   and function than others have--but all the members are in the body and
   necessary to its due proportion.

   So it is in the Church of Christ which is His mystical body. Yet,
   Brothers and Sisters, how very, very minute are the distinctions
   between the various members of that body! You, my Brother, are rich, as
   the world reckons riches. Well, do not boast of your wealth, for riches
   are very apt to take to themselves wings and fly away! Probably more of
   you are poor, as far as worldly wealth is concerned. Well, then, do not
   murmur, for "all things are yours" if you are Christ's! And soon you
   will be where you will know nothing of poverty again forever and ever!
   True Christianity practically wipes out all these distinctions by
   saying, "This man, as one of Christ's stewards, has more of his Lord's
   money entrusted to him than others have, so he is bound to do more with
   it than they do with their portion--he must give away more than they
   do." This other man has far less than his rich brother, but Christ says
   that he is responsible for the right use of what he has--not for what
   he has not. As the poor widow's two mites drop into the treasury of the
   Lord, He receives her gift with as sweet a smile as that which He
   accorded to the lavish gifts of David and Solomon. In His Church,
   Christ teaches us that if we have more than others, we simply hold it
   in trust for those who have less than we have--and I believe that some
   of the Lord's children are poor in order that there may be an
   opportunity for their fellow Christians to minister to them out of
   their abundance.

   We could not prove our devotion to Christ, in practical service such as
   He loves best, if there were not needy ones whom we could succor and
   support. Our Lord has told us how He will say in the Great Day of
   Account, "I was hungry and you gave Me meat," but that could not be the
   case if there were not one of the least of His brethren who was hungry
   and whom we could feed for His sake. "I was thirsty and you gave Me
   drink." But He could not say that if none of His poor brethren were
   thirsty. "I was sick and you visited Me." So there must be sick saints
   to be visited and cases of distress, of various kinds, to be relieved,
   otherwise there could not be the opportunity of practically proving our
   love to our Lord. In the Church of Christ it ought always to be so,
   Brothers and Sisters--we should love each other fervently with a pure
   heart, we should bear each other's burdens and so fulfill the Law of
   Christ--and we should care for one another and seek, as far as we can,
   to supply one another's needs. The rich brother must not exalt himself
   above the poor one, nor must the poor Christian envy his richer
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, for in Him all these distinctions are
   obliterated and we sit down, at His Table, as members of the one family
   of which He is the glorious and ever-living Head--and we dwell together
   in unity, praising Him that national, ceremonial and social
   distinctions have, for us, all passed away and that "Christ is All and
   in all."

   II. Possibly I have taken up too much of our time in describing what is
   obliterated from the old creation, so, now I will try more briefly to
   show you WHAT TAKES ITS PLACE IN THE CREATION--"Christ is All and in
   all."

   First, Christ is all our culture. Has Christianity wiped out that grand
   name, "Greek"? Yes, in the old meaning of it and, in some senses, it is
   a great pity that it is gone, for the Greek was a cultured man. The
   Greek's every movement was elegance itself. The Greek was the standard
   of classic beauty and eloquence, but Christianity has wiped all that
   out and written, in its place, "Christ is All." And, Brothers and
   Sisters, the culture, the gracefulness, the beauty, the comeliness, the
   eloquence--in the sight of the best Judge of all those things, namely,
   God, the Ever-Blessed--which Christ gives to the true Christian, is
   better than all that Greek art or civilization ever produced! So we may
   cheerfully let it all go and say, "Christ is All."

   Next, Christ is all our Revelation. There was the "Jew"--he was a fine
   fellow and there is still much to admire in him. The Semitic race seems
   to have been specially constituted by God for devout worship and the
   Jew, the descendant of believing Abraham, is still a firm Believer in
   one part of God's Word. He is, spiritually, a staunch Conservative in
   that matter, the very backbone of the world's belief. Alas, that his
   faith is so incomplete and that there is mingled with it so much
   tradition received from his fathers! Will you wipe out that name,
   "Jew"? Yes, because we who believe in Jesus glory in Him even as the
   Jew gloried in having received the oracles of God. Christ is "the Word
   of God" Incarnate--and all the Divine Revelation is centered in
   Him--and we hold fast the eternal Truths of God which have been
   committed unto us because of the power of Christ that rests upon us.

   Then, next, Christ is all our ritual. There is not a circumcision now.
   That was the special mark of those who were separated from all the rest
   of mankind. They bore in their body undoubted indications that they
   were set apart to be the Lord's peculiar possession. Someone asks,
   "Will you do away with that distinguishing rite?" Yes, we will, for, in
   Christ every true Christian is set apart unto God--marked as Jesus
   Christ's special separated one by the circumcision made without hands!

   Further, Christ is all our simplicity. Here is a man who says that
   "uncircumcision" is his distinguishing mark and adds, "I am not
   separated or set apart from others, as the so-called 'priest' is. I am
   a man among my fellow men. Wherever I go, I can mingle with others and
   feel that they are my brethren. I belong to the 'uncircumcision.' Will
   you rule that out?" Yes, we will, because we have, in Christ, all that
   uncircumcision means, for he who becomes a real Christian is the truest
   of all men--he is the most free from that spirit which says, "Stand by
   yourself, come not near me for I am holier than you." He is the true
   philanthropist, the real lover of men, even as Christ was! He was no
   separatist, in the sense in which some use that word. He went to a
   wedding feast. He ate bread in the house of a publican. And a woman of
   the city who was a sinner was permitted to wash His feet with her
   tears. He mingled with the rest of mankind and "the common people heard
   Him gladly." And He would have us to be as He was--the true Man among
   men, the great Lover of our race.

   Once more, Christ is all our natural traditions and our
   unconquerableness and liberty. Here is "the rude barbarian," as the
   poet calls him. He says, "I shall never give up the free, manly life
   that I have lived so long. By my unshorn beard," (for that is the
   meaning of the term, Barbarian), "I swear it shall be so." "By the wild
   steppes and wide plains over which I roam unconquerable," says the
   Scythian, "I will never bend to the conventionalities of civilization
   and be the slave of your modern luxuries." Well, it is almost a pity to
   have done with Barbarians and Scythians, in this sense, for there is a
   good deal about them to be commended--but we must wipe them all out. If
   they come into the Church of Christ, He must be "All, and in all,"
   because everything that is manly, everything that is natural,
   everything that is free, everything that is bold, everything that is
   unconquerable will be put into them if "Christ is All" to them. They
   will get all the excellences that are in that freedom--without the
   faults appertaining to it!

   Further, "Christ is All," as our Master, if we are a "slave." I think I
   see, in the great assembly at Colosse which Paul addressed, one who
   said, "But I am a slave! A man bought me at the auction mart and here,
   on my back, are the marks of the slave-holder's lash." And I think I
   hear him add, "I wish that disgrace could be wiped out." But Paul says,
   "Brother, it iswiped out! You are no slave, really, for Christ has made
   you free." Then the great Apostle of the Gentiles comes and sits down
   by his side and says to him, "The Church of Christ has absorbed you,
   Brother, by making us all like you--for we are all servants of one
   Master. And look," says Paul, as he bares his own back and shows the
   scars from his repeated scourging, "from henceforth let no man trouble
   me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." "And so," he
   says, laying his hand on the poor Christian slave, "I, Paul, the slave
   of Jesus Christ, share your servitude and with me you are Christ's free
   man."

   Lastly, Christ is our Magna Charta. Yes, our liberty itself if we are
   "free." Here comes the free man who was born free. Shall that clause
   stand, "neither slave nor free"? Oh, yes, let it stand! But not so
   stand that we glory in our national freedom, for Christ has given us a
   higher freedom! I may slightly alter the familiar couplet and say--

   "He is the free man whom

   The Lord makes free,

   And all are slaves beside."

   Oh, what multitudes of people in London are slaves--miserable slaves to
   the opinions of their neighbors--slaves to the caprice of Mrs.
   Grundy--slaves to "respectability!" Some of you dare not do a thing
   that you know to be right because somebody might make a remark about
   it. What are you but slaves? Yes, and there are slaves in the pulpit,
   every Sunday, who dare not speak the Truth of God for fear somebody
   will be offended! And there are also slaves in the pews and slaves in
   the shops and slaves all around. What a wretched life a slave lives!
   Yet, till you become a Christian and know what it is to wear Christ's
   bonds about your willing wrists, you will always feel the galling
   fetters of society and the bonds of custom, fashion, or this or that!
   But Jesus makes us free with a higher freedom, so we wipe out the mere
   terrestrial freedom which is too often only a sham--and we write,
   "Christ is ALL."

   So, to conclude, remember that if you have Christ as your Savior, you
   do not need anybody else to save you. I see an old gentleman, over
   there in Rome, with a triple crown on his head. We do not want him, for
   "Christ is All." He says that he is the vicegerent of God. That is not
   true, but if it were, it would not matter, for "Christ is All," so we
   can do without the Pope! Then I see another gentleman with an all-round
   dog collar of the Roman kennel type--he tells me that if I will confess
   my sins to him as the priest of the parish, he can give me
   absolution--but, seeing that "Christ is All," we can do without that
   gentleman as well as the other one, for anything that is over and above
   "all" must be a superfluity, if nothing worse. So is it with everything
   that is beside or beyond Christ--faith can get to Christ without Pope
   or priest! Everything that is outside Christ is a lie, for "Christ is
   All." All that is true must be inside Him, so we can do without all
   others in the matter of our soul's salvation.

   But supposing that we have not received Christ as our Savior? Then how
   unspeakably poor we are! If we have not grasped Christ by faith, we
   have not laid hold of anything, for "Christ is All!" And if we have not
   Him who is All, we have nothing at all. "Oh," says one, "I go to chapel
   regularly." Yes, so far, so good. But if you have not Christ, you have
   nothing, for "Christ is All." "But I have been baptized," says another.
   Ah, but if you have not savingly trusted in Christ, your Baptism is
   only another sin added to all your others! "But I go to communion,"
   says another. So much the worse for you if you have not trusted in
   Christ as your Savior. I wish I could put this thought into the heart
   of everyone here who is without Christ--no, I pray the Holy Spirit to
   impress this thought upon your heart--if you are without Christ, you
   are without everything that is worth having, for "Christ is All."

   But, Christians, I would like to make your hearts dance by reminding
   you that if you have Christ as your Savior, you are rich to all the
   intents of bliss, for you have "all" that your heart can wish to have!
   Nobody else can say as much as that! The richest man in the world has
   only got something, though the something may be very great. Alexander
   conquered one world but you, Believer, in getting Christ as yours, have
   this world and also that which is to come--life and death, time and
   eternity! Oh, revel in the thought that, as Christ is yours, you are
   rich to an infinity of riches, for "Christ is All."

   Now, if Christ really is yours and as Christ is All, then love Him,
   honor Him and praise Him! Mother, what were you doing this afternoon?
   Pressing that dear child of yours to your bosom and saying, "She is my
   all"? Take back those words, for they are not true! If you love Christ,
   He is your All and you cannot have another "all." Someone else has one
   who is very near and very dear. If you are that someone else and you
   have said in your heart, "He is my all," or, "She is my all," you have
   done wrong, for nothing and no one but Christ must be your "all." You
   will be an idolater and you will grieve the Holy Spirit if anything, or
   anyone except Christ becomes your "all." You who have lately lost your
   loved ones and you who have been brought low by recent losses in
   business--are you fretting over your losses? If so, remember that you
   have not lost your "all." You still have Christ and He is "All." Then
   what have you lost? I know that you have something to grieve over, but,
   after all, your "light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for
   you a far more exceedingly and eternal weight of glory." Therefore,
   comfort yourself with this thought--"I have not really lost anything,
   for I still have All." When you have all things, find Christ in All and
   when you have lost all things, then find all things in Christ. I do not
   know, but I think that the latter is the better of the two!

   Now, if Christ is all, then, beloved Brothers and Sisters, let us live
   for Him! If He is All, let us spend our strength and be ready to lay
   down the last particle of it that we have and to die for Him--and then
   let us, whenever we need anything, go to Him for it, for "Christ is
   All." Let us draw upon this bank, for its resources are infinite--we
   shall never exhaust them!

   Lastly, and chiefly, let us send our hearts right on to where He is.
   Where our treasure is, there should our hearts be, also. Come, my
   Heart, up and away! What have you here that can fill you? What have you
   here that can satisfy you? Plume your wings and be up and away, for
   there is your roosting-place! There is the Tree of Life which can never
   be felled. Up and away and build there forever! The Lord help each one
   of you to do so, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH43:1-25.

   Verse 1. But now thus says the LORD that created you, O Jacob, and He
   that formed you, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have
   called you by your name; you are Mine. I cannot pause to comment upon
   each of the precious sentences here, but every word is full of marrow
   and fatness. Ask the Lord to enable you to feed upon each sentence as
   it passes before your mind.

   2-5. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through
   the rivers, they shall not flow over you: when you walk through the
   fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you.
   For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior: I gave
   Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you. Since you were
   precious in My sight, you have been honorable, and I have loved you:
   therefore will I give men for you, and people for your life. Fear not:
   for I am with you. That always seems to me to be the
   master-consolation--"I am with you." What more does the most troubled
   heart need than God's Presence?

   5. I will bring your seed from the east, and gather you from the west O
   Church of God, your elect members shall all, in due time, be fetched
   in--however far they may have wandered!

   6, 7. I will say to the north, Give up; and to the South, keep not
   back: bring My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the
   earth; even everyone that is called by My name: for I have created him
   for My glory, I have formed him; yes, I have made him. And that in a
   double sense, for God's people are twice made--made first in creation,
   but marred by the Fall--and then new-made as "new creatures in Christ
   Jesus."

   8. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have
   ears. There are plenty of them, for our proverb is true, "There are
   none so blind as those that will not see, and none so deaf as those
   that will not hear." But even to such people as these God makes His
   appeal.

   9. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be
   assembled: who among them can declare this, and show us former things?
   Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or
   let them hear, and say, It is truth God challenges all the false gods
   and their worshippers to produce a single fulfilled prophecy--to show
   one instance in which they have truly and correctly foretold any event
   or a chain of events! But all Jehovah's prophecies have been fulfilled,
   or will be in due season.

   10-13. You are My witnesses, says the LORD, and My servant whom I have
   chosen: that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He:
   before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I,
   even I, am the LORD; and beside Me there is no Savior Ihave declared,
   andhave saved, and Ihave showed, when there was no strange god among
   you: therefore you are My witnesses, says the LORD, that I am God. Yes,
   before the day was, I am He and there are none that can deliver out of
   My hand: I will work, and who shall reverse it? It is a great blessing
   to know that the Lord is God--and not merely to know that as a matter
   of fact, but to feel it, to realize it--and to trust in God and act
   towards Him conscious that He, and He alone, is the living and true
   God.

   14-17. Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One ofIsrael, For
   your sake Ihave sent to Babylon, andhave brought down all their nobles,
   and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships. I am the LORD, your Holy
   One, the Creator ofIsrael, your King. Thus says the LORD, which makes a
   way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; who brings forth the
   chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down
   together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as a
   wick. You know what happened to the army of Sennacherib when it came
   against Jerusalem. Horses and chariots were there in vast numbers and
   all the pomp and pageantry of a vast host of armed men. But they slept
   their last sleep--from which they never rose--when the Angel of the
   Lord flew through their ranks. So was it with Babylon itself. When the
   set time came, that long-established empire with its colossal power,
   was swept away like a vision

   of the night! It blazed like a wick and then was quenched forever. What
   cannot God do for His people when He lifts up His almighty arm?

   18. Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
   For something better is going to be done in the future than all that
   God has done in the past! He will eclipse all His previous achievements
   and outdo the mightiest of His own miracles!

   19. 20. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall
   you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers
   in the desert. The beast of the field shall honor Me. As it slakes its
   thirst at an unknown spring.

   20. The dragons and the owls. Alarmed and startled, as God's people
   pass by on their way to the land which God would give them.

   20-22. Because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the
   desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen. This people have I
   formed for Myself they shall show forth Mypraise. But you have not
   called upon Me, O Jacob. Have any of you restrained prayer of late? Has
   your path to the Mercy Seat been but little trodden? Then listen to
   God's gentle rebuke--"You have not called upon Me, O Jacob."

   22. But you have been weary of Me, O Israel Weary of God? Have any of
   us grown weary of fellowship with Him? Weary of His Truth? Weary of His
   Day? Weary of His service? Oh, what strange ingratitude this is on our
   part!

   23. You have not brought Me the small cattle of your burnt offerings;
   neither have you honored Me with your sacrifices. There are some of
   God's people, at any rate, who forget to offer their sacrifices to God.
   If they do love Christ at all, their love is not practical, not
   self-sacrificing--it does not lead them to bring love-gifts to Him.

   23. I have not caused you to serve with an offering, nor wearied you
   with incense. "I have made no irksome tax of it. I have not demanded
   anything of you. I have left it to your own free will to give according
   as your love suggests."

   24. You have bought Me no sweet cane with money, neither have you
   filled Me with the fat of your sacrifices: but-- Alas, instead of good,
   there has been evil!

   24. You have made Me to serve with your sins. What? Made God our
   servant when we ought to have served Him? Alas, I fear it is often so
   even with some of His own people!

   24. You have wearied Me with your iniquities. O Sirs, how sad it is
   when God's people are weary of Him and He is weary of them! What shall
   we read after this? Surely the next sentence will be a thunder-clap and
   a lightning flash will blaze out of the sacred page! Listen--and be
   amazed at the mercy of the Lord!

   25. I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own
   sake, and will not remember your sins. What a blessed God to deal so
   graciously with His ungrateful erring people!
     __________________________________________________________________

Christ Receiving Sinners

   (No. 2889)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.

   "And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, behold,
   manypublicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His
   disciples." Matthew 9:10.

   How strangely different was our Lord Jesus Christ from the philosophers
   of Greece! They were reserved in their demeanor--eclectic, or
   studiously choice in their tastes and jealous of contact with their
   fellow creatures. Retiring from the busy haunts of men to encircle
   themselves with an atmosphere created by their own breath, they wanted
   none in their society but those who were fit companions for men so
   exalted in wisdom. Their disciples looked up to them with profound and
   insincere reverence--and they, themselves, in their various halls and
   classrooms, talked as men might who were teaching little children. And
   their pupils were completely subject to their dictation, but they
   always kept "the common people" at a distance, for they concerned not
   themselves to instruct the many, but only to teach the few who were
   ambitious to become wise like themselves!

   Our blessed Lord and Master was no philosopher of this sort, shut up
   with His few disciples by themselves. He had His chosen twelve, but He
   and they mingled freely with the populace. He was a man among men and
   not a philosopher among those shut out from men. True, He taught
   greater wisdom than all the sages knew--and better philosophy than all
   the wise men of Greece understood--but He was still familiar with the
   people, tender-hearted, mild and of a gentle spirit. We have an
   instance of this here, where we read of Jesus doing what Solon or
   Socrates would never have done, for He sat down to take a meal with the
   common people around Him, eating with publicans and sinners!

   How different, moreover, we may add, was Christ from the great Prophets
   of the olden time! With the utmost stretch of imagination, you cannot
   conceive of Moses sitting down to eat with sinners. He was a king in
   Jeshurun--an awful majesty surrounded the Prophet of Horeb who was
   mighty in word and deed. Wherever he went, he appeared as the man whom
   his high office had exalted above his fellows. His whole character,
   like his face on that memorable occasion when he had been in the
   mountain with God, shone so brilliantly that ordinary men could
   scarcely gaze upon him unless he covered his face with a veil. More
   than once he was hidden in complete seclusion with God. True, he was
   accessible enough in the due exercise of his office to all who had
   complaints or charges to be decided at the bar where he presided as
   judge--but who would presume to think of being a companion to the
   mighty Moses? Even his brother, Aaron, and his sister, Miriam, seem to
   have had a great gulf fixed between them and their truly regal
   brother--they could not approach him without becoming deference, nor
   could he comes down to be on a social level with them.

   Think also of Elijah, the very pattern and model of a Prophet of the
   Most High God. How high he towered above the men of his age! The fire
   which Elijah called from Heaven upon the Carmel sacrifice and upon the
   captains of fifties and their fifties, seemed to be a fitting type of
   his own character. One can admire him as a Prophet and follow him as a
   leader, but who could think of having him as a companion and friend?
   Stern, unflinching, faithful, he has little or no pity for the sinner.
   The only thing that an erring man could say to Elijah would be what
   Ahab said to him, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" His sternness in
   rebuking sin, his bold, thundering denunciation of idolatry made men
   tremble before him--and we can hardly imagine that publicans and
   sinners would have been anxious to sit down to eat with him.

   But, my Brothers and Sisters, the Christ whose Gospel we preach is no
   unapproachable philosopher! The Glory of His Person reflects even a
   brighter luster than the dignity of His office. He appeared among men
   not as one who had been lifted up from the ranks to obtain a position
   for Himself, but as one who bowed Himself down from the Heaven of
   heavens that He might bring blessings to the sons of men--yet the
   ignorant and the illiterate may find in Him their best Friend. He is no
   stern Law-Giver, like Moses, who, wrapping around himself the robe of
   his own integrity, looks upon the transgressor simply with the eye of
   justice! Neither is He merely the pitiless denouncer of iniquity and
   crime, or the bold enunciator of penalty and punishment. Christ is the
   gentle Lover of our souls! He is the Good Shepherd coming forth, not so
   much to slay the wolf as to save the sheep! As a nurse tenderly watches
   over the child committed to her charge, so does Jesus watch over the
   souls of men and, like as a father pities his children, so does He pity
   sinful men. He does not stand upon a lofty height and bid sinners
   ascend to Him, but, coming down from the mountain and mingling in
   social communion with them, He draws them to Himself by the magnetic
   force of His Almighty Love. "Jesus, the sinners' Friend"--that is His
   true title, for that is what He really is! O Jesus, may we personally
   know You as our Friend just now! We are sinners, be You our Friend.

   Before I come directly to the subject, I want to paint three pictures
   in order to show you, by the force of contrast, the way in which
   Christ, the Physician of Souls, really cures and heals. There have been
   various schemes for cleansing society from the pollution that comes
   through sin. Even men who were sinners have been conscious that
   iniquity so saps and undermines the foundations of society that it
   must, if possible, be uprooted and destroyed. Behold the many schemes
   which men have devised for this purpose! Listen to the voices which
   have charmed men's ears and awed their hearts, but have not been able
   to change for the better their condition!

   First came Severity, and he said, "There is a plague broken out among
   the people! Clear out the tainted ones. There are the fatal spots upon
   their brows, the venom of the dread disease has worked its way to their
   skin--there is no doubt about their being infected--therefore, slay
   them--let them be destroyed! Take them away, executioner, it is better
   that they should be put to death than that the whole nation should
   perish. Cut off the few sickly sheep lest the whole flock should be
   affected." But the Savior came and He said, "No, no, not so. Why will
   you destroy them? If you do so, the disease will be spread all the
   more, for their blood shall be spattered on the men who slay them and
   shall infect their executioners. And they, in their turn, will come
   back and infect the man who condemned the plague-stricken to be slain!
   And here, in the very Hall of Judgment, the signs of the dread disease
   shall be seen even upon the judge's brow! Why deal you thus hardly with
   your brethren? You are all diseased--there is a plague upon every one
   of you! If you thus begin to uproot some of the tares, you may not only
   uproot the wheat, but you may uproot the whole field which, after all,
   might bring forth something which would be better than absolute
   sterility. No, spare them, spare them! Let them not die! Give them into
   My hands."

   His request was, of course, granted, and He went to those whom He had
   rescued and He said, "Your forfeited lives are spared. It is well known
   that according to the laws of your fellow men, you deserve to die, but
   I have undertaken that and, without the violation of law--and so you
   shall escape" Then He touched them, healed their running sore, and said
   to all who stood near, "Now these men shall spread life through your
   ranks, for I have restored them from their sickness. And now, instead
   of being to you wellsprings of everything that is abominable and
   filthy, they shall become fountains of everything that is lovely, pure
   and of good repute." Glory be unto You, O Jesus! Glory be unto You, for
   You have done far more than Severity could ever have accomplished!

   Next came one called Stern Moralityand he said, "Let us not kill them.
   Let not the laws be like those of Draco, written in blood, but let us
   build a leper house with high walls and let us thrust them in there and
   shut them out from all contact with their kind. In this way they shall
   live, but shall do no injury to their fellows. And the self-righteous
   Pharisee said, "Let my house be far away from the infected spot lest
   the wind should blow from them to me. Let them be shut away from their
   fellows, as persons under a curse--let not others speak to them, or go
   near them." The Pharisees were practicing that method in Christ's day.
   They had tabooed the publicans and sinners, saying to them, "We will
   not touch you with so much as one of our fingers." They drew their
   garments around them and gave the moral lepers plenty of room in the
   streets and if, by any chance, they did come into contact with them, or
   were obliged to have any dealings with them in the marketplace, they
   were careful to wash before they ate lest they should be defiled. So
   society decided that a leper house should be built and that the
   infected sinners should be put in there to rot and die by themselves.

   But Jesus said, "Not so, not so. If you mean to shut up all the
   infected, every one of you must also be shut up, for you are all
   suffering from the same disease in a greater or less degree! Why shut
   up these few when all are affected? You do not well--if you build the
   walls of the leper house as high as Heaven, the festering disease
   within will still find an outlet and taint your sons and your
   daughters, notwithstanding all that you do--and that place will be the
   hotbed of everything that is foul and noxious--and will tend to your
   own destruction despite all your efforts to be removed from it." You
   know how, even to this day, a certain class of sinner is considered by
   some good, reputable people as being unworthy even to be spoken of, or
   noticed--and some are foolish enough to try to forget that they are
   actually in existence! But our Divine Master went to the gate of the
   leper house and knocked. And when it was opened, He said to those
   within, "You may come forth." Society outside objected, so He said,
   "Well then, if they may not come out, I will go in with them." And to
   those inside, He said, "Shut the door and keep out the over-righteous.
   I am come to eat bread and to dwell with you, the infected and sinful
   ones." He put out both His hands and touched them and healed their
   diseases-- and the blood again leaped in their veins and their flesh
   came again to them like the flesh of a little child!

   Then He opened the gate, again, and, strange to say, society outside
   was infected this time! And He said to them who had once been lepers in
   the leper house, "Go you forth and heal them." And they went forth to
   carry healing to those who formerly thought themselves to be well! And
   thus He made the very curse itself to be a channel through which to
   spread the blessing! Blessed are You, O Jesus! You have done for
   sinners what the sternest laws and the strictest customs of society
   could never have done!

   But there have been others of a gentler spirit--Philanthropists--who
   have been sensible of the claims of humanity upon them. They have said,
   "Let us look at the case of these rebellious sinners in the most
   favorable light possible. Let us consider them as hopeful. Let us use
   remedies that will be the means of healing them, but let us keep them
   in quarantine for many a day before we let them out. Let us fumigate
   them and put their clothes out until every trace of infection has gone
   from them. And if, after a long probation, they are proved to be really
   healed and cleansed, then let them go forth to freedom." But Jesus
   said, No, not so. Why would you keep them thus shut up by themselves?
   If one of them should become better, contact with his fellows would
   make him sick again. Will you deny them your help and your sympathy and
   shut them away by themselves? Your quarantine arrangements will breed
   further disease and all your fumigations will be in vain, for, while
   you are seeking to cure, you will be generating the very disease you
   seek to destroy! The only effective remedy is for Me to go in with them
   where they are."

   So He presented Himself before them. They were covered with running
   sores and they themselves were most obnoxious--yet He touched them--no,
   more, He embraced them! They were filthy, but He took them in His own
   hands and washed them. They were ragged, but He, Himself, took off
   their rags, clothed them in the spotless robe of His own righteousness
   and gave them the kiss of His love upon their sin-stained cheeks. "Oh,"
   they said, "this is healing, indeed! We were never healed before.
   People told us to get well and said that, then, they would do something
   for us. They told us to cleanse ourselves and said that, then, they
   would receive us. But You, O blessed Savior, did take us just as we
   were--all black, defiled and loathsome--and You have made us clean!"
   Glory be unto You, O Jesus, for You have done ten thousand times more
   for poor lost souls than Philanthropy ever even suggested! Your wisdom
   has availed where our prudence has defeated its own ends! Our sympathy
   has been marred by our vanity! Our counsels have been rendered
   valueless by our conceit! We have repelled the confidence of sinners
   while You have won their hearts, for You have sat down to eat with them
   and Your disciples have shared the feast.

   I have thus tried to paint three pictures. I do not know whether I have
   held the brush steadily enough, or have had sufficiently good colors to
   paint them true to life. I only want to show you that while we are
   condemning the outcasts, Jesus Christ comes forth and saves them! While
   we are trying to keep sinners away from us, He goes to them and heals
   them! And while we are hoping the best concerning them and thinking of
   the means by which they can be gradually renovated, He goes to them and
   restores them! Christ takes into His arms some whom we would not touch
   with a pair of tongs! He receives into His very heart some whose names
   we would hardly venture to mention! He lifts up the beggar from the
   dunghill! He raises the despairing from the Slough of Despond! He takes
   the vilest of the vile, transforms them, by His Grace, and makes them
   meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light!

   I. After so long an introduction, I must compress the rest of my
   discourse as much as I can. And, first, I am going to ILLUSTRATE THE
   WAY IN WHICH CHRIST RECEIVES SINNERS.

   There was a man, a tax-gatherer--who had an evil reputation
   everywhere--no one was more obnoxious than he was to the proud, moral,
   orthodox Pharisees. One day he heard that Jesus of Nazareth, the great
   Prophet and Miracle-Worker, was about to pass through his native
   place--the accursed city of Jericho. And having a great curiosity and
   nothing but a curiosity to see this mighty Savior--thinking, doubtless,
   no better of Him than that He was a strange enthusiast--he climbed up a
   tree in the hope that, concealed amid its leaves, he might look down,
   unobserved, upon the famous Stranger. If a Pharisee had been walking
   that way, he would have avoided even the shadow of that tree, lest sin
   should be hidden by its shade and he should thereby be defiled. But
   Christ, whose instincts of mercy always make Him sharp-sighted where
   there is an objective for His compassion, came right underneath that
   tree and, looking up, cried aloud, "Zacchaeus, make haste, and come
   down; for today I must abide at your house." No wonder that the
   Pharisees and the people in general murmured because Christ went to be
   a guest with a man who was "a sinner" in a very special sense! They
   were surprised that a man in such ill repute should have the honor of
   entertaining the Lord Jesus Christ.

   But our Lord entered the house of Zacchaeus and His Truth entered the
   heart of Zacchaeus. And there, on the spot, that "sinner" became a
   saint--practically proving the reality of his conversion by saying to
   Jesus, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I
   have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him
   fourfold." And Jesus said to him, "This day is salvation come to this
   house." O my Savior, You have done right well! Suppose the Lord had
   passed by Zacchaeus without taking any notice of him? He would have
   remained as great a sinner as ever! Suppose He had upbraided him?
   Possibly, then, the tax-gatherer would have replied in language not at
   all complimentary! But that kind word, that sweet look of pity, that
   gracious token of forgiveness broke the hard heart of the rich
   oppressor and he gladly entertained his Savior and became His disciple.

   This is the way in which Jesus Christ deals with sinners. Have we a
   sinner in this house--the house where Christ has, for many a day,
   worked miracles of mercy? Sinner, He will not despise you and we are
   rejoiced to see you in the place where Christ is preached! His eyes are
   on you now--where you are, I cannot tell, but He can--and it may be
   that this very hour He will say to you, "Sinner, make haste and come
   down, for tonight I must abide at your house." Who can tell? It may be
   with you as it has been with many a score in this house--you may go
   home to forsake the drunkard's cup, to leave the Sabbath-breaker's
   haunts, to forsake the abodes of blasphemy and to say, once and for
   all, "Christ has called me! I am His and He I desire to serve." This is
   how Jesus deals with sinners, even with sinners who are only moved by
   curiosity to see Him as Zacchaeus was.

   On another occasion Christ was by the seaside and he passed a certain
   toll-house where a tax-gatherer was "sitting at the receipt of custom."
   His name was Levi--at least that was his name when he was at home--but
   now that he had become one of the hated publicans, he had taken the
   name of Matthew, just as many a young man, when he runs away from home
   and enlists in the army or navy, takes a name which does not belong to
   him. Little did he think that when Jesus was passing by, He would take
   any notice of him! But He did, for He said to him, "Follow Me." That
   was all He said, but there was a volume of meaning in those two words!
   And the glance of His eyes and the majesty with which He pronounced His
   Divine command produced instant and most willing obedience, for "he
   arose and followed Him." And Matthew the publican became Matthew the
   Apostle and Matthew the Evangelist!

   Now, if Christ needed an Apostle, why did He not select one of the
   Pharisees? If He needed an Evangelist, why did He not choose one of the
   scribes? The reason is that a publican and a sinner was more adapted to
   His purpose. Perhaps the Lord is, at this moment, looking for a valiant
   preacher of the Truth of God--and it may be that you, my Friend, away
   there among the crowd, are the man whom He has chosen for this high and
   noble enterprise. Christ found John Bunyan playing "tip-cat" on Elstow
   Green and He found Richard Weaver down in the mines, blaspheming the
   name of God! Who knows whether He may not find you for this high
   purpose, to bless you and to make you a blessing? There may be some
   here who will make Hell's old pillars shake, though they are, today,
   the sworn friends of sin and Satan! But He who has permitted them to go
   so far into sin may issue His Divine mandate concerning each one of
   them--

   "Almighty Grace, arrest that man"-- and he shall be renewed in heart,
   changed in life and made to be "a new creature in Christ Jesus."

   Certain it is that many of the most useful and honored servants of the
   Lord Jesus Christ have been taken from that very class with whom Jesus
   and His disciples ate bread. There was a certain person needed, on one
   occasion, to be--if I may use the term--lady-in-waiting to the King of
   kings. Queens might have been well content to part with their crowns

   in exchange for such an honor as that, yet "a woman in the city, who
   was a sinner," was chosen to render this lowly service to the Lord
   Jesus Christ! And she "stood at His feet behind Him, weeping, and began
   to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her
   head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment." Simon,
   the Pharisee, found fault with Christ for allowing her to do this, but
   Jesus said it was her great love which had moved her to do what the
   Pharisee had neglected to do for his Guest. And to the woman, Jesus
   said, "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
   Am I addressing any woman who might truly take the term, "sinner," to
   herself? My Sister, this is how Christ received this woman who was a
   sinner. He accepted the homage of her love--love such as only she could
   render, love that could only come from a woman who had borne such a
   character as she had borne and who, therefore, was filled with such
   intense gratitude to her Lord and Savior. This is how Christ receives
   sinners--oh, that He might thus receive you just now!

   Here is another case in which Christ received a sinner. I have reminded
   you how He visited the house of a sinner, how He chose a sinner to be
   one of His Apostles and how He was anointed by a woman who was a
   sinner. Now He was about to die and someone was needed to go with Him
   from earth to Heaven. When He returned Home, it was not meet that He
   should go back alone. The great Conqueror must not re-enter Heaven
   without some token of His victories here below. O mighty Hero, You may
   not pass the gates of Your paternal metropolis without taking some
   captive with You! Who shall accompany the Savior into His Glory? Shall
   it be some martyr, who, in fiery chariot, shall mount to Heaven with
   his Redeemer? Shall it be some devout disciple and deacon, like
   Stephen, who, amid a shower of stones, shall see Heaven opened unto him
   and enter it side by side with his Lord? No. But there is a thief dying
   on a cross hard by the suffering Son of God, for Jesus was numbered
   with the transgressors and died in the company of sinners even as He
   had lived among them. The thief prayed, "Lord, remember me when You
   come into Your Kingdom." And Jesus answered, "Today shall you be with
   Me in Paradise" and, probably the first soul to enter Heaven after the
   return of the King was the soul of this poor penitent thief!

   I will only mention one more case of Christ receiving a sinner. After
   He had gone back to Heaven, He needed a man who should be His Apostle
   to the Gentiles. Peter, the Jew, was far too bigoted even when his
   nature was overruled by Divine Grace--there was still so much of the
   Jewish exclusiveness in him that he was not fit to be the Apostle of
   the Gentiles. The Master, therefore, resolved that, for once, He would
   call out of Heaven with an audible voice and that, as a pattern for all
   who should afterwards believe on Him, He would have some one special
   soul. Who should that one be? You might send an officer through Greece
   and Rome and he might find scores whom he would recommend for the post,
   but the least likely individual in the whole world was selected by
   Christ, Himself! There he is, "breathing out threats and slaughter
   against the disciples of the Lord," for he hates Christ and His
   followers as well. When Stephen was stoned, he gloated over the dying
   martyr. He is constantly casting the Christians, both men and women,
   into prison. And he is now on his way to Damascus, being exceedingly
   angry against the saints, that he may persecute all whom he can find
   there who are followers of Christ!

   The sequel of the story is given in Paul's own words to Agrippa, "At
   midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from Heaven, above the
   brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed
   with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice
   speaking unto me and saying, in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why do
   you persecute Me?" The further sequel is given in Paul's words to the
   church at Ephesus, "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints,
   is this Grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the
   unsearchable riches of Christ."

   This is my Master's way of dealing with sinners, even with him who
   called himself the chief sinner! Proud professors, is this the way you
   deal with them? Professing Christians whose hearts have grown callous,
   is this the way you act towards poor sinful souls? And O poor lost
   soul, is this the way that you thought Christ would deal with you? He
   will do with you as He did with them! He is as ready to save, today, as
   He was in the days gone by! He has as great a love for sinners now as
   He had when He went through the towns and villages of Galilee, teaching
   and healing the people, or when He poured out His soul unto death that
   He might redeem the lost by purchasing them with His blood!

   II. I now turn to my second point and ask--HOW IS IT THAT CHRIST IS SO
   WILLING TO COME DOWN TO

   POOR SINNERS AND SAVE THEM?

   Do not imagine that it is because He is insensible to their guilt.
   Sinner, Jesus Christ knows far better than you do what an evil and
   bitter thing sin is. It is as hateful and loathsome to Him as anything
   can possibly be. It is not, therefore,

   because He is insensible to their guilt that He seeks the society of
   lost souls. Why, then, does He desire to be in their company?

   It is because He has such deep affection for sinners. There is a little
   child crying upstairs. Some people in the house wish that noise could
   be stopped, for they say they cannot endure it, but the mother says,
   "It is my child who is weeping up there," and she hurries up to comfort
   and soothe her baby. So, when we hear the sinner blaspheme, we are
   angry with him, but Christ weeps over him and comes forth to save him.
   "He is My child," He says--

   "Joint heir with Me, He yet shall be In Glory everlasting."

   There is all the difference between what a wife will do for her sick
   husband and what a stranger might do for him. Imagine the husband
   suffering from some loathsome disease. The nurse says, "No, for no
   money in the world will I stay any longer. Besides, the disease is
   infectious and I might take it to my dear ones at home." But if it were
   as infectious as the plague, itself, and as noxious as the great pit
   into which the unconfined dead were cast, that wife would still remain
   with her loved one--if necessary, to sicken, suffer and die--for she
   says, "He is my husband." And here is a sinner so full of filth that
   even the most sympathetic stand aside and will not come near him--but
   the Lord Jesus sees, in that abject sinner, a fit objective for His
   pity and Saving Grace. "He is one with Me," He says, "by eternal
   covenant and union, and I will stay with him till I have healed him. I
   will watch by him till I have saved him from all his filthiness and all
   his sin."

   Besides, poor Sinner, there is another reason why the Lord Jesus Christ
   is so deeply interested in you. He sees in you the purchase of His
   precious blood. "I bought him," He says, "with My heart's blood. Do you
   think that I will lose him after that?" "But, Lord, he blasphemes You!"
   "Yes, but I have bought Him with My blood." "But, Lord, he has made a
   covenant with death and an agreement with Hell." "Yes," says Christ, "I
   know he has, but I will disannul that covenant and cancel that
   agreement, for I have bought him and I will have him as My own." Jesus
   never forgets the price He paid for the redemption of even one soul! I
   think I hear Him say, my Brothers and Sisters, "By My agony and bloody
   sweat, by My Cross and passion, by My death and burial, I will have him
   as My own, for I cannot have suffered all these things in vain."

   Moreover, Christ views the sinner, not as he is in himself, but as he
   is in the purpose ofRedemption. "His whole head is sick," says Christ,
   "but I can cure him. His whole heart is faint, but I can restore him
   and I will do it. His feet have gone astray, his mouth is an open
   sepulcher, his eyes are windows of lust, his hands are stained with
   blood, but I will amend all that and make him a new creature fit to be
   a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light." Jesus looks, you
   see, not so much to what the sinner is in himself, as to what He can
   make him. He sees in every sinner the possibility of making a glorified
   saint who shall dwell with Him forever and ever. If He chose you, poor
   Sinner, before all worlds were made, and bought you with His blood, He
   sees you not as you now are, but as you shall be when He has perfected
   you! Oh, what a wonder it will be when that poor drunk over there shall
   sing in Heaven as one of the spirits of just men made perfect! And when
   yonder harlot shall have a golden harp in her hand and sound forth the
   praises of Him who has saved her and washed her from her sins in His
   own blood! He who has said it, will do it! He who is "mighty to save,"
   will redeem by power those whom He has secured by purchase! And,
   penitent Sinner, Jesus already hears you hymning His praise and He sees
   you as you will be--without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing--washed
   in His blood, renewed by His Spirit, brought safely Home and glorified
   with Him forever! No wonder, then, that Christ is willing to come to
   poor sinners and to dwell with them! He can see what you and I cannot
   see--what they shall be when He has fulfilled His purposes of mercy and
   Grace concerning them!

   Sinner, you are so ashamed of your sin that you dare not approach a
   minister, but you can approach Christ. There is no pride in Him and no
   cautious reserve such as we might rightly exercise in dealing with you.
   Though you cannot tell even your own father all about yourself, you can
   tell Jesus. You cannot tell all the story of your sin and your
   repentance to the wife of your bosom, but you can tell Jesus. There is
   no music that He loves so much as the voice of a sinner confessing his
   sin! There are no pearls that He prizes so highly as those pearly tears
   which repentance forms in the eyes of the soul that trembles at His
   Word! Do not imagine that He is hard to please, for He loves sinners!
   Do not fancy that it is difficult to obtain access to Him. Like the
   father in the parable, He can see a sinner when he is a great way off
   and He will run to meet you and give you a hearty reception and a
   loving welcome. You will be happy in being saved, but He will be

   more happy in saving you! You will rejoice in being pardoned, but He
   will rejoice more in pardoning you! I cannot put this blessed Truth of
   God about Christ's compassion for sinners in such words as I would do
   if I could.

   If you do not admit that you are a sinner, I have no Gospel to preach
   to you. But if you stand self-condemned, I have a message of mercy to
   deliver to you. To the self-convicted, to the law-condemned, the
   prisoners that plead guilty, those who are ready to confess that they
   are undeserving, ill-deserving, Hell-deserving sinners, I have to say
   that Christ is an approachable Savior! No, more than that, He is
   waiting to be gracious! He stands with arms outstretched, longing to
   clasp poor sinners to His heart. Why do you wait?

   III. Now I close my discourse by endeavoring to teach you THE PRACTICAL
   LESSON WHICH OUGHT TO

   FOLLOW from the fact that Christ receives sinners and eats with them.

   Let me just utter a word of warning here. When we speak of Christ
   receiving sinners, everybody says, "Well, I am a sinner." It is a
   curious proof that people do not know what a sinner is, or they would
   not be so ready to admit that they are in that class. If I were to say
   to almost any man I met, "You are a criminal," in almost every case he
   would reply, "No, Sir, I am not." But what is the difference between
   being a criminal and being a sinner except that the sinner is the worse
   of the two? A criminal is a person who offends against the laws of men.
   "A sinner" is a theological term, signifying one who offends against
   the Laws of God! People say, "To be criminals--oh, that is horrible!
   But to be sinners--well, we are all sinners." And they do not appear to
   think anything of that terrible brush. Ah, but, unless the Grace of God
   shall change you, the day will come when you will think it would have
   been better to have been a frog, a toad, a viper, or any other creature
   rather than to have been a sinner, for, next to the word, "devil,"
   there is no word which has so much that is dreadful in it as that word,
   "sinner." "A sinner" means one who cares nothing for God--one who
   breaks God's Laws, despises God's mercy and who will, if he continues
   as he is, have to endure God's wrath as a punishment for his sin!

   Yet these are the persons whom Jesus Christ is willing to receive! You
   cannot, therefore, any of you, say, if you perish, that you perish
   because He would not receive you. "Oh, but," you say, "He would never
   receive such a sinner as I am." How do you know that? Have you ever
   tried Him? There is not, even in Hell itself, a sinner who will ever
   dare to say that he came to Jesus, yet Jesus refused to receive him.
   There is not a lost soul in the Pit who can look up to God and
   truthfully say to Him, "Great God, I asked for mercy through the
   precious blood of Jesus, but You said, 'I will not grant it to you.'"
   No, that can never be! Neither on earth, nor in Hell, shall there ever
   be one soul that trusted in Christ and then perished!

   You say that Christ will not save you, so I ask again--Did you ever try
   Him? Did you ever give Him a fair trial? Did you ever, on your knees,
   conscious of your lost condition, say to Him, "Jesus, save me, or I
   die"? You are spiritually blind--did you ever say to Him, "Son of
   David, have mercy on me"? Did you cry to Him, again and again, and did
   He turn His back on you and leave you in darkness? Leper, you are
   loathsome in His sight by reason of your sin, but did you ever say to
   Him, "Lord, if You will, You can make me clean"? No, you know you never
   did, though you have often resolved that you would!. Under an earnest
   sermon you have said, "I will seek the Lord"--but when you got outside
   the House of Prayer, some idle companion met you and you soon forgot
   all about your good resolution.

   But let me say to you now--Despite all the years in which you have
   heard the Gospel in vain, if the Holy Spirit shall move you even now to
   confess your sin to Jesus and to say to Him, "Son of David, have mercy
   on me. I put my soul's affairs into Your hands from this
   moment"--Sinner, He will save you! Or, if He will not, then I will
   perish with you and the whole Church of God will also perish with you,
   for this is all our hope--that Jesus died to save the lost! And if one
   soul, believingly gazing upon His wounds, can perish, then all must
   perish and the Pit must engulf the whole blood-bought family of God.
   But that can never be!

   There is an old tradition which I will repeat as a rebuke to the
   self-righteous, and a comfort to the sinner. Dean Trench, quoting from
   a Persian moralist, tells one of his old fables about Jesus. Of course
   it is only a fable, but it contains the very spirit of the Truth of God
   about which I have been preaching. When Christ, according to this
   fable, was travelling through a certain region, He stayed at the cave
   of a hermit. It so happened that there was living in the neighboring
   town a young man whose vices were so great that, according to common
   report, the devil, himself, did not dare to associate with him lest he
   should become worse than he was before. This young man, hearing that
   the Savior, who could pardon sin, was in the hermit's cave, went to
   Him. Falling down on his knees, he made confession of his guilt and
   acknowl-

   edged that he was utterly unworthy of mercy. But he entreated Christ,
   in the love of His gracious heart, to forgive him for the past and make
   him a new man for the future.

   The monk who lived in the cave said to the young man, "Get out! You are
   not worthy to be in such a holy spot as this!" And, turning to the
   Savior, he said, "Lord, in the other world appoint me a place as far
   away as possible from this wretch." The Savior answered, "Your prayer
   is heard--you are self-righteous so I appoint you your place in
   Hell--this man is penitent and seeks mercy at My hands--I appoint him
   his place in Heaven. Thus both of you shall have your heart's desire."
   There is the very essence of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in
   that old fable. You who trust in your own good works go and perish!
   Come, you who confess your evil deeds--hate them, flee from them, trust
   in Jesus and you are saved! But they who go about to establish their
   own righteousness shall perish everlastingly!

   Oh, that my Master would draw some of you to Him at this moment! What
   do you say? Will you go with this Man who receives sinners? He bids you
   come to Him--will you come? You cannot plead that you are too vile, for
   He takes the very off-scouring of men--the devil's outcasts--He will
   not cast them out if they will but come to Him! However despairing of
   yourself you may be, you must not say of Him, "He will reject me."
   Trust Him to receive you and trust Him now!

   O Spirit of the living God, prove the Divinity of Christ's Gospel this
   very hour by turning lions into lambs and ravens into doves--and let
   the chief of sinners prove Your power to save! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Unbelievers Upbraided

   (No. 2890)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 8,
   1876.

   "He.. .upbraided them with their unbelief." Mark 16:14.

   I SHALL not dwell so much upon this particular instance of the
   disciples' unbelief as upon the fact that the Lord Jesus upbraided them
   because of it. This action of His shows us the way in which unbelief is
   to be treated by us. As our loving Savior felt it right to upbraid
   rather than to console, He taught us that on some occasions unbelief
   should be treated with severity rather than with condolence.

   Beloved Friends, let us never look upon our own unbelief as an
   excusable infirmity, but let us always regard it as a sin--and as a
   great sin, too. Whatever excuse you may at any time make for
   others--and I pray you to make excuses for them whenever you can
   rightly do so--never make any for yourself. In that case, be swift to
   condemn. I am not at all afraid that as a general rule we shall err on
   the side of harshness to ourselves. No, we are far too ready to
   palliate our own wrong-doing, to cover up our own faults and to
   belittle our own offenses. I very specially urge every Believer in
   Jesus to deal most sternly with himself in this matter of unbelief. If
   he turns the back of the judicial knife towards others, let him always
   turn the keen edge of it towards himself. In that direction use your
   sharpest eye and your most severely critical judgment. If you see any
   fault in yourself, you may depend upon it that the fault is far greater
   than it appears to be-- therefore deal more sternly with it. It is a
   very easy thing for us to get into a desponding state of heart and to
   mistrust the promises and faithfulness of God and yet, all the while,
   to look upon ourselves as the subjects of a disease which we cannot
   help--and even to claim pity at the hands of our fellow men--thinking
   that they should console us and try to cheer us. Perhaps they should,
   but, at any rate, we must not think that they should. It will be far
   wiser for each one of us to feel, "This unbelief of mine is a great
   wrong in the sight of God. He has never given me any occasion for it
   and I am doing Him a cruel injustice by thus doubting Him. I must not
   idly sit down and say, 'This has come upon me like a fever, or a
   paralysis which I cannot help.' But I must say, 'This is a great sin in
   which I must no longer indulge. I must confess my unbelief with shame
   and self-abasement, to think that there should be in me this evil heart
   of unbelief.'"

   Notwithstanding what I said, just now, concerning our dealings with
   others, I must give very much the same advice with regard to them as to
   ourselves, though in a somewhat mitigated form. When we see any of our
   friends falling into sin and unbelief, we must seek to deal wisely with
   them--always kindly--never harshly. Let us reserve all our severity for
   ourselves as I have already urged you. Still, I am sure that it is
   quite possible for us to be doing our fellow Christians serious harm by
   excusing their unbelief and by pitying them for it instead of pointing
   out to them, tenderly, yet faithfully, the great sin they are
   committing by this doubting.

   Have you ever seen a "coddled" lad? I have seen one who ought to be in
   the open air at play, shut in a room because his parents were fearful
   that he was delicate and unable to do as other lads do. He ought to
   have been taking part in various healthy exercises that would have
   developed and strengthened the muscles in his body, but, instead of
   that, he was sitting down, tied to his mother's apron strings and so
   was being made weaker than he was before! He was kept in an atmosphere
   which was not fit for him to breathe because his foolish parents were
   afraid the fresh air might be too trying for him--and long before he
   was ill, he was dosed and treated until he really became ill! Many a
   child has been murdered by

   being thus coddled, or, if he has lived to grow up to manhood, he has
   been a poor, feeble, effeminate creature because the abundant love
   which had been lavished upon him had been linked with equally abundant
   folly.

   You can easily treat Christians--and especially young converts--in the
   same senseless fashion! If they are unbelieving, you can keep back from
   them the stern Truth of God about the sinfulness of such a state of
   heart and mind because you fear that they will be discouraged if you
   deal faithfully with them. That is quite as wrong as saying to the
   unconverted, over and over again, "Only believe," without ever
   mentioning the need of repentance and regeneration! There is a way of
   misapplying even the promises of God to unbelieving hearts and of
   giving the consolations of the Gospel to those who are not in a
   condition to receive them as one might give sweetmeats to sick children
   and do them harm. People who are thus unwisely treated are apt to
   remain in the same sad state until their unbelief becomes chronic--and
   their unhap-piness becomes a lifelong burden to them. Sometimes when a
   man is in great pain, it is wise to give him something that will afford
   him even temporary relief, but the better course is, if possible, to
   strike at the root of his disease and eradicate it once and for all.
   That should be our method of dealing with the unbelief of our Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ. We must make it clear to them that unbelief is
   no trifle and that it is a thing for which its owner is not to be
   pitied, but to be blamed--and to be severely blamed--for it is a most
   grievous fault and sin. Our Savior dealt thus with the 11 when He
   upbraided them because of their unbelief. He did not excuse them, or
   comfort them, but He upbraided them! Upbraiding does not seem to be in
   harmony with the usual character of Jesus, does it? Yet you may depend
   upon it that it was the right thing for Him to do--and the kind thing,
   too--otherwise, He would not have done it.

   Jesus upbraided these disciples of His because of their unbelief upon a
   very special point on which they ought to have been the first to
   believe. Many persons had seen their Lord after He had risen from the
   dead. And the 11 Apostles who ought, by reason of their greater
   spiritual advantages and their more intimate companionship with Christ,
   to have been the readiest to believe the good tidings, were not so and,
   therefore, Christ "upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of
   heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He had
   risen." Yet these eyewitnesses-- Cleopas and his companion, Mary
   Magdalene, Joanna, the other Mary and the rest of the holy women--who
   had come to the eleven, were their own Brothers and Sisters in the
   faith! So Christ might well say to them--and I daresay He did--"Why did
   you doubt their testimony? You did them an injustice by acting in such
   a manner. They are honest and truthful and they have told you the
   truth. You have not been accustomed to doubt their word, so, as you
   have believed their witness concerning other matters, why did you not
   believe them in this instance? Moreover," our Lord might well say,
   "there were many of them--it was not merely one who might have been
   mistaken, but a considerable number saw Me and I spoke with them and
   they came and told you that it was even so--yet you did not believe
   them. The number of the witnesses and their well-known character are
   sure signs that you must have been in a wrong state of heart and mind
   not to be able to receive such clear evidence as theirs and, therefore,
   you are blameworthy for your unbelief."

   In the case of these Apostles, unbelief was peculiarly sinful, for they
   had the promise of their Lord to back up the testimony of His
   disciples. He had often told them that He would rise again from the
   dead--and had even foretold the very day of His Resurrection, so that
   the unbelief of the Apostles was altogether inexcusable. Yet this very
   fact which was a cause of stumbling to the Apostles appears to me to
   give point and power to the appeal which I make to myself and to you
   against our unbelief. We all believe that Jesus Christ rose from the
   dead. We have no difficulty in accepting that great fundamental
   Doctrine of the Christian faith. All of us who are Believers in the
   Lord Jesus Christ fully endorse Paul's words to the saints in Rome and
   say that our Lord, "was delivered for our offenses and was raised again
   for our justification." Well, then, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if
   we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, the ground is completely cut
   from under the feet of unbelief, for His promise is, "Because I live,
   you shall also live." If He lives, then the Gospel is true and the
   promises of the Gospel are sure to all who believe in Him! If He lives,
   then He lives to intercede for us and, through his intercession, every
   Covenant blessing is certain to come to us! Therefore if we harbor
   unbelief in our hearts, we are doubly guilty--and if the Savior were
   here in bodily Presence, though His face would still beam with Infinite
   Love to us, I am quite sure that He would, even in sterner tones than
   He used towards those 11 Apostles, upbraid us because of our unbelief!

   If Thomas will not believe that Christ is risen until he has put his
   finger into the print of the nails in His hands and thrust his hand
   into his Savior's wounded side, that is bad enough--but it is worse if
   you who do believe that He is risen and who do not doubt any one of the
   doctrines that He has taught you--still have unbelief mingled with the
   faith which

   you possess! Whether that supposed faith is all true, or not, is more
   than I can say, but, with so much faith as you profess to have, how can
   you still continue to doubt?

   I want, in this discourse, to upbraid myself and you, also, for any
   unbelief that we may have harbored, by noticing, first, the evil of
   unbelief in itselfand then, the evils that surely flow out of unbelief

   I. First, then, I have to say to any of God's children who have given
   in to unbelief in any degree--YOUR UNBELIEF IS AN EVIL THING IN ITSELF.

   This truth will come very closely home to you if you will just think
   how you would feel if others disbelieved you. If anyone were to
   question your veracity, you would be very vexed and if you made a
   promise to any man and he expressed a doubt as to the fulfillment of
   it, you would feel hurt. And if those with whom you are most closely
   connected were to disbelieve you, you would feel still more grieved,
   for you expect absolute confidence from them. If mutual trust were
   taken away from any family, how unhappy the members of that family
   would be--the children suspecting the sincerity of their parents'
   love--the wife doubting the reality of her husband's affection--the
   husband dubious of his wife's faithfulness! Try to conceive, if you
   can, what it would be if those who now call you friend, or child, or
   husband, or wife, or brother, or sister should no longer accept what
   you say as being true. Suppose, also, that you were perfectly conscious
   that you had never broken your word to them--that you had faithfully
   kept every promise that you had made to them and had been in all things
   honest, true and sincere--would you not feel their doubts and
   suspicions most acutely? I am sure you would--they would touch the very
   apple of your eye and cut you to the quick--you could not endure such
   treatment from them! Then how can you mete out to the Lord Jesus Christ
   such treatment as would be so painful to yourself? And further, how can
   you expect your child to trust you when you doubt your Savior? How can
   you even look to your wife for confidence in you when, if there is some
   little trouble, or things go somewhat awkwardly, you straightway begin
   to mistrust your God and Savior?

   Remember, too, that the sin of your unbelief may be measured by the
   excellence of the person whom you mistrust. I said, just now, that if
   you were conscious of your absolute sincerity, you would be the more
   deeply wounded by the suspicion of those who doubted you. What do you
   think, then, of the sin of doubting Christ, who cannot lie, who is "the
   Truth" itself? I know, Beloved, that you have a very high opinion of
   your Lord and Savior--do you not worship Him as Divine? Do you not also
   feel His truly human sympathy? You know that there is no clause in His
   Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure, which He has not
   already fulfilled or which He will not fulfill at the appointed time.
   His Incarnation, His life here below, His shameful sufferings, His
   vicarious death--all these He promised to undergo and all these He
   performed in due season. And He will go right through, to the end, with
   the great work of your eternal salvation! By the mouth of His servant
   Jeremiah, the Lord asked, long ago, "Have I been a wilderness unto
   Israel? A land of darkness?" And the Lord Jesus might well say to His
   professed followers, "Have I been as the barren fig tree was to Me when
   I found on it nothing but leaves?" As He points to the long list of His
   favors to us, He may well ask, "For which of them do you thus misjudge
   and mistrust Me?"

   And when He spreads out the whole roll of His life and work before you,
   He may well enquire, "Upon which part of My life or work do you base
   your suspicions? What is there in My Nature, as Divine and Human--what
   is there in My Character--what is there in My life below, or in My life
   above--that should lead you to question My faithfulness to you, My
   power to help you, My readiness to sympathize with you, My willingness
   to bless you?" Why, you are doubting Him whom the angels adore and
   worship! You have felt, sometimes, as if you would like to wash His
   feet with your tears. How, then, can you ever insult Him with your
   doubts? You have even said that you could die for Him! And it has been
   your great ambition to live for Him, yet you cannot trust Him? If you
   have run with the footmen in the matter of these minor trials of your
   faith--and they have wearied you--what would you do if you had to
   contend with horsemen as many others have had to do in the day of
   martyrdom? And if, in the favorable circumstances in which you have
   been placed, you have doubted your Savior, what are you likely to do
   when you are in the swellings of Jordan? Ah, my Brothers and Sisters,
   when you think of unbelief as aiming her darts at Jesus Christ, the
   Well-Beloved of our soul, surely you will say that it is a shameful sin
   and a disgraceful crime against Infinite Love!

   Then, remember, Beloved in the Lord, the relationship in which Jesus
   Christ stands to you. You know that the more closely we are allied to a
   person, the more painful any suspicion on the part of that person
   becomes. I have repeatedly used in this connection the figure of a
   child's trust in a parent, a husband's trust in his wife and the wife's
   trust in her

   husband--and you have readily accepted the comparisons because you have
   felt that the nearness of the relationship would involve a
   corresponding degree of trust. How near--how very near--we are in
   kinship to Christ! Are we not married to Him? Has He not espoused us
   unto Himself forever? There is a conjugal union between Christ and His
   Church of which the marriage bond on earth is but a feeble type. Then
   can you who have been renewed in heart by the Holy Spirit and washed in
   the blood of the Lamb, doubt Him whom your soul loves? Can you distrust
   Him to whom you are so closely allied? Oh, shame, shame, shame, that
   lack of confidence should come in to mar such a wondrous union as that!

   But we are even more closely knit to Christ than the marriage union
   implies, for "we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His
   bones." I cannot explain that secret, mystical union of which the
   Scripture speaks, but it is a true union, whatever mystery there may be
   about it. Then shall there be such disunion among the members of the
   body that the eye shall begin to doubt the heart and the hand to
   mistrust the foot? It would be pitiful if such a state of things could
   prevail in our bodies! Then what must it be if such a state of things
   prevails among the members of the mystical body of Christ? Beloved, may
   God render this unbelief impossible by sending such life floods of
   Grace through all the members of Christ's body that never more shall a
   single thought of mistrust of our glorious Covenant Head enter our
   minds even for a single instant!

   Consider next, I pray you, dear Friends, how many times some of us have
   doubted our Lord. The sin of unbelief becomes all the greater because
   it is so frequently committed. God be thanked that it is not so with
   all Christians--there are some who walk in faith and dwell in faith. I
   suppose that as birds fly over everybody's head, doubts fly around all
   good men's minds, but our old proverb says, "You need not let birds
   build in your hair," although there are some people who let doubts come
   and lodge in their minds and even dwell in their hearts! We know some
   persons of this kind who seem to be very easily led into despondency,
   doubt and mistrust of Christ. Well now, if a man has done this only
   once, I think he might well say to himself, "I did once question the
   everlasting Truth of God. I did once stain the spotless robe of
   Infinite Veracity with a dark blot of suspicion"--and I think that he
   might find it difficult to forgive himself for having done so vile a
   thing even once! But when it comes to many times and when it comes to
   long periods of doubt and mistrust, it is still worse. I want to press
   this point home upon all whom it concerns and I want your consciences
   to be wide awake so that as you recall the many times in which you have
   thus sinned against your Heavenly Father, and against His blessed
   Spirit, and against His Divine Son you may recollect that each distinct
   act of unbelief is a sin--each act of mistrust is another wounding of
   the Lord! God grant that we may truly repent as we think of the many
   times in which we have been thus guilty!

   Then there is this further point--some of these actions have been
   repetitions of former ones. For instance, a man is in trouble and he
   has doubts concerning the Providence of God. But he is delivered, God
   is gracious to him and helps him out of his difficulty. Well now, if he
   falls into a similar trouble and if he is again guilty of harboring
   doubt, this is far worse! If a man should doubt your word the first
   time you speak to him, you might say, "Well, he does not know me." The
   second time you might say, "When he has proved me more, he will trust
   me." But what shall I say of those whose hair has a sprinkling of gray
   in it and whose Christian experience extends to a score of years or
   more--perhaps two score-- possibly, three score? Oh, if you doubt the
   Lord now, it will be a crying shame! It will not be too surprising if
   some of us act thus, for so did Israel for 40 years in the
   wilderness--but that does not excuse the evil in our case. It is a
   desperately evil thing that God should be mistrusted over and over
   again--and that He should have to say, "How long will it be before you
   believe Me?"

   I scarcely like to linger on such a sad theme, yet it does our hearts
   good to be thus upbraided. So, remember that oftentimes our unbelief
   has come in the teeth of our own assurance to the contrary. Do you not
   sometimes catch yourself saying, after a very great mercy, "Well, I can
   never doubt the Lord again"? When you have had an answer to prayer of a
   very memorable kind, you have said, "Oh, I must believe in the power of
   prayer now! For me to ever think that the Lord will deny me would be
   impossible." Yes, in that respect, also, we are just like the
   Israelites who promised to keep the Covenant, yet speedily broke it.

   There is also this aggravation of your sin--although you do not trust
   the Lord as you should, you do trust your fellow creatures. You can
   believe that lie of the old serpent--

   "The Lord has quite forsaken you-- Your God will be gracious no more"--

   yet you cannot so readily believe the oath and promise of God! If an
   earthly friend were to say to you, "I will help you," how readily you
   would jump at his offer! If there is an arm of flesh near, how
   cheerfully you lean upon it and, though perhaps there is nothing for
   you to rest yourself upon but a broken reed, you think it is a strong
   staff and throw all your weight upon it! It is quite true that ungodly
   men who have no faith generally have any amount of credulity. They
   cannot believe the truth, but they can believe lies to any extent! So
   is it, alas, with God's own people when they get off the track of
   faith. They seem to become credulous concerning the things seen, which
   are temporal, in proportion as they become dubious of the things
   unseen, which are eternal! Is not this a sin of the greatest blackness?
   You cannot trust your husband, but you can trust a flatterer who
   deceives you! You cannot trust your God, but you make idol gods unto
   yourself and trust them! You cannot rest yourself on Jehovah, but you
   can on Egypt! You can rest yourself on the promise of man who is but as
   a moth which is soon crushed, but as for Him who made the heavens and
   the earth and all things that are, you cannot rely upon Him! I feel as
   if I could sit down and cover my face for shame when I think of those
   occasions wherein I have been guilty of this sin. Perhaps the best
   thing we could all do would be to go home, fall on our knees and ask
   our blessed Savior to wash away all this unbelief--and not to believe
   us when we talk about doubting--but only to believe that as He knows
   all things, He knows that, after all, we do trust Him.

   II. Now, with great brevity I have to speak upon the second point which
   is THE MANY EVILS WHICH COME OUT OF UNBELIEF TO THOSE OF US WHO LOVE
   THE LORD.

   Brothers and Sisters, it is enough of evil--if there were no more--that
   unbelief is so cruel to Christ and grieves His Holy Spirit so much. I
   should but repeat myself if I reminded you how mistrust grieves you
   and, speaking after the manner of men, in the same fashion it grieves
   the Holy Spirit. He dwells in you--shall He dwell in you to be grieved
   by you? He relieves your grief--will you cause Him grief? Your
   vexations vanish because He is the Comforter--will you vex the
   Comforter? And what can vex Him more than suspecting the ever-faithful
   heart of Christ? That is evil enough--to wound Christ and the Holy
   Spirit!

   Next, remember--though this is a more selfish argument--how much unrest
   and misery unbelief has caused to yourself. You have never had half as
   many trials from God as you have manufactured for yourself. Death,
   which you so much dread, is nothing compared with the thousand deaths
   that you have died through the fear of death. You make a whip for
   yourself and you mix bitter cups for yourself by your unbelief. That is
   quite enough trial for you to bear and God will help you to bear it,
   but you put away the helping hand when you are unbelieving and then you
   increase your own burden! Oh, you can sing, even by the rivers of
   Babylon, if you have but faith! You may lie on your sick bed and feel
   great pain, yet your spirit shall not smart, but shall dance away your
   pain if your heart is but looking in simple confidence to Christ. And
   you shall die, as the Negro said his master died--"full of life"--if
   you have true faith in Jesus. But if faith shall fail you, oh then you
   are distressed when there is no cause for distress--and full of fear
   where there is no fear!

   And then, how much you lose in other things besides happiness! A
   thousand promises are missed because there is not the faith to claim
   them. There are the cases and you have the keys--yet you do not put the
   keys into the locks to open them. There are Joseph's granaries and you
   are hungry--but you do not go to Joseph and show your confidence in him
   by asking for what you need. You are not straitened in God, but in
   yourselves! If you believe not, you shall not be estab-lished--neither
   shall your prayers prevail, nor shall you grow in Grace. If you believe
   not, your experience shall not be of that high and lofty kind that
   otherwise it might have been. We live down here in the marsh and the
   mist when, had we faith, we might live in the everlasting sunshine! We
   are down below in the dungeons, fretting under imaginary chains when
   the key of promise, which will open every door in Doubting Castle, is
   in our bosom! If we will but use it, we may get away to the tops of the
   mountains and see the New Jerusalem and the land which is very far off.

   Further, unbelief weakens us for all practical purposes. What can the
   man who is unbelieving do? O Brothers and Sisters in Christ, it is a
   terrible thing to think how much work there is that falls flat because
   it is not done in faith! You saw the trees when they were covered with
   blooms--there seemed to be a promise of much fruit--but there were
   chilling winds, sharp frosts and so, perhaps, only one in a hundred of
   the blossoms ever turned to fruit. The tree of the Church seems, at
   times, covered with beautiful blossoms--what can be more lovely to the
   eyes? But the blossoms do not knit-- faith is the bee that carries the
   pollen--it is faith that fructifies the whole and makes it truly
   fruitful unto God. What might my sermons not have done had I believed
   my Master more? You Sunday school teachers may say, "Had I taught in

   greater faith, I might have won my scholars." Or you may say, "Had I
   gone to my visiting of the poor and the sick in the strength of the
   Lord, who knows what I might have done for Him?"

   Faith is the Nazarite lock of Samson--if it is shorn away, Samson is
   weak as other men. Then, as to suffering, wonderful is the power of
   faith there. If you are trusting your Heavenly Father, believing that
   all is right that seems most wrong, that everything that happens is
   ordered or permitted by Him and that His Grace will sweeten every
   bitter cup, you can suffer patiently and, as your tribulations abound,
   so will your consolations abound in Christ Jesus! Like the Ark of Noah,
   as the waters deepen you will rise upon them and get nearer to Heaven
   in proportion as the great floods increase.

   Unbelief in any Christian, no doubt, has a very injurious effect upon
   other Christians. There are some who are like sickly sheep which--

   "Infect the flock, And poison all the rest."

   Especially is it so, dear Brothers, if you happen to be in office in
   the church, or to be doing any prominent work for Christ. If the
   commander-in-chief trembles, the army is already conquered! If the
   captain begins to fear, fear will take possession of every soldier's
   heart in his company. Was it not grand of Paul, in the shipwreck, when
   all others were dismayed and thought they would go to the bottom, when
   he said, "Have no fear, Sirs," and he bade them eat, as he ate--calmly
   giving thanks to God before them all? Why, Paul saved them all by his
   calm confidence in God! If we have but faith, we shall strengthen our
   Brothers and Sisters! But if we have it not, we shall weaken them.

   I am sure, too, that the influence of unbelief in Christians upon the
   unconverted is very serious, indeed. If we do not play the man in times
   of trial--if we do not show them what faith in God can do--they will
   think that there is nothing in it. And suppose, Brothers and Sisters,
   you should make anyone think there is nothing in religion? How sad that
   would be! When the devil needs a friend, surely he could not find one
   more able to do him service than a child of God who is full of
   mistrust. The children say, "Our father only trusts God for bread when
   there is plenty in the cupboard." And the servants say, "The master is
   only happy in the Lord when he is in good health." And those who know
   our business affairs say, "Oh, yes! So-and-So is a great believer, but
   he has a big balance at his banker's--you should see him when trade is
   bad! You should see him when there are bad debts! Then you will find
   that he is not a bit more a believer in Jesus Christ than any of the
   rest of us! He is a fair-weather Christian--he is like the flowers that
   open when the sun shines. But take away the summer prosperity and you
   will see but little of his religion!" Let it not be so with any of us,
   but may God deliver us from this tremendous evil of unbelief!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HEBREWS 11:1-13;32-40.

   Verses 1, 2. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
   evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good
   report So it was written, in the olden time, that Believers "obtained a
   good report." And this second verse shows that they obtained it by
   their faith. The best part of the report about them is that they
   believed their God and believed all that was revealed to them by His
   Word and His Spirit.

   3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word
   of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do
   appear The facts about Creation must be the subject of faith. It is
   true that they can be substantiated by the argument from design and in
   other ways, but still, for a wise purpose as I believe, God has not
   made even that matter of the creation of the universe perfectly clear
   to human reason--so there is room for the exercise of faith. Men like
   to have everything laid down according to the rules of mathematical
   precision, but God desires them to exercise faith and, therefore, He
   has not acted according to their wishes.

   4. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
   by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
   his gifts: and by it, he being dead, yet speaks. The first of the long
   line of martyrs triumphed by faith! And if you are to be strong to bear
   witness for God, you must be made strong by the same power which worked
   so effectually in Abel. If, like his, your life is to be a speaking
   life--a life which shall speak even out of the grave--its voice must be
   the voice of faith.

   5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was
   not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation
   he had this testimony, that he pleased God. It is faith that muzzles
   the mouth of death and takes away the power of the sepulcher. If any
   man who had not been a Believer had been translated as Enoch was, we
   should have been able to point to a great feat accomplished apart from
   faith. It has never been so, for this which was one of the greatest
   things that was ever done--to leap from this life into another and to
   overleap the grave altogether--was only achieved "by faith."

   6. 7. But without faith it is impossible toplease Him: for he that
   comes to Godmust believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them
   that diligently seek Him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things
   not as yet seen. These are the things with which faith always
   deals--not with the things that are seen or are apprehensible by the
   senses or the feelings.

   7. Moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by
   which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which
   is by faith. So you see that faith has a condemning power towards an
   ungodly world. You do not need to be constantly telling worldlings that
   they are doing wrong--let them see clearly the evidence of your faith,
   for that will bear the strongest conceivable witness against their
   unbelief and sin, even as Noah, by his faith, "condemned the world and
   became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

   8. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he
   should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not
   knowing where he went That is, surely, the very masterpiece of faith!
   God bade Abraham go forth from his native land. He believed that God
   knew where he was to go though he did not himself know. So he left the
   direction of his wanderings entirely in the Lord's hands and
   obeyed--and "went out, not knowing where he went." We are not to ask
   for full knowledge before we will be obedient to the will of the Lord,
   but we are to obey God in the dark, even as Abraham did.

   9. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange
   country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with
   him of the same promise. I t is one of the great evidences of true
   faith for her to keep on, to continue, to abide without any visible
   signs or tokens of what she knows is hers. The life of faith is
   wonderful, but so, also, is the walk of faith. Her walk has much about
   it that is mysterious. She knows that the land she treads on belongs to
   her and yet, in another sense, she cannot claim a solitary foot of it.
   She knows that she is at home, even as Abraham was in his own land--yet
   like he, she knows herself to be a sojourner in a strange land, but is
   quite content to be so.

   10. For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose Builder and
   Maker is God. What a depth of meaning there is in those five words, "a
   city which has foundations"--as if all other cities had none! They come
   and they go as if they were molehills raised on the surface of the
   earth, or little mounds of sand made by the children's wooden spades
   upon the seashore which the next tide will wash away! What vast numbers
   of cities have already been destroyed! We are constantly picking up the
   relics of them, but there is, blessed be the name of the Lord, "a city
   which has foundations," a city founded on eternal power--and we are, I
   hope, on our way to that city.

   11. 12. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive
   seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she
   judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him
   as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in
   multitude, andas the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
   Perhaps the reference is to Abraham who was as good as dead, being so
   old--or to Isaac, who was as good as dead, for he was laid upon the
   altar and was practically "offered up" as a sacrifice unto the Lord.
   There were many deaths to work against the life of faith, yet life
   triumphed over death after all.

   13. These all died in faith. That is the epitaph which God has carved
   over the resting place of His faithful ones-- "These all died in
   faith." Will this be the record concerning all of us, "These all died
   in faith"?

   13. Not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off and
   were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were
   strangers and pilgrims on the earth. The chapter is a very long one so
   I must condense it, as the Apostle, himself, did when he came to the
   32nd verse. There was so much to be said that he added--

   32. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of
   Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also,
   and Samuel, and of the Prophets. There are some names in this chapter
   which we would hardly have expected to see there--the characters
   mentioned having been so disfigured by serious faults, flaws and
   failings--but the distinguishing feature of faith was there in every
   instance--and especially in the case of Samson. Perhaps there was no
   more childlike faith in any man than there was in him. Who but a man
   full of faith would have hurled himself upon a

   thousand men with no weapon in his hand but the jawbone of an ass?
   There was a wondrous confidence in God in that weak, strong man, which
   though it does not excuse his faults, yet nevertheless puts him in the
   ranks of the Believers. Happy is the man or woman who believes in God!
   There were multitudes of others beside those whom the Apostle named--

   33. Who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness. Is that
   as great an exploit as subduing kingdoms? Yes, that it is--to have, by
   faith, preserved a holy character in such a world of temptation as this
   is a far grander achievement than to have conquered any number of
   kingdoms by force of arms!

   33, 34. Obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
   violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were
   made strong, Do you notice how, every now and then, there is the
   mention of a feat which seems altogether beyond you, but then there
   follows one in which you can be a partaker with these heroes and
   heroines of faith? It may be that you have never "quenched the violence
   of fire" yet, often enough, it has been true of you that, by faith,
   "out of weakness" you have been "made strong." Others--

   34, 30. Waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the
   aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were
   tortured, not accepting deliverance: that they might obtain a better
   resurrection. What wondrous faith it was which sustained the saints
   under the awful tortures to which they were subjected! The story
   flusters one's heart to even read it--what must it have been actually
   to endure?

   36-39. And others had trial of cruel mocking and scourging, yes,
   moreover of bonds and imprisonment they were stoned, they were sawn
   asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about
   in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented, (of
   whom the world was not worthy): they wandered in deserts, and in
   mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having
   obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. These
   worthies lived before Christ came, but, since then, equally noble
   exploits have been performed by the heroes and heroines of faith. The
   Christian martyrs have shown the extremity of human endurance when they
   have been sustained by faith and the roll of Christian heroes, since
   their Lord ascended to Heaven, is longer and even brighter than that of
   the faithful ones who came before them in the earlier dispensation!

   40. God having provided some better thing for us, that they, without
   us, should not be made perfect The new dispensation is necessary to
   complete the old--the New Testament is the complement of the Old
   Testament--and New Testament saints join hands with Old Testament
   elders. Let us all be worthy of our high pedigree and may God grant
   that if the saints of these latter days are to perfect the history of
   the Church of Christ, the end may not be less heroic than the beginning
   was! A true poem should gather force as it grows and its waves of
   thought should roll in with greater power as it nears its climax. So
   should the mighty poem of faith's glorious history increase in depth
   and power as it gets nearer to its grand consummation--that God may be
   glorified yet more and more through all His believing children. So may
   it be! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Sabbath Miracle

   (No. 2891)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
   11, 1876.

   "And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And,
   behold, there was a woman which had a spirit ofinfrmity eighteen years,
   and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up. And when
   Jesus sawher, He called her to Him and said unto her, Woman, you are
   loosed f-omt your infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and
   immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." Luke 13:10-13.

   WHAT blessed days Sabbath days are! I mean not only the Jewish Sabbath
   on the seventh day of the week, but the Christian Sabbath on the first
   day of the week. I remember a friend in Newcastle telling me that when
   he was looking at a house in that city which was to be let, he was
   taken to the top of it and the agent said to him, "You see that there
   is a fine view from here. You can see a long way today, but on Sundays
   you can see Durham Cathedral." My friend asked, "Why on Sundays?" And
   the reply was, "You cannot see it the rest of the week because of the
   smoke, but, on Sundays it is usually clear enough to get a glimpse of
   it." What views some of us have had of Heaven and what views of Jesus
   Christ have been accorded to us on Sabbath days! We might have seen Him
   on other days if there had not been so much smoke from business, care
   and sin, but the blessed breath from Heaven has blown it all away on
   the Lord's Day and we have been able to look even into that which is
   within the veil!

   Our Lord Jesus Christ has performed wonders of Grace on all the days of
   the week. I would not be surprised to hear that there are Christians
   here who were converted on a Monday, or a Tuesday, or a Wednesday, or a
   Thursday, or a Friday, or a Saturday! But I should quite expect to
   learn that for every one of them, there are 10 here who were brought to
   Christ on the Sabbath! Heaven's gates seem to be set more widely open
   on that day than during the rest of the week, or else we have more
   inclination to enter them then. When the full history of the Sabbath
   shall be unfolded, we shall begin to know what infinite mercy it was on
   God's part to set aside one day in seven especially for His worship and
   for our spiritual benefit. Thousands upon thousands, yes, millions upon
   millions have found Jesus very near and rejoiced in Him on the Lord's
   Day!

   Our Savior was known to use the day for public worship and for the
   pursuance of His high and holy calling of blessing the children of men.
   So, finding that on that day He could meet with many in the synagogue,
   He was accustomed to go there and teach. Among the people who came on
   the particular Sabbath of which our text speaks, there was one poor
   woman who was possessed by an evil spirit. And that evil spirit had, I
   suppose, so affected her nerves and so influenced her entire system
   that her spinal cord was greatly weakened. Evidently she had suffered
   from the worst kind of curvature of the spine, for she was bent double,
   "and could in no wise lift herself up." I am afraid that if any one of
   you had been in such a sad state as that, you would have said, "I shall
   never go to the synagogue anymore," and that your friends would have
   said, "We think you had better not go. You are such an object and you
   are so unwell, that you will be best at home. You can read a good book
   there and you can worship God just as acceptably in your own parlor as
   you can by going up to the public assembly of His people."

   I am also afraid that there are some here who would have felt that they
   could be excused for a much lighter affliction than that poor woman
   suffered from, for I have known some who could not come out to the
   service if it happened to be

   wet--though they went to business on wet days. Many people imagine that
   Sunday is a convenient day for being ill and getting a little rest so
   as to be fortified for the more important business which requires all
   their energies Monday and during the rest of the week. It seems as
   though they thought that cheating God out of His day is a very small
   matter, but that robbing themselves of even a portion of a day would
   greatly grieve them.

   If this poor woman had not gone to the synagogue, I do not know that
   she would ever have met with Christ. So I commend her example to you
   even if your bodily infirmities increase so much that you might make
   very justifiable excuses for being absent. There was a dear Sister, now
   in Heaven, who attended this Tabernacle for years though she was so
   deaf that she never heard a word that was spoken. The reasons she gave
   for being here were that, at any rate, she could join in the hymns and
   that had she stayed away, she would have felt as if she was dissociated
   from the people of God and other people, perhaps, might not have known
   the reason for her absence--and it might, therefore, have been a bad
   example to them. So she said, "Though I do not hear a word, I love to
   be there," and she has told me that some of the happiest hours she has
   ever spent have been those when she has thus had communion with the
   people of God, although she could not fully understand all that was
   being said or done. In like manner, dear Friends, as often as the
   people of God assemble for worship, join with them!

   Notice one thing more about this woman. She did not get any good
   through going to the synagogue, as long as she merely went there. She
   went to the synagogue bent double and she came back bent double. If she
   went all those 18 years, as I daresay she did, she was unable to lift
   herself up all that long time! Do not, I pray you--you who are regular
   attendants at the House of God and yet remain unsaved--get into the
   notion that all you need is to attend Divine Service so many times on
   the Sabbath or on weeknights, for, if you do, you will not likely ever
   get a blessing. This poor woman was not healed until she met with the
   Lord Jesus Christ! And I wish each one of you would come here saying,
   "Oh, that I might meet with Jesus today! Oh, that Jesus would meet with
   me!" It is a rule, with very few exceptions, that what a man fishes for
   he is most likely to catch. If any come here merely out of idle
   curiosity, it is possible, though not certain, that their curiosity
   will be satisfied. If any come to find fault, I have no doubt that they
   will find plenty to complain of. But if any of you have come determined
   to find Christ if He is to be found, it will be a very surprising thing
   if you have to go away without discovering Him! This is what you really
   need if you are to be restored from all the ills that sin has
   worked--you must come to Christ Himself.

   I. Coming to the story of this poor woman who was bent double, the
   first thing to be noted is that CHRIST'S COMPASSION WAS EXCITED. Jesus,
   while He was teaching in the synagogue, looked into the faces of His
   congregation and as He looked at them, He saw this woman and His heart
   was at once moved with compassion towards her.

   Note that it was not her prayers that moved Him, or any plea she urged,
   for she did not speak to Him, or plead with Him. This was one of the
   cases in which no request for healing was presented to the Savior. It
   was the sight of her misery that touched His heart. Perhaps, dear
   Friends, if she had not been bent double, Christ's notice might not
   have been so quickly drawn to her. But because she was what people
   call, "quite an object," and looked so sad, she attracted Christ's
   attention.

   Notice, also, that Christ was not moved to compassion by the prayers of
   anybody else for her Sometimes He healed the sick when their fathers,
   or mothers, or friends brought them to Him. But nobody brought this
   poor woman to Jesus. It does not seem as if anybody had sufficient
   compassion upon her to ask Jesus to heal her, or, if they had the
   compassion, they had not enough faith to believe that it was possible
   for her to be healed. There she was, a poor lone woman and, possibly,
   it was the sight of her with not a friend to help her, that touched
   Christ's heart and moved Him to fix His gaze upon her with a view to
   curing her sad complaint.

   Notice, further, that Christ's heart was not touched by any description
   which she gave Him of her condition. She gave Him no description and
   none was needed. He looked at her--that was all that was required, for
   He already knew all about her. She did not say, "I have been bound by
   Satan for 18 years," but Christ knew that she had been. As He looked at
   her, He read her life story as a man reads a book. And as He read the
   story, His heart was moved with compassion towards her. I wonder
   whether there is a soul here that has not been asking the Lord for a
   blessing because that soul does not think it is likely that any
   blessing would come? I wonder whether there is anyone here who has not
   dared to hope and, therefore, has not dared to pray? My Master has a
   wonderful eye for such souls as these! There may have been in that
   synagogue a man wearing a gold ring, or a lady in a fine dress, but
   Christ did not notice them or their adornment. He

   picked out the person who was the most miserable, the most wretched and
   who most needed His pity--and upon her He fixed those blessed eyes of
   His with a compassion tender as the heart of a woman! And His whole
   soul was moved with pity for her because she was so grievously bound by
   the accursed power of Satan.

   Now let us look at this woman's case a little more closely. She "was
   bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up." That, in itself,
   was a painful thing--all the beauty of the woman's form and figure had
   gone. And being bent double like that must have produced most serious
   injury to every organ of the poor creature's body. I have no doubt that
   she was the subject of a thousand aches and pains through the posture
   in which she had been bent. Besides, it is a beautiful thing to be able
   to look up--but to be always obliged to look down is something
   terrible! Through this trying affliction, the poor woman could not even
   see the Savior though, happily, He could see her, bent down as she was
   in the crowd. Instead of looking up with the face of a woman, she had
   to carry her head down towards the earth like a poor beast--and I would
   not wonder if the spirit of evil that was in her had made her feel
   unhappy, sorrowful and almost despairing. I am also inclined to think
   that her mind may have been, like her body, bent towards the earth and
   that this, too, was caused by Satanic influence.

   Perhaps the worst point about her case was that she had been for 18
   years in that sad condition. We do not know how it came about. She may,
   as a girl, have been able to run in the fields and spend her days right
   merrily but, all of a sudden, perhaps, there came upon her this evil
   spirit and she began to feel weakness of the spine and, by-and-by, she
   was bent double, the sun of her life was put out and her days were dark
   with sorrow and pain--and this had continued for 18 years! What a long
   time that is to be such a sufferer! Eighteen years of happiness may
   pass very quickly, but 18 years of pain is a very long period. This
   woman, for 18 years, could not lift up her head to look at the sun. For
   18 years Satan had possessed her, bowed her body together and filled
   her mind with morbid thoughts, dreary dreams and terrible forebodings
   of dreadful things to happen in the future! Jesus knew all about those
   18 years, so we do not wonder that He had compassion upon her.

   Possibly in this congregation--no, I am quite sure I have some who, in
   soul, are like this poor woman was in body. You feel that you would
   gladly give all you have to be saved, but you have long ago given up
   all hope of that. You did, at one time, hear the Gospel with some
   degree of pleasure, but now, even while you listen to it, you keep on
   condemning yourself and saying, "Salvation will never come to me." You
   have fallen into a condition of chronic melancholy and you are so sad
   that friends who used to cheer you, gave you up in despair long ago.
   Perhaps they call you foolish, but God knows that it is not folly, but
   a most grievous calamity that has happened to you. You cannot see Jesus
   and you do not think that He can see you--but He does and that is your
   only ray of hope! If I were to attempt to comfort you, I know that I
   would fail. If you are the person of whom I am thinking, no language
   from merely human lips will ever comfort you--there will have to be a
   Divine Voice reaching your inmost soul or else you will never be loosed
   from your infirmity! We meet with some such persons every now and then
   and we try to cheer them. It is right that we should do so. We pity
   them and we are quite sure that our Lord Jesus Christ pities them still
   more, for there is not one of us whose heart is one half as tender
   towards his fellow man as the heart of Christ, Himself, is and must be.
   So, you poor afflicted ones tossed with tempest and not comforted--you
   downtrodden, sin-burdened souls--Jesus picks you out of this throng, as
   He picked out that poor woman in the synagogue, that He may have mercy
   upon you as He had upon her!

   II. Secondly, JESUS ISSUED A COMMAND--"He called her to Him."

   Somehow or other He managed to attract her attention and then, probably
   not without considerable difficulty and pain, she made a great effort
   and, at last, was able to see Him. And He said something to this
   effect, "Will that poor woman over yonder who is bent double, come here
   to Me?" Whatever words He may have used, we know that "He called her to
   Him." Was not that command a proof of great Grace and condescension on
   Christ's part? If He, the Messiah, who spoke as never man spoke, had
   called the ruler of the synagogue and spoken familiarly to him, one
   might not have wondered so much. Yet, out of all that throng He did not
   call anyone except that poor decrepit, bowed-down, Satan-possessed
   daughter of Abraham! And we are expressly told that, "He called her to
   Him." He might have called to her from a distance and said, "Be
   healed," but He did not, for He wished to show His special sympathy
   with such a sad case of suffering.

   This call was not only given in great condescension, but it was also
   given directly and personally to her--"He called her to Him." If Jesus
   had said, "I wish any person here who suffers from a spirit of
   infirmity to come to Me," perhaps she

   might have come, perhaps she might not. But, instead of giving a
   general intimation like that, He fixed His eyes on her, and "called her
   to Him." Do any of you remember a sermon--I do very well--in which the
   preacher seemed to speak to nobody but yourself? I am fully persuaded
   that if I had been like the prisoners in some of our jails--shut up in
   a box where I could not see anybody but the preacher--on the occasion
   when the Lord met with me, the preacher could not have addressed
   himself more pointedly to me than he then did! And on the occasion to
   which our text refers, Christ addressed Himself to this woman
   personally and pointedly. I am hoping that the description I have given
   of the woman will make someone here say, "Ah, that is just my case!"
   Well, if so, O poor bowed-down daughter, poor languishing, desponding
   man, Jesus calls you! If that description applies to you, take the
   personal call to yourself and say, "This condescending, pointed call is
   addressed to me."

   Then do as this poor woman did--make it a call which was promptly
   obeyed. I daresay that the other people in the synagogue were very
   surprised that Christ called her, yet they made way for her and,
   strange object as she was--perhaps, every step painful to her--she
   managed to get where Christ was. As she was coming towards Him, she
   heard Him make this extraordinary statement, "Woman, you are loosed
   from your infirmity." And when she got close to Him, He laid both His
   hands on her, "and immediately she was made straight." How startled she
   must have been--even at Christ's first call--and little did she dream
   that He was going to cure her in such a fashion! And perhaps there is
   someone here whom Christ means to save, yet you have not even been
   thinking of Him. Nevertheless, thus is it written in the counsels of
   eternity, "In the Tabernacle, on that summer Sunday night,
   such-and-such a soul must be delivered from the bondage of Satan." If
   it is so written, all the devils in Hell cannot hold you captive beyond
   the appointed moment! And all the weight of your sins and the evil
   habits that you have formed and so long practiced shall burn like so
   much straw in a blazing fire, for God's eternal decree of Mercy must be
   fulfilled! And He who comes to deliver you is none other than Christ,
   the Son of God, "mighty to save," before whom gates of brass are broken
   and bars of iron are snapped in sunder!

   It was a glorious Sabbath for that poor woman when the Lord came forth,
   determined to heal her! And this will be a glorious Sabbath for you if
   the Lord now resolves to save you! He is even now calling you doubters,
   you desponding ones, you who have given up all hope! He is calling you,
   will you not come to Him? Will you not trust Him? He asks you to
   believe, not that youare good, but that He is good--not that you can be
   healed by your neighbor, but that you can be healed by your Savior! He
   asks you to come and listen to His gracious words while He says, "Your
   sins are forgiven you; go in peace." "I have blotted out, as a thick
   cloud, your transgressions and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto Me,
   for I have redeemed you."

   III. We have so far noticed two things--Christ's compassion excited and
   His command issued. Next, CHRIST'S POWER WAS MANIFESTED--and that was
   done in a very instructive way.

   Jesus said to her, " Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity'" It is
   the Word of the Lord that has power in it. Whenever people are
   converted and brought to Christ, it is by God's Word that the deed is
   done. Fine sermons never win souls--you may blaze away, young man, at a
   terrific rate with your brilliant oratory and your fine pieces of
   poetry and quotations from eminent authors! And your sermon ending may
   be like the set piece at a display of fireworks, or the final burst of
   brightness with which it all ends--but all that will not save souls!
   What does save souls, then? Why, the Word of the Lord, the Truth of God
   as it is in Jesus! I have noticed that the very words of Scripture are
   usually those that reach the heart, so, Brothers and Sisters, if you
   really want to find the Lord, give good heed to His Word! Incline your
   ears and come to Him--hear, and your soul shall live, for "faith comes
   by hearing, and hearing by the Word of the Lord."

   In addition to speaking to the woman, Christ laid His hands on herand
   that is the way that healing reaches sin-sick souls, by being brought
   into contact with Christ! When the pure Humanity of Christ is
   recognized by us and we perceive that He is our Brother and our
   Friend--when we see that He bears both our sins and our sorrows and
   carries our sicknesses in His own blessed Person--when we realize that
   Christ has become our Representative and Surety--a sense of peace comes
   to our soul! One reason why Jesus is so well qualified to save us is
   that--

   "He knows what sore temptations mean, For He has felt the same"--

   and He is, therefore, able to aid those who are tempted. Bowed-down
   woman, He puts His pierced hands upon you! Sorely troubled man, know
   you not that God has taken your nature upon Himself and now says to
   you, "Be you comforted,

   for I have loved you and lived for you and died for you"? God grant
   that you may feel that healing touch and experience that Divine
   Deliverance this very hour!

   That afflicted woman was healed immediately. One of the most wonderful
   things about Christ's cures was that, as a general rule, they were
   worked in an instant. Can you imagine--I have often tried to do so--the
   strange sensations that passed through some of those people when they
   were healed in a moment? Think of this poor woman--18 years bent double
   and then completely restored in a single instant! What a paradise must
   have been condensed into those few minutes! At first I suppose she may
   have thought that she was only dreaming. What? Was she able to stand
   upright and to look into the face of Him who had worked such a
   wonderful cure for her? The rapture must have seemed almost too much
   for her when she realized that she was healed in an instant! And what
   if, just now, you should be savedin an instant? Remember that to pardon
   sin does not take God a single second--to save a soul from death and
   Hell is a more rapid work than for the lightning bolt to fall from
   Heaven! At one moment a great load of sin may be upon you and you may
   be fully conscious of the terrible burden--the next instant every sin
   is gone and you are conscious that it is so--and ready to leap for joy!
   Nobody can work this mighty miracle of mercy but the Lord Jesus Christ,
   yet He can do it more swiftly than I can speak of it. Oh, that some who
   have been bound by Satan for 18 years, or even longer, may prove that
   they do not need 18 minutes, or even 18 seconds to get free--but may
   they now look to Jesus and, believing in Him, find instantaneous
   healing!

   Once more, this woman's cure was perfectas well as instantaneous. She
   did not lift herself up a little and find that the Satanic bondage was
   being somewhat relaxed. No, she was perfectly healed and, better still,
   she was permanently healed! Her malady did not come back. We have known
   doctors set a man up for a little time and, after that, there has been
   a relapse. But this woman was both made straight and kept straight--and
   if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the salvation which He gives
   us, though it is instantaneous, is also perfect and everlasting, for
   whoever trusts in Christ is saved immediately and saved forever! The
   gifts and calling of God are not matters for repentance on His part--He
   does not give salvation and then take it back, but, having once given
   it, it remains the property of its possessor world without end! Then
   what a precious Christ He is and what a glorious Healer! I hope some
   sick one here is saying, "I wish He would look this way, oh, that Jesus
   would look on me!" He is looking upon you, Soul! Hear what He says to
   you, "Come unto Me. Trust in Me." If you trust Jesus now, though you
   have been bent double these eighteen, these twenty-eight, these
   thirty-eight, these forty-eight, these fifty-eight, these
   sixty-eight--these 98 years, or these 118 years, if such a person could
   be, if you did but look to Him, come to Him, trust Him--in a moment He
   would make you whole! Oh, that you may do so!

   IV. The last thing of all is this--CHRIST'S POWER WAS GLORIFIED.

   It is said of this woman that, immediately, being made straight, she
   "glorified God." I should think she did! I should not mind having
   interruptions in our service from people who had found Christ. Our
   Methodist friends in the olden times, when they found peace, used to
   shout, "Hallelujah!" Well, if they really had found Christ, I think
   they were warranted in shouting. If ever a man might cry, "Eureka!
   Eureka!" it was not the old philosopher, but the new-born child of God!
   Oh, what bliss it is to find the Savior! If one were, for a little
   while, delirious with the excessive joy of being saved by Grace, it
   might be excusable. It is said that some of our young converts are
   wonderfully enthusiastic. Yes, and well they may be! If you had
   received such a blessing as they have, you would be enthusiastic, too!
   If you have ever known the weight of sin crushing you to the dust and
   then have had it suddenly borne away, you must have felt a mighty
   rebound when that great load had been removed. Could that healed woman
   help clapping her hands? Did she not stand up before the whole
   congregation in the synagogue and say, "That Man must be the Son of
   God, blessed be His holy name! After 18 years of bondage, He has healed
   me in a moment!"

   Or suppose that she was of the very quiet sort--like the most of you
   good Sisters--if she did not say a word, yet I think she glorified God
   by simply standing up straight. If she did not say anything, but just
   walked away home, all who had known her in her long time of affliction,
   when they saw her stand up, a fine tall handsome woman--and knew that
   she must be the same person--must have been struck with wonder and have
   said, "What new power is this? Who but God could thus have restored
   this woman?" I would like, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, that you and
   I would so live that our very lives would preach for Jesus Christ--that
   people would only have to listen to our ordinary conversation, or to
   see the cheerfulness of our countenance, or to perceive the hopefulness
   of our spirit under trouble, our justness and integrity,

   our readiness to forgive, our zeal for God! It is good to preach with
   your tongue if God has called you to do so. But never forget that the
   best preaching in the world is done by other members of the body. So,
   preach with your feet--by your walk and conversation! Let your whole
   being be a living, powerful, irresistible illustration of the power of
   Jesus Christ to bless and save!

   It was so in the case of this woman, for I do not think that after she
   had clapped her hands once and stood up to testify before the whole
   congregation, that she was finished glorifying God. Oh, no! All her
   life she would be glad to tell that story over and over again! I wonder
   whether she got married after that wonderful healing? It is very likely
   that she did. And if so, and she had children of her own, as they sat
   on her knee one of the first stories she would tell them would be about
   when she was bent double for 18 years and then that wonderful Prophet
   called her to Him in the synagogue, one Sabbath, and made her straight
   in a moment! Perhaps she lived long enough to tell the story of
   Christ's suffering and death. If she ever saw any of her grandchildren,
   I am sure they would say, "Come, Granny, tell us your story," and she
   would tell it so well that they would want to hear it again and again!

   I think that every Christian should go home to his friends and tell
   them what great things the Lord has done for them. There is a
   Brother--not far from me at this moment--who had been a wild young man,
   fond of all the sports of the country. He went to London and heard a
   sermon that was the means of his conversion. When he went home, one of
   his friends with whom he used to follow the hounds, said to him, "Well,
   Tom, what is the best thing you heard in London?" And Tom replied, "The
   best thing I heard in London is that Christ Jesus came into the world
   to save sinners." "Oh," said his companion, "you have gone mad!" "No,"
   answered Tom, "I was mad before I went to London, but I have been
   cured." I hope you will be able to give such testimony as that
   concerning what Jesus Christ has done for your souls, even as this poor
   woman "was made straight, and glorified God."

   Some people may say to you, "You had better hold your tongue, for you
   will break down if you try to tell such a story as that." That would be
   the very best thing you could do! There is nothing like a break-down
   when you are telling your story of redeeming Grace and dying love--it
   is the very glory of it when you break down with emotion and cannot say
   any more--for your hearers will be all the more anxious to know the
   rest of it! And there will be a deeper impression produced by your
   breaking down than there would have been if you had kept right on. But,
   anyway, do tell the story! Tell it as long as you have any breath in
   your body! Tell how "Jesus has done all things well" and saved your
   soul. Make Heaven and earth to ring with the glad news! And when you go
   Home to Glory, tell the angels all about it, for they will be glad to
   hear your story and they will break out into fresh praise as they
   listen to it! May God thus bless every one of you, for Jesus Christ's
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM9.

   This Psalm has a dedication which is very difficult to understand--"To
   the chief Musician upon Muth-labben. A Psalm of David." Either
   "Muth-labben" is the tune to which the Psalm was to be sung, or some
   musical instrument that is now forgotten, or else it alludes to Ben,
   who was one of the Levitical singers mentioned in 1 Chronicles 15:18.
   In all probability, however, the true translation of the title is, "A
   Psalm on the death of the son," or, "on the death of the champion," and
   it is thought by some that it was composed by David after the death of
   giant Goliath. If it is so, I think you will see, as we read the Psalm,
   that it well proclaims the victory which God had worked.

   Verse 1. I willpraise You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I willshow
   forth all Your marvelous works. It will be well if we also resolve that
   we will praise the Lord. Most people have something or someone to
   praise, so let us select the Lord, even Jehovah, as the Subject of our
   song. Let us resolve that we will praise Him continually, for it may be
   difficult, sometimes, to do it. The heart may be very heavy--it may
   even be inclined to rebellion and murmuring--but let us make this
   strong resolution in the power of God's Grace--"I will show forth all
   Your marvelous works." Here is room for great variety of praise and
   here are abundant topics for praise, for there is no work of God which
   is not marvelous and worthy of being praised with our whole heart! So,
   Lord, I will not be dumb. You have given me a tongue--I am not like the
   brute beasts that cannot speak--my tongue is the glory of my frame, so
   with it I will show forth all Your marvelous works.

   2. I will be glad and rejoice in You: I will sing praise to Your name,
   O You most High. Get up, then, my Soul, out of the dark places of your
   despondency! Rise, my drooping spirit, to something higher and better.
   If you cannot be glad in anything else, be glad in your God--be glad
   that you have a God and such a God--and that He is still your God.
   Whatever else you may have lost, you have not lost Him. "I will be glad
   and rejoice." The reduplication of the words indicates a double joy--a
   double gladness! As the Apostle says, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and
   again I say, Rejoice." Be glad twice over, for you have double cause
   for rejoicing in the Lord.

   3. When my enemies are turned back, they shall fall andperish at Your
   Presence. As much as to say, "The Presence of God is quite enough to
   make my adversaries flee--yes, and to utterly cut them off." As John
   Wesley said, "The best of all is God is with us." And if God is with
   us, it matters little to us who are against us!

   4. For You have maintained my right and my cause; You sat in the throne
   judging right One of our noblemen has this for his motto, "I will
   maintain it." But the Christian has a far better one--"You have
   maintained my right." If David sang thus after he had hurled the stone
   from his sling into Goliath's skull, he might well magnify the name of
   the Lord who had maintained the rights of His people and put the
   uncircumcised champion of the Philistines to confusion and death!

   5. 6. You have rebuked the heathen, You have destroyed the wicked, You
   haveput out their name forever and ever. Oyou enemy. You can conceive
   of David, standing on the prostrate form of his fallen foe, and looking
   on that gigantic countenance and those mighty limbs, crying out, "O you
   enemy"--

   6. 7. Destructions are finished forever! And you have destroyed cities,
   their memory is perished with them. But the Lord shall endure forever:
   He has prepared His Throne for judgment. ' 'You have destroyed cities,"
   but you could not destroy God. When you did defy the armies of other
   nations, you could easily put them to rout, but when you did defy the
   living God--then there was the end of you, for you could not overcome
   Him, nor overcome His people. Blessed be God for this--our faith is
   founded upon a rock that never shall be removed--and our confidence is
   fixed upon One who can never fail us and whose Truth must stand fast
   forever!

   8-10. And He shall judge the world in righteousness, He shall minister
   judgment to the people in uprightness. The LORD also will be a refuge
   for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know
   Your name will put their trust in You. The basis of faith is knowledge
   and there is no knowledge like that which comes from experience. If you
   know the name of God as Jehovah--the Self-Existent and Ever-Living
   God--you will have good reason for trusting Him. And then, if you know
   His many precious names--such as Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Lord Our
   Righteousness, Jeho-vah-Nissi, the Lord My Banner, Jehovah-Jireh, the
   Lord Will Provide, Jehovah-Shalom, the Peace-Giving God and
   Je-hovah-Shammah, the God Who Is There Where His People Are--yes, if
   any one name of God is fully understood by you, you will put your trust
   in Him!

   10-12. For You, LORD, have not forsaken them that seek You. Sing
   praises to the LORD who dwells in Zion: declare among the people His
   doings. When He makes inquisition for blood, He remembers them. When
   the great Coroner's Inquest shall be held upon all who have wrongly
   suffered, the commission will open by an enquiry concerning the blood
   of the martyrs--"When He makes inquisition for blood, He remembers
   them." His suffering ones, who laid down their lives for the Truth of
   God's sake, shall find that their blood was precious in His sight.

   12. He forgets not the cry of the humble. Is there no consolation in
   these words for some of you? You have been humbled and brought down
   from your high place. Now, then, is your time to cry--and when you do
   so, you will prove that "He forgets not the cry of the humble." There
   are many who give heed to the petitions of their needy fellow creatures
   and feel their force for a time--but they are engaged in business, or
   occupied in other ways--and they soon forget. Other things crowd out
   the needy one's petition and so he is left without help. But it is
   never so with God--"He forgets not the cry of the humble." Notice in
   the next verse how David avails himself of that Truth. He seems to say,
   "Is it true that God does not forget the cry of the humble? Then I will
   cry to Him and my humble cry shall go up to His ear and to

   His heart."

   13. Have mercy upon me, OLord. What a blessed prayer that is--a prayer
   useful on all occasions--under a sense of sin, or under a load of
   sorrow--burdened with labor, or crushed with despondency. It is a
   prayer which is like the cherubim's sword which turned every way--you
   may use it as you will. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord."

   13. Consider my trouble which I suffer by them that hate me, You that
   lifted me up from the gates of death. What a lift that is--lifted up
   from the gates of death into life and ultimately into Heaven! What an
   Almighty God our Lord proves Himself to be at a dead lift! When every
   other arm is paralyzed, He comes to us and lifts us up from the gates
   of death.

   14. That Imay show forth all Your praise in the gates of the daughter
   of Zion. From the gates of death to the gates of Zion is the lift which
   God gives to His poor suffering people!

   14, 15. I willrejoice in Your salvation. The heathen are sunk down in
   the pit that they made. If you picture David with the carcass of the
   giant before him, the Philistines put to ignominious flight and the
   Israelites in full pursuit after them, you can understand His saying,
   "The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made."

   15, 16. In the net which they hid is their own foot taken. The LORD is
   known by the judgment which He executes: the wicked is snared in the
   work of his own hands. Meditation. Selah. The probable meaning of these
   words is, "Consider and pause." They are musical rests, perhaps, but
   they also suggest to us how well it is, in our reading of the
   Scriptures, sometimes to stop a while and inwardly digest the Words
   that we have read.

   17. The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all the nations that
   forget God. Even if they are not outwardly as wicked as other men are,
   yet their forgetfulness of God is the highest form of injustice to Him!
   It is treason against the Majesty of Heaven! It is robbing God of what
   is His right! It is a combination of everything that is evil!

   18-20. For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of
   the poor shall not perish forever Arise, O LORD, let not man prevail:
   let the heathen be judged in Your sight Put them in fear, O LORD: that
   the nations may know themselves to be but men. They boast that they are
   men and that they quit themselves like men. Yet let them know that
   although they are men, they are only men--with all the infirmities and
   imperfections of men--and that there is a God who will, in due time,
   let men know that they are but men and that the best of men are but men
   at the best!

   20. Selah. Pause again, think over what we have been reading and lift
   up your heart in prayer to God, seeking the aid of the Holy Spirit to
   apply His Truth to your soul.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Free-agency of Christ

   (No. 2892)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   18, 1876.

   "And He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man unto Him, and
   besought Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand, and
   led him out of the town, and when He had spit on his eyes, and put His
   hands upon him, He asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up, and
   said, I see men as trees walking. After that He put His hands again
   upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every
   man clearly. And He sent him away to his house, saying, "Neither go
   into the town, nor tell it to any in the town." Mark 8:22-26.

   THERE are several points in which these people who brought the blind
   man to Christ deserve our commendation and our imitation. They believed
   that Christ could open that blind man's eyes. In like manner, may we
   all believe that Jesus can save our relatives, friends and
   acquaintances. If we are ourselves saved, let us always be firmly
   convinced that He is also able to save any whom we bring before Him in
   prayer. Let us never give way to despair concerning any person, however
   far he may have gone into sin. Who but the Divine Savior could open the
   eyes of this blind man? Nobody. Yet He could do it. So, if your friends
   are very sinful and hardened, no one but the Lord can save them. But He
   can do it, so believe that He can do it and in prayer bring your friend
   to the Savior as these people of Bethsaida brought this blind man to
   Christ.

   Their faith was of a practical kind. They were not content to simply
   believe that Christ could heal this man and then to remain sitting
   still. True faith is active faith, so these people brought the blind
   man to the Savior in whom they believed. If you are praying for any
   man's salvation, mind that you use the means that will best help to
   bring about that result. If there is any instrumentality which God
   peculiarly blesses to the conversion of souls, take care that you bring
   your friend under that instrumentality in the hope that God will bless
   it to him. Further, note that the blind man was willing to be brought
   to Jesus. Evidently he had at least as much faith as his friends had in
   the power of Jesus to open his eyes. It was a very hopeful case when
   the man and his friends believed in Christ's power to heal him--it was
   not likely to be long, then, before the miracle of mercy would be
   worked!

   Observe, also, that the faith of these friends of the blind man was
   further proved by their earnest prayers on his behalf. They brought him
   to Jesus, "and besought Him to touch him." It was prayer of a very
   forceful kind, as the word, "besought," clearly implies. It was also a
   very plain prayer--they did not make use of fine language, or beat
   about the bush so as to leave anyone in doubt as to what they wanted
   for their friend--they brought him to Jesus, "and besought Him to touch
   him." They desired that the blind man should be made to see and they
   thought that result would follow from Christ's touch--so they asked for
   that gift--and, dear Friends, whenever you pray for the conversion of
   anyone, mind that you pray straight for it. There are prayers that one
   has heard in Prayer Meetings which seem to go all round the world, but
   never to come to the case in hand. Let it not be so with you,
   especially in your private prayers, but pray for Jane, pray for Thomas,
   pray for your children or friends by name. Believingly, earnestly, in a
   business-like way put their case before the Lord Jesus Christ, just as
   if they were ill you would state their symptoms to the best physician
   you could find and ask him to prescribe for them!

   In all these points that I have mentioned, these people are to be
   commended and imitated--they believed in Christ's power to heal the
   blind man, they brought their friend to Him and they besought Christ's
   favor for him. In doing so, however, they made the mistake of
   prescribing to Christ the way in which they thought their friend should
   be healed-- they "besought Him to touch him." It was quite the usual
   thing--indeed, it was almost universally the Savior's rule to heal sick
   folk by laying His hands on them. And having seen Him do this, perhaps,
   on several occasions, these people had imbibed the notion that Christ
   healed the sick by His touch--that this was the special or the only way
   in which His power was manifested. They did not appear to know that it
   operated in any other way, so they, "besought Him to touch him."
   Possibly they had more confidence in the touch than they had in the
   Christ who gave it! In any event, they thought that the touch was
   essential to the cure and did not realize that Christ could cure the
   sick in any way that He pleased-- not only by His touch, but by His
   word, or, if He willed it, even without a word. Thus, they did, as it
   were, tie the Savior down to one particular method--and their faith,
   though it was real, was weak. Though it was acceptable as far as it
   went, it was imperfect--there was a measure of ignorance mingled with
   it. I am going to deal only with that point as I expect that some of us
   are making the same mistake that these people made.

   I. My first observation will be that IT IS A COMMON WEAKNESS OF FAITH
   TO EXPECT GRACE TO COME IN A CERTAIN FIXED WAY.

   Just as these people expected the healing of the bind man to come by
   the touch of Christ's hands, so many expect deliverance from trouble to
   come in a certain specified way. You know it is so with many of you to
   whom I am speaking. You have taken your troubles to the Lord--you have
   told Him all about your case and you have entrusted it to Him, but you
   have laid down the plan by which God is to work on your behalf. You
   remember how He delivered you on a former occasion and you expect Him
   to deliver you in exactly the same way again. Or you have been reading
   the biography of some worthy man who cast his care upon the Lord and he
   was helped in a certain manner--so you think you will be helped in the
   same manner. But, very likely, God will do nothing of the kind! He is
   not bound to give you any blessing in the particular way which you
   choose to select. He has His own method of giving a blessing and His
   own plan of warding off evil, so you must leave the, "how," and the,
   "when," entirely with Him. It is useless for you to think of mapping
   out the route for Him to whom the Psalmist said, "Your way is in the
   sea and Your path in the great waters, and Your footsteps are not
   known."

   The same error also occurs with many in seekingsanctifcation and growth
   in Grace. They are moved to ask, "Lord, is this how we are to grow in
   Grace?" Then the great Husbandman says, "Yes, 'tis even so. Good vines
   must feel the pruning knife. That is the way to make them more
   fruitful." A perplexed soul enquires, "Dear Master, is this the way
   that I am to be made like You?" And He replies, "Yes. I was made
   perfect through suffering and you must have fellowship with Me in this
   respect if you are to become like I." We had marked out quite another
   mode of procedure--our Lord's hands were to be laid upon us and so we
   were to be blessed! Yet He knows best--therefore let us say, "Even so,
   Father, for so it seems good in Your sight."

   The same mistake is often made with regard to conversion--the
   conversion of others, or our own conversion. I hope I am addressing
   many persons who are earnestly seeking faith in Christ, or who already
   have a measure of faith in Him, yet they have never obtained the full
   assurance of peace and rest because they have looked for it to come to
   them in a certain way. You expected to receive the blessing of
   forgiveness while you were listening to the preaching of the Gospel. Or
   having heard that many people have been converted under such-and-such a
   preacher, you have gone to hear him, earnestly praying all the while
   that the Lord would save you through that man's preaching. Yet He has
   not done so. It may be that He has ordained to bless you through some
   other means--well, be not cast down on that account, but be thankful if
   He blesses you anyway. Possibly you went with the great crowd that
   gathered to hear some notable evangelist and, after the public service,
   you went into the enquiry-room, as you heard that many had been led to
   Christ in that way, and you thought it would be so with you, but it was
   not. Well, be not surprised or sad if that is the case--it was not your
   place to dictate the way in which the Lord should reveal Himself to
   you!

   It may be that you heard of a certain book being very useful to
   enquirers and seekers, and you said, "I will read that book and ask the
   Lord to bless it to me." You did so, yet you were none the better and
   you blamed yourself for not getting any good out of the book which had
   been blessed to others. Yet you must remember that God has His own ways
   and times of revealing Himself to His people. It is quite possible that
   you thought too much of that preacher, or that enquiry-room, or that
   good book--and that you did not think enough of Jesus, Himself--and
   probably if you had looked to Him rather than to the instrumentality,
   you would long before this have had your eyes opened and have seen
   everything

   clearly! You laid down certain conditions for Christ, but He would not
   comply with those conditions, but acted according to the good pleasure
   of His own will.

   It is the same when we try to lay down conditions with regard to the
   conversion of our friends. I remember well the story of two Christian
   gentlemen who had a young companion who was about to start on a long
   voyage--I think, to China--and they persuaded him to spend a week with
   them. And they made it a matter of earnest prayer that during that week
   their young friend might be converted to God. They had real faith and
   they very properly used the means which they thought likely to be
   blessed to him. They induced him to attend various places of worship
   during the week, taking him to hear a different preacher each
   night--but apparently in vain. At last there remained only the Friday
   night--and only one man whom they had not taken their young friend to
   hear--that was good old Rowland Hill and they had left him to the last
   because he was said to be so eccentric and so likely to say strange
   things which they were afraid might disgust the young man.

   They prayed very earnestly that God would keep Mr. Hill from saying
   anything amusing, lest their friend should be made to laugh, but, that
   night, the preacher was more humorous than usual and Surrey Chapel was
   made to ring again and again as peals of laughter followed the telling
   of some extraordinary story in his inimitable way! And the very proper
   gentlemen were quite shocked and saddened. Among other things, Mr. Hill
   said that during the day he had seen some pigs follow a butcher into
   the slaughterhouse and he could not make out why they did so until he
   noticed that the butcher had his pocket full of peas which he threw out
   to the swine and so induced them to follow him to their death. "Then,"
   added Mr. Hill, "I understood why people follow the devil though he
   leads them to death--it is because he draws them after him with the
   pleasures of the world--as the butcher drew the pigs after him with the
   peas!" Those gentlemen thought it was a pity that the preacher spoke
   like that and when they came out, they felt sorry they had taken their
   young friend to hear him.

   But he walked along very quietly for a time and then said, "That was a
   very striking story about the pigs and the peas, and most appropriate
   to my own case. I have gone after sin for the sake of the pleasure of
   it, without thinking of the consequences, and now I see what a fool I
   have been." That rather rough illustration was the means of leading the
   young man to lay hold on Christ as his Savior before he went on his
   way! Those two gentlemen brought their friend to Christ, as these
   people brought the blind man to Him, "and besought Him to touch him,"
   but the Lord Jesus chose to work by the very instrumentality of which
   his followers were afraid! He often uses very strange means--means we
   do not like, perhaps--means which would never occur to us as helpful.
   And He does this to teach us that the power to cure is not in the man,
   or in the means, or in the place, or in the excitement of the hour, but
   it is in Himself alone! And He works just how He wills and when He
   wills--and when it is His set time to save a sinner, He uses His own
   instrument--whether it is Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the learned,
   or the eloquent, or the impulsive!

   II. Secondly, THE LORD TAKES CARE TO PREVENT THE DISHONOR WHICH WOULD
   THUS COME TO

   HIM.

   Observe how He did it in this case. They brought this blind man to Him
   and besought Him to touch him. So, first, Christ did touch him, yet did
   not heal him--"He took the blind man by the hand." That was certainly
   touching him, yet his eyes were not opened. Jesus kept His hand on the
   blind man "and led him out of the town," but he was still a blind man!
   How very surprised the poor man, himself, must have been! His own faith
   led him to expect that if Christ would but touch him, his eyes would be
   opened. He must have had a feeling of astonishment and despondency when
   he felt that touch--a prolonged touch--a touch that gripped his hand
   and led him through the town, right away past the last of the houses
   and out into the fields--yet a touch that did not enable him to see!
   But did not that very disappointment make the man realize, once and for
   all, that it was not merely Christ's touch that opened blind eyes, but
   Christ Himself who worked the miracle? It was evident that He could, if
   He pleased, give a touch that did not open the eyes of the blind.
   Manifestly, there was no magic about the mere touch of Christ's
   fingers, for His fingers were touching the blind man's fingers all the
   while, yet he did not even begin to see anything.

   This is the lesson which the Lord is still teaching us. The preaching
   of the Gospel is the great means of the salvation of sinners, for
   "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." But if you
   look merely to the preaching--and especially if you look simply to the
   preacher, instead of looking to Christ, Himself--it is more than likely
   that the preaching will be in vain as far as you are concerned. You may
   listen to it attentively and even ask God to bless you by

   means of it, yet it may be to you only like Christ's hand was to the
   blind man. It is even possible for the Gospel to be a savor of death
   unto death, as well as of life unto life! And even to those whom Christ
   means to bless, it may be without power as long as they look to it
   instead of looking to Christ.

   The next thing that Christ did for the blind man was this. His friends
   expected that Christ would heal the man before the crowd but He did
   not. They probably thought, "Now, if the Savior will but put His
   fingers on our friend's eyes and make him see, all the onlookers will
   know of it, their faith will be strengthened and Christ will be
   glorified." But Christ will not do anything to the blind man before the
   crowd. He takes him by the hand and leads him right away from the
   throng. He will not begin to operate upon him while anybody else is
   near, but conducts him away where he will be quite alone. Now, in the
   preaching of the Gospel, it is a very usual thing for our Lord Jesus
   Christ to save men in the crowd there. And many thousands of souls have
   heard of Jesus, believed in Him and found salvation in the midst of a
   throng of their fellows. But nowhere in His Word do we read that He
   intends to always save people in throngs and crowds. On the contrary,
   there are some to whom He seems to say, "I shall not save you here.
   Come away from the public assembly and get into the quiet of your own
   home."

   Do not object and say, "But, Lord, I thought I could believe in You,
   here and now, and so find peace." That is not His will, for your
   believing is to be exercised out in the fields where you can be quite
   alone, or upstairs in that little room of yours where, in the dead of
   night you shall sit up in your bed, with nobody near you, and turn over
   in your mind the Truths of God you have been hearing and then and there
   put your trust in Jesus. It is dishonoring to Christ for us to say, "If
   we can only get large companies of people together and arouse them with
   stirring appeals and sweet singing, we are sure to get them converted."
   The crowd has really nothing to do with the matter of conversion! And
   while Christ, blessed be His name, does save many in the crowd, yet if
   we get to regard the presence of the crowd as essential to the
   conversion of anybody, He will very likely take that individual apart,
   as He did with this blind man when He took him by the hand and led him
   out of the town!

   The next point is this. Our Lord usually worked His miracles
   instantaneously, yet He would not be tied down to work always in the
   same way. So this blind man is gradually enabled to see. First, only
   partial sight is granted to him, then the obscuring film is removed and
   he sees clearly. There is a deep spiritual lesson for us in this action
   of our Lord. Perhaps somebody has said, "I know that So-and-So found
   peace with God in a moment--and I will not believe until I get the
   blessing in the same way." My dear Friend, let me tell you very
   solemnly that you must not presume to make any stipulation with Christ
   as to how you are to believe and when you are to believe! If you mean
   to be His follower, you will have to get rid of that proud spirit and
   leave the Lord to save you in His own way. Some find joy and peace in
   an instant, but there are others who first receive a little Light and
   then a little more, and a little more till gradually they see as
   clearly as this man did.

   In the tropics, the sun seems, in the morning, to leap up the horizon
   and to turn darkness into light in a very short period. But in this
   country the sun gives us longer notice of its coming. It shoots many
   arrows of light before it, with rosy steps, advances in the full glory
   of the dawning day! It is just so in the spiritual realm--there are
   some tropical Christians who pass from darkness to light in a moment.
   Others are of the temperate zone--slower in their growth, yet they
   receive the Light of God just as surely as the others. When you read
   the story of anyone's conversion, do not say, "That is the way I am
   going to be saved." Of course there is only one way of salvation--that
   is, by faith in Christ--but there are many ways in which Christ gives
   this great blessing to the sons of men! And you must leave Him to work
   in His own way. The Spirit, like the wind, blows where He wishes and
   when He wishes and if you try to dictate to Him, you will grieve Him
   and miss the blessing you desire to obtain.

   Further, the Savior employed means which these people had not suggested
   and which probably appeared to them to be quite unsuitable. In a
   similar fashion, my Friend, I hope that you are going to be saved and I
   urge you to look to Christ that you may obtain salvation through Him.
   Yet it is quite possible that you are not going to be saved in the way
   you think. You are very fond of your minister and he is very helpful to
   you in many ways--yet God probably means to bless you by some other
   servant of His. Perhaps by some godly woman. The Lord has, many a time,
   brought "her ladyship" into the light by means of the cook or the
   housemaid! And "my lord" has been brought to the Savior by a man whom
   he would hardly have employed to black his boots. The Lord can use
   whatever means He likes--and sometimes He uses means which we would
   never have thought of using.

   I have heard of a father who used to pray much for the conversion of
   his sons and daughters, yet he did not see one of them saved. When he
   came to die, his family had all grown up and they had, themselves,
   become the heads of other households. He sent for them to come to his
   bedside and he prayed very earnestly that he might die so joyful and
   triumphant a death that they might be convinced of the beauty and power
   of vital godliness--and seek the Savior for themselves. That was his
   plan of bringing his family to Jesus, but it pleased the Lord to allow
   him to be in great pain of body and much distress of mind. Indeed, he
   was in such anguish of heart that his testimony to the power of Divine
   Grace was of a very negative character! He had no songs of triumph, but
   he had many moans of pain and many questions about his spiritual state.
   God puts many of His children to bed in the dark, but they are His
   children all the same. It is of the wicked that it is written, "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."
   God's best servants often pass away under a cloud--and it was so with
   the friend of whom I am speaking. One of his last utterances was the
   expression of his intense regret that his sons would be confirmed in
   their unbelief by his experience in his dying hour--yet mark what
   really happened!

   They all knew of his genuine piety. They had not a doubt about that
   matter, for they reckoned him to be one of the best of men and, as they
   gathered in the house after the funeral, the eldest son said to them,
   "Brothers and sisters, our father died a very sad death, yet we know
   that his soul was saved. We all know that he trusted Christ as his
   Savior and that he lived a most godly life. Now," he said, "if such a
   man as our father found it hard to die, think how much harder it will
   be for us if we have to die without a Savior." The same thought had
   occurred to the rest of the family and it was not long before they all
   sought and found their father's God and Savior! You see, the Lord
   really heard his prayer and granted him the desire of his heart--though
   not in the way he expected. And He will hear you, my Brother, and He
   will hear you, my Sister, but the answer may not come in your way. The
   Lord has His own way of doing His own work and, sometimes He adopts
   very singular methods to teach us that there is no power in the method
   He uses, but that all the power lies in Himself!

   III. The third thing to be noted in this narrative is that OUR BLESSED
   LORD TAKES CARE TO HONOR FAITH EVEN WHEN HE REBUKES ITS WEAKNESS. He
   did not open this blind man's eyes in the way his friends asked Him to
   do, but He did open his eyes and He did a great deal more than that for
   him. And I want you to notice how the Lord Jesus honored the imperfect
   faith of this man and his friends--though He also rebuked its
   imperfections.

   First, our Lord condescended to guide this blind man. This is one of
   the most beautiful incidents in Scripture. I should like to meet with
   an artist who could worthily depict Christ leading that blind man out
   of the town. It is not everybody who would undertake such a task as
   that, but our Lord condescended to take this poor fellow who could not
   see anything by the hand and lead him right away from the crowd that
   had gathered. It was something to be that blind man--I think I would be
   willing to lose the sight of my eyes if I might be led by Christ as he
   was! O blessed blindness that brings Christ into such close contact
   with this poor man! Was he not greatly honored? Surely he was the most
   highly honored blind man who ever lived, thus to have Christ to guide
   him. Sometimes you see a blind man led by a dog and, sometimes, by a
   child--but Christ Himself undertakes the task in this case! The blind
   man believed in Jesus sufficiently to be led by Him and Jesus led him
   further than he expected.

   Note next that Christ left all the rest of the crowd for the sake of
   this one blindman. I do not know how many there were to whom Christ was
   preaching, but He said, "Good-bye" to them all that He might take this
   poor blind man by the hand and lead him out of the town. Have not you,
   dear Friend, found the Lord Jesus Christ deal with you, sometimes, as
   if you were the only person in the world? Has not His love been so
   graciously manifested that you have said, "Why, if I were the most
   important person in the world, He could not do more for me than He has
   done." So, on this occasion, Christ left everybody else, for the time
   being, that He might devote all His attention to this one blind man. He
   seemed to say to him, "My Friend, I am going to take you into My
   surgery room that I may perform an operation upon you. And I want you
   to be alone with Me that I may give all My thoughts to your case."

   So, putting all others aside, "Christ begins to cure this blind man.
   For ointment, He uses the spit from His mouth. Then He lays His hands
   upon the man and asks him whether he can see anything. After his
   answer, telling that the cure is working, Christ puts His hands again
   upon the blind man's eyes and makes him look up. Christ does not give
   His system a shock by revealing the full light to him all at once, but
   He works the miracle as gently as the wisest nurse or the most loving
   mother might have done. So it comes to pass that although the man does
   not get what his friends asked for him, he

   gets something a great deal better, for Christ gave him a complete
   cure, so that "he saw every man clearly." Christ did not send him away
   with one eye opened and the other still remaining closed, or revealing
   just a little light in one corner of it. Christ did not leave him
   cross-eyed or short-sighted, but he "saw every man clearly."

   It seems to me that Christ must have cured this man entirely out of
   love to him. He may have cured some others partly with the view of
   their publishing His name and fame so as to attract other sufferers to
   Him, but He did not cure this man for that reason, for, when He had
   opened his eyes, He said to him, "Do not go into the town, and do not
   talk of this miracle to anybody who comes from the town. You can go
   home to your own village and tell the people there all about what I
   have done, but, otherwise, this is a matter between you and Me alone."

   Now, dear Friends, you who are seeking the Lord, but cannot find Him,
   is there not a lesson for you in this narrative? I pray you to give up
   dictating to the Lord as to how He is to save you, for He has a far
   better way of working than you have even dreamt of at present and,
   possibly, His way will be to get you quite alone and gradually to lead
   you into the light. He means to have some private talk with you, not
   meant for any other ear. He means to make Himself known to you in a
   peculiarly special manner--not in your way, but in His own far superior
   way! Then, why do you object to His plan? Your one business is to
   believe in Him, to rely wholly on Him and to praise Him for His great
   goodness to you. I pray you, do not quibble about ways and methods, but
   trust the Lord fully. If you do so, it shall not be long before you
   will get the Light of God and the joy, and the peace for which you are
   praying!

   How long I was, myself, dictating to God instead of trusting Him! I
   thought I must have a certain amount of conviction of sin before I
   could be saved. I really had it all the while, though I did not know
   that I had it. I thought I must feel a certain weight of guilt. I was
   feeling it and, for that very reason, I thought I was not. I might have
   been spared much needless suffering if I had only believed what the
   Lord had taught me in His Word--that I had nothing to do with feeling
   burdens or anything else by way of preparation for coming to Christ,
   but that I had to come to Him just as I was. If I could not come to Him
   with a broken heart, I was to come to Him to break it. If I did not
   feel any true conviction of sin, or a single atom of repentance in my
   soul, there was all the more reason why I should come to Him and,
   without money, buy all that I needed. So, poor blind ones, come to my
   Master, blind as you are--but do not lay down any rules or regulations
   as to how He is to save you, for He will do it in His own way, which
   is, after all, the best possible way.

   IV. Now I close with a fourth remark. WHEN THE LORD HAS TAKEN PAINS TO
   PREVENT US FROM ATTACHING TOO GREAT IMPORTANCE TO THE MEANS,
   THEMSELVES, HE PUTS HONOR UPON THE MEANS.

   I have already called your attention to this fact. The blind man's
   friends trusted too much to Christ's touch and too little to Christ
   Himself! He wanted to cure them of that evil, so He touched the man yet
   left him unhealed. But after He had taken him out of the town and away
   from the people, He did, after all, heal him by a touch, or something
   more than a touch, for He put His hands upon him twice, so that, though
   there was a touch that did not heal, there were afterwards two touches
   that did! It was as though Christ would say to them, "How foolish you
   are to trust in the touch instead of in Me! But when I have cured you
   of that folly, then will I put honor upon My touch which is the method
   by which I usually heal the sick."

   It is so, too, with you who hear the Gospel, yet who seem to hear it in
   vain, for the Lord means you not to trust in your hearing, but to trust
   in Him. After He has cured you of that evil, I should not wonder if you
   hear the Gospel twice as well as anybody else does--and I expect that
   it will come with double power to your soul! It is so in this narrative
   and it is often so as a matter of spiritual experience. When the Lord
   has taken us away from trusting in ordinances, then He shows us what
   great blessings come from the ordinances when they are rightly
   observed. When we trust to the preacher, or the preaching, we get
   nothing--but when we trust in Christ alone, then He makes the preacher,
   the preaching and other means of Grace to be the channels of blessing
   to our souls!

   Then, lastly, the Lord sent that man home without letting anyone in
   that neighborhood know of the cure He had worked. Christ thereby seems
   to say, "There are many whom I heal of whom nobody knows." There is a
   message to us preachers in this incident! Christ seems to say to us,
   "This is often My way of saving souls. I give the healing touch, but
   you do not know anything about it." Certainly, none of us can calculate
   the amount of virtue which pours out of Christ through the preaching of
   the Word. The Last Great Day will reveal the myriads of men and women
   who have been

   brought to Jesus through the preaching of the Gospel, but, who,
   nevertheless, were never known to the preacher, himself, although they
   were converted through his instrumentality!

   O Brothers and Sisters, keep on telling poor sinners about the Savior!
   Try to bring them into contact with Christ! You may not actually see
   Him open their eyes, for He may take them out of the town and work the
   great miracle privately. You bring them into contact with Christ and
   although that may not save them, it will lead up to their salvation
   and, therefore, you will be doing good service to them and to your
   Master, too! Preach away, my Brother, and preach nothing but Jesus!
   Teach your classes, my Brothers and Sisters, nothing but Jesus and seek
   to get His hands into contact with the children of men! But when you
   work, and when you pray, do not lay it down that God must bless souls
   by you, or by anybody else! But say to Him that if He will but save
   them anyhow, you will be content and thankful.

   And as for you, poor Sinners, seek salvation by simply trusting in
   Jesus and if you have not any clear vision of Him at this moment, get
   to your knees and do not rise till you have found Him as your Savior!
   He has His own ways and methods of working, so you must trust Him--not
   the method--and He will bless you with life eternal! So may He do for
   His own name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 4:33-41; 5:12-17.

   We are going to read some verses in the fourth and fifth chapters of
   Luke's Gospel--hospital chapters, I may call them, for they record many
   marvelous cures which were worked by the Great Physician, the Lord
   Jesus Christ. We shall begin at the 33rd verse of the fourth chapter.

   Luke 4:33, 34. And in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of
   an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us
   alone; what have we to do with You, You Jesus of Nazareth? There are
   many people in the present day who have this evil spirit in them and
   they also say, "Let us alone." They do not want to have their
   consciences disturbed. They would rather sleep on until they wake up in
   another world where their awaking will be too late to be of use for
   their repentance.

   34. Have You come to destroy us? I know You, who You are, the Holy One
   of God. That is an old trick of the devil, to acknowledge the
   excellence of the preacher that he may avoid the personal application
   of the sermon--and there are many people who are quite satisfied when
   they have said concerning the Word which they have heard, "Yes, it was
   all true, and it was very well put." But that is not the purpose of a
   true minister of the Gospel--simply to win the compliment of your
   approbation--he wants to see the devil cast out of you and to stir up
   your hearts so that you will no longer let religion alone, but will
   flee to Christ to save you!

   35, 36. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold your peace and come out of
   him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him
   and hurt him not And they were all amazed, and spoke among themselves,
   saying, What a word is this! For with authority and power He commands
   the unclean spirits and they come out Ah, dear Friends, when we see
   what the Gospel can do--how it can reclaim the thief, how it can make
   chaste the harlot, how it can lift up the very vilest of men from the
   lowest depths of degradation--we may well say, "What a Word is this!"
   The power of the Gospel does not lie in the preacher, but in the Truth
   of God which he proclaims. What a Word is this, which not only knocks
   at the door of the human heart, but which carries on its belt the key
   with which it can open that door! It does not simply invite the sinner
   to trust the Savior, but there is a power which goes with it which
   sweetly woos the heart until the unwilling become willing and those who
   have hitherto despised God and His great salvation, cheerfully yield
   themselves to Him. Christ not only comes to those who seek Him, but, in
   the splendor of His Grace, He is often found of them that sought Him
   not! Yes, those who cried, "Let us alone," are not let alone, for Grace
   brings them beneath her blessed sway.

   37-39. And the fame of Him went out into everyplace of the country
   roundabout And He arose out of the synagogue and entered into Simon's
   house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they
   made request of Him for her And He stood over her and rebuked the fever
   and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.
   Here is a type of another form of the disease of sin. This time it is a
   hot and burning fever and there are many men who have the fever of
   pride, or the fever of ambition--and some who have the fever of
   impetuous lust. Yet we have never read of such a cure as this in the
   lives of the doctors of ancient or modern times! They have worked
   remarkable cures by

   long dosing the patient with various drugs, but Christ just stood over
   Peter's wife's mother and rebuked the fever--and instantly it fled.

   40. Now when the sun was setting. Ah, it is setting with some of you!
   Those gray hairs are like the streaks of light upon the horizon as the
   sun goes down! But blessed be God, He who heals the spiritually sick in
   the early morning by bringing children to Himself does not cease to
   work until the sun goes down!

   40. All they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto
   Him and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them. Oh,
   that He would do that just now! Still is He mighty to save! Oh, that He
   would now display His ancient power and lay His healing hands on
   everyone of you! What fame He would get if He would do so! What joy
   there would be if all of you should now be turned to God! And why
   should it not be? Christ is able to do this--then let us ask it of Him
   in earnest believing prayer!

   41. And devils also came out of many, crying out and, saying, You are
   Christ, the Son of God. And He rebuking them did not allow them to
   speak: for they knew that He was Christ Perhaps they thought that their
   testimony would tend to blacken His Character. We are, in a sense,
   pleased when bad men find fault with us, for that is really the best
   commendation that they can give us. But when they begin to praise us,
   we feel suspicious that there is something wrong. We think of how
   Christ acted when the devils said to Him, "You are Christ, the Son of
   God," and we would have them hold their tongues. What a vile thing sin
   is, for it makes even good words to be evil when they come out of
   sinful lips!

   Luke 5:12. And it came to pass, when He was in a certain city, behold a
   man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face and implored
   Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. There was not
   much faith there, but faith even as a grain of mustard seed will serve
   and, therefore, Christ did not refuse the poor leper's plea.

   13-15. And He put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be
   you clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. And He
   charged Him to tell no man: but go, and show yourself to the priest,
   and offer for your cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a
   testimony unto them. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of
   Him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by
   Him of their infirmities. Oh, that sinners would come to Christ in this
   spirit now--"to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities"!
   Some of you have come to hear, but have you come to Christ to be
   healed? Have you really come for that purpose? Alas, some even come to
   God's House only to see, or to be seen! How can such people expect to
   receive a blessing? Yet my Master is so gracious that, often, He is
   found of them that sought Him not! So may it be with any careless ones
   who are with us now!

   16, 17. And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed. And it
   came to pass on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were
   Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of
   every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the
   Lord was present to heal them. These were the least hopeful patients
   that the Great Physician ever had, for to heal these doctors of
   divinity and to bring these proud learned Pharisees down to accept the
   Gospel needed an Omnipotent display of Divine Power. Penitent sinners
   are readily brought to Christ, but often the self-righteous--who think
   they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing--are
   not to be persuaded to accept the fine gold which Christ presents to
   all who ask Him for it. The Lord grant that if any such people are
   here, the power of the Lord may be here to heal them!
     __________________________________________________________________

An Instructive Truth

   (No. 2893)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 21, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE
   22, 1876.

   "O Lord, I know that the way ofman is not in himself: it is not in main
   who walks to direct his steps." Jeremiah 10:23.

   THIS declaration follows after Jeremiah's lamentation over the Lord's
   ancient people who were about to be carried away captive into Babylon.
   The Prophet speaks of a fact that was well known to him. It is always
   well, Brothers and Sisters, to know the Truth of God and to know it so
   certainly that you are able to remember it just when you most need it.
   There are some people who are very much like that foolish captain of
   whom we have heard who had a good anchor, but he left it at home when
   he went to sea, so it was of no use to him. So, these people know what
   would comfort them, but they do not remember it in the time of their
   distress. Jeremiah says, "O Lord, I know," and he utilizes his
   knowledge as a source of comfort in his hour of need.

   What Jeremiah knew was this--that the affairs of this world are not
   under the control of men, however much they may imagine that they are.
   There is a Supreme Authority to theirs and a power which rules,
   overrules and works according to its own beneficent will--whatever men
   may desire or determine to do. Nebuchadnezzar was about to carry the
   Jews away from the land which flowed with milk and honey to his own far
   distant country, but the Prophet consoled himself with the reflection
   that whatever Nebuchadnezzar meant to do, he was only the instrument in
   the hands of God for the accomplishment of the Divine Purpose. He
   proposed, but God disposed. The tyrant of Babylon thought that he was
   working out his own will, yet he was really carrying out the will of
   God in chastising the idolatrous and rebellious nation! This was
   Jeremiah's consolation, "I do not know what Nebuchadnezzar may do, but
   I do know that 'the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man who
   walks to direct his steps.' I know that, in God's eternal purposes,
   every step of Judah's way is mapped out and in the end He will make it
   all work for His own Glory and the good of His chosen people."

   Child of God, will you, for a moment, reflect upon the overruling power
   of God even in the case of the most mighty and wicked of men? They sin
   grossly and what they do is done of their own free will--and the
   responsibility for it lies at their own door. That we can never forget,
   for the free-agency of man is a self-evident Truth of God. But, at the
   same time, God is Omnipotent and He is still working out His wise
   designs, as He did of old, in the whirlwind of human wrath, in the
   tempest of human sin and even in the dark mines of human ambition and
   tyranny--all the while displaying His Sovereign Will among men even as
   the potter forms the vessels on the wheel according to his own will!

   This Truth of God ought to be remembered by us because it tends to take
   from us all fear of man. Why should you, O Believer, be afraid of a man
   that shall die, or the son of man who is but a worm? You are, as a
   child of God, under Divine Protection, so who is he that shall harm you
   while you are a follower of that which is good? Remember that ancient
   promise, "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every
   tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn. This
   is the heritage of the servants of the Lord." The most powerful enemy
   of the Church can do nothing without God's permission! God can put a
   bit into the mouth of leviathan and do with him as He pleases. The
   Almighty God is Master and Lord even over the men who imagine that all
   power is in their hands!

   And while this Truth should banish our fear of man, it should also
   ensure our submission to the will of God. Suppose that the Lord allows
   Nebuchadnezzar to devastate the land that He gave to His people by
   Covenant? It is God who per-

   mits it, therefore do not think so much of the instrument employed by
   Him as of the hand in which that instrument is held! Are you afflicted,
   poor Soul, by some hard unkind spirits? Remember that God permits you
   to be so tried, so be not angry with that which is only the second
   cause of your trouble, but believe that the Lord permits this to happen
   to you for your good and, therefore, submit yourself to Him! A dog,
   when he is struck with a stick, usually bites the stick. If he had more
   sense, he would try to bite the man who holds the stick. So your
   contention must not be against the instrument of your affliction. If
   there is any contention, it is really against God--and you would not, I
   trust, think of contending with your Maker! Rather, say, "It is the
   Lord; let Him do what seems good to Him." Let your back be bared to the
   rod and look up into your Heavenly Father's face and say, "Show me why
   You contend with me."

   This Truth ought to also strengthen our faith. When fear goes, faith
   comes in. It is an easy matter to trust God when everything goes
   smoothly, but genuine faith trusts God in a storm. When the land of
   Judah was hedged about by God's Providence and no enemy ventured to set
   foot upon the sacred soil, it was easy for a Prophet to praise the
   Lord. But it was quite another matter to trust God when Nebuchadnezzar
   destroyed the villages, besieged the cities and, by-and-by, took them
   and gave them up to utter destruction and carried away their
   inhabitants into captivity. To trust in God then, was not so easy, yet
   that was the time for the display of real faith. Faith in the storm is
   true faith! Faith in a calm may be, or may not be, genuine faith.
   Summer-weather faith may be true, or may not be true, but winter faith
   that can bring forth fruit when the snows are deep and the North Wind
   blows, is the faith of God's elect! It proves that it has Divine
   vitality in it because it can master the circumstances which would have
   utterly crushed the faith which appertains only to flesh and blood!

   It is a severe trial to a child of God when he is mocked at home--when
   someone who ought to be kind to him, is quite the opposite--when the
   ties of nature seem only to intensify the hatred that is felt against
   the heir of Grace--when Ishmael mocks Isaac and continually grieves
   him. That is a severe trial, but it affords the opportunity for the
   tried one to recall this Truth of God, that God has all things in His
   hands and that this trial is only permitted, in His wisdom and love,
   for some good purpose towards His own child. It is still true that,
   "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who
   are called according to His purpose" and that, "no good thing will He
   withhold from them who walk uprightly." If your enemy triumphs over you
   for a time, you should say to him, "Rejoice not against me, O my
   enemy--when I fall, I shall arise." May the Holy Spirit help you to do
   so! The way of the persecutor is, after all, not left absolutely to his
   own will, but there is another and a higher will that overrules all!

   We will not, however, tarry longer over the consideration of the
   context so far as it applies to Nebuchadnezzar and other adversaries of
   the people of God, but we will endeavor to learn the lesson that is
   taught us in the latter clause of the text--"It is not in man who walks
   to direct his steps." And, first, I will try to prove to you that these
   words are true. And secondly, that these words are instructive.

   I. First, then, THESE WORDS ARE TRUE--"It is not in man who walks to
   direct his steps." For, first, although man is an active individual, so
   that he can walk, he cannot direct his steps because there may be some
   obstacle in his way which he cannot surmountand which will change the
   whole course of his life. He may have determined, in his own mind, that
   he will do this or that and that he will go here or there--but he
   cannot foresee every circumstance that may happen to him and there may
   be circumstances that will entirely alter the direction of his life.
   There may be unexpected difficulties, or what many call, "accidents,"
   which are really Providences, which will prevent us from doing what we
   have resolved to do.

   Take the case of a young man who is just beginning business
   life--though he is active and strong, is it in him to direct his steps?
   I know it was not in me to direct mysteps! I had certain plans
   concerning my life course, but they have not been fulfilled. No doubt
   the highest desire I ever cherished has been granted to me, but my
   first plans and purposes were not realized. I am not, today, where I
   hoped to have been. There were difficulties in the way which made it
   impossible for me to get there. I expect others have had a similar
   experience. A young man may try to choose his path in life, but we all
   know how seldom, if ever, he can get exactly what he wants. Perhaps he
   goes into a certain house of business and he says, "I shall work my way
   up till I get to the top." Yet how frequently it happens that something
   occurs which jerks him off the line of rails which he had laid down for
   himself and he has to go in quite a different direction. The path he
   had chosen was apparently a very proper one for him to choose--perhaps
   he spent a good deal of earnest thought upon the matter

   and, possibly, also a good deal of prayer--yet he finds, as many others
   have found, that "it is not in man who walks to direct his steps."

   It is possible that the young man prospers so that he is able to go
   into business on his own account, but the same lesson has to be learned
   under different circumstances! He could not foresee what was going to
   happen so he had purchased certain goods, relying upon an expected rise
   in the market--but there was a sudden fall, instead of a rise--and he
   became a loser, not a gainer. Going into business is often like going
   to sea--one may be much tossed about and possibly may be wrecked before
   reaching the desired haven. Many a man has found that he cannot get
   what he most confidently reckons upon.

   Another man fails in health. He might have prospered, but, just when
   the full vigor of his physical strength was needed and the greatest
   clearness of his mental vision was required, he was laid aside. As he
   sickened, he also became depressed in spirit as he realized that his
   path must be that of an invalid and, perhaps, of a poor man. Yet he
   thought his career would have been that of a strong man who would soon
   have reached a competence. I am sure that I must be addressing many who
   know very well, from their own experience, that it is not of the
   slightest use for a man to say, "I will do this," or, "I will do that,"
   because something or other may occur which will altogether prevent you
   from doing that which seems simple enough now. The mariner reckons on
   reaching port at a certain day or hour, but the wind may shift, or many
   things may happen to delay him. The mariner, however, can reckon even
   better than you can, for he has his chart and he can find his way! He
   knows where the shoals are and the quicksands, and the rocks and where
   the deep channels run--but you do not know anything about your future
   life--you are sailing over a sea that no ship's keel has ever sailed
   before! God knows all about it--everything is present to his all-seeing
   eyes, but it is not present to your eyes. It is not possible for a man
   to absolutely direct his own way, for he has not the power to do
   it--let him strive and struggle as he may, he must often be made to
   feel this!

   Perhaps some of you are just now in this condition. Your affairs have
   got into a tangle and you do not at all know how to unravel it. You are
   like a man in a maze or a labyrinth. You wish to take the course which
   is according to the will of God, but, whether you should turn to the
   right hand or to the left, you do not know.

   Now you have begun to realize what was always true, but what you did
   not perceive before--that is, "it is not in man who walks to direct his
   steps." You cannot direct your own way! You are quite perplexed as to
   which of two courses you should take. If this one is taken, it involves
   one form of trouble, and if the other course is chosen, that involves
   another kind of difficulty. What are you to do? Well, you know that the
   wisest thing for you to do is to take the matter to the Lord and ask
   Him to direct you. That is what you ought to do in every case! That
   ought to be the constant habit of your soul--to look for the
   fiery-cloudy pillar which alone can guide you safely over the trackless
   wastes of life!

   In the second place, man ought not to direct his way according to his
   own will because his will is naturally evil. Ungodly men think that
   they can direct their own way. Ah, Sirs, if you do that, you will
   direct your way down to the deeps of destruction! He who is his own
   guide is guided by a fool. He that trusts to his own understanding
   proves that he has no understanding. If you will be your own director,
   you will be directed to the place where you will have bitter cause to
   rue it forever and ever. If a man, starting out in life says, "I shall
   follow my own will. I will say to my passions, 'You shall be indulged.'
   And to my desires, 'Eat, drink and be merry.' And to my soul, 'Trouble
   not yourself with solemn and serious things--leave eternity till it
   comes and make the best you can of time!' I will direct my own way as
   pleasure shall guide me, or as self-interest shall guide me." If you,
   Sir, talk like that, I pray you remember that "it is not in man who
   walks to direct his steps." And it ought not to be, for man is quite
   incompetent to perform such a task as that because he has a natural
   bias towards that which is evil--an inclination towards that which will
   be injurious to him and to others, also--and which will make him miss
   the chief end of his being which is to glorify God and to enjoy Him
   forever!

   I should like, before proceeding further with my subject, to urge
   everyone who has hitherto depended upon himself, to pause and lift up
   his heart to Heaven and say, "Gracious Spirit, You shall be my Guide
   from this time and forever." For, young man, young woman, you will
   surely run upon the rocks before long if you take the tiller of your
   life's vessel into your own hands! With such a heart as yours, you
   cannot expect to go right without the Grace of God. The Doctrine of the
   Depravity of the Human Race is not merely an article in the creed--it
   is a matter of everyday experience! There is in you, by nature, a
   tendency to put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter--to put darkness
   for light and light for darkness! And though you may think that you
   have a preference for good--and it is possible that you have a
   preference for

   some forms of good--yet there are critical points where self seeks to
   rule, where the weakness of your natural disposition will be discovered
   sooner or later and where the evil that lurks within your flesh will
   prove to be your ruin! I charge you, sons and daughters of Adam, to
   remember that since your father, Adam, even in his state of innocence,
   could not direct his own way aright, but lost Paradise for us all,
   there is no hope that in your fallen state you can find your way back
   to Paradise! No, but you will keep on wandering further and further and
   further from the way of peace and holiness, for, "it is not in man who
   walks to direct his steps."

   Let me give another meaning to the text and still seek to prove it at
   the same time. It is not and it ought not to be in man who walks to
   direct his steps because not only is he naturally inclined to evil, but
   even when Grace has renewed his nature, hisjudgment is so fallible that
   it is a great mistake for him to attempt to direct his own way. Dear
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the stony heart of unbelief has been
   removed from you and you have had a new heart and a right spirit put
   within you. And now the living and incorruptible Seed that is in you
   makes you seek after that which is good and right--but if you, even
   now, shall trust to your own judgment, you will find yourself brought
   into a thousand sorrows! Ah, my Brother, you are an experienced
   Christian and others look up to you and ask direction from you. But if
   you are really experienced, you will often say to them, "God helping
   me, I can direct you, but, as for myself, I feel that I have need of a
   director quite as much as the youngest babe in the family of God."

   Does not every man who is truly wise feel himself to be increasingly a
   fool apart from Divine Guidance? And is it not a token of growth in
   wisdom and Grace when a man's self-confidence continues to grow less
   and less? Distrust yourself, dear Friend, for you accurately gauge your
   own judgment when you do that! It is about little matters that wise men
   generally make their grossest mistakes. In what he considers a
   difficult matter, the wise Christian always has resort to God in
   prayer--but when he gets what he regards as a very simple thing, which
   is perfectly clear and which he thinks he can himself decide--then his
   folly is speedily discovered! He is like the Israelites were with the
   Gibeonites. They said, in effect, if not in words, "We do not need to
   pray about this matter. We must not make treaties with the Canaanites,
   but these men are not Canaanites, that is quite clear. We heard them
   say that they had come from a far country--and when we looked at their
   shoes we knew that they spoke the truth. They told us that they were
   quite new when they put them on, yet now they are old and dried--they
   must have come a great many miles, you may depend upon it. And their
   bread--did you notice that? It has the blue mold all over it--we would
   not like to eat a mouthful of it--yet they told us that it was quite
   fresh when they started. There is no doubt that they are distinguished
   foreigners who have come from a far country, so let us strike hands
   with them and make a covenant with them."

   And so they did, for the case seemed so clear to them that they asked
   no counsel of God. And therein Israel made a great mistake. So,
   Brothers and Sisters, whenever any case appears to be very clear to
   you, be sure to say, "Let us pray about it." You know the old proverb,
   "When it is fine weather, carry an umbrella. When it is wet, you can do
   as you like." So, when any case seems to be quite clear, pray over it.
   When it is more difficult, I dare not say that you may do as you like
   about praying, then, unless I say it in the spirit of the proverb which
   would imply that you would be sure to pray. When you feel certain that
   you cannot go wrong, you certainly will go wrong unless you ask counsel
   of God about the matter. That was a good plan of the old Scotchman who,
   when anything was in dispute, used to say, "Reach down yon Bible"--and
   when that was brought down and the Scripture read, and prayer
   offered--the good man felt that he could see his way and could go with
   firm step along the path to which the Lord had directed him. "It is not
   in man who walks to direct his steps," for his judgment is fallible!

   I think there is another meaning to be given to the text, for the
   gracious man feels that he must not direct his own steps because he
   cannot take even a step in the right way apart from Divine help. How
   can he talk about directing his own steps when he is absolutely
   dependent upon the Grace of God for every step he takes? O Brothers and
   Sisters, if the Lord were to help us, by His Grace, until we got up to
   the doors of Heaven, we would never be able to get in unless He gave us
   the Grace to take the last step! You cannot direct your own steps for
   you are a cripple and cannot take even one step except as strength is
   given you from on high! You are like a ship upon the sea--you can make
   no progress except as the breath of the Divine Spirit fills the sails
   of your boat. How can you direct your own way when you have no power to
   go in it and are dependent upon God for everything? I pray you to
   confess your dependence and not to talk of directing your own steps!

   I must give you just one more thought under this head. He that walks
   neednot think of directing his own steps, for there is One who will
   direct them for him. What if sin inclines us to take the wrong path and
   if a feeble judgment makes us err through inadvertence? There is no
   need for us to choose our own lot--but we may bow before the Lord and
   say, "You shall choose our inheritance for us." The choice is difficult
   for you, my Brother. Then do not choose your own way, but leave it to
   Him who sees the end from the beginning and who is sure to make a wise
   choice! The burden of life is heavy, my Sister, then do not try to
   carry it, but "cast your burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain
   you." "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall
   bring it to pass." Let it not be your choice, but let it be God's
   choice! That was a wise answer of a good old Christian woman when she
   was asked whether she would choose to live or die. She said that she
   had no choice in the matter, but that she left it with the Lord. "But,"
   said one, "suppose the Lord put it to your choice--which would you
   select?" "Neither," she replied, "I would ask Him not to let me choose,
   but to choose for me so that it should be as He willed, not as I
   willed." Oh, if we could but once abandon our own choosing and say to
   the Lord, "Not as I will, but as You will," how much more happy we
   might be! We would not be troubled by the thought that we could not
   direct our own steps, but we would be glad of it, because our very
   weakness would entitle us to cry unto the Lord, "Now that I cannot
   direct my own way, what I know not, You teach me."

   II. Time fails me and therefore I will close my discourse by briefly
   mentioning the practical lessons of the text in order to prove to you
   that THESE WORDS ARE INSTRUCTIVE. It seems to me that they are
   instructive if we use them thus.

   First, avoid all positive resolutions about what you mean to do,
   remembering that, "it is not in man who walks to direct his steps." Do
   not forget what the Apostle James says about this matter, "Come now,
   you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and
   continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain, whereas you know
   not what shall be on the morrow." If you do make any plans, always make
   them in pencil and have your eraser handy so that you can rub them out
   quickly. Much mischief comes of making them in ink and regarding them
   as permanent--and saying, "This is what I am sure I shall do." Cast
   iron breaks easily, so do not have any cast iron regulations for your
   life! Do not say, "that is my plan and I shall keep to it whatever
   happens." Be ready to alter your plan as God's Providence indicates
   that alteration would be right. I have known people who have been very
   much given to change--I cannot commend them, for I remember that
   Solomon said, "As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man that
   wanders from his place." So, do not be in a hurry to wander! On the
   other hand, I have known some persons who have resolved that they will
   never move at all. Do not make such a resolution as that, but remember
   that although "a rolling stone gathers no moss," it is equally true
   that "a sitting hen gets no barley"--and believe that there may come a
   time when it will be right for you to move. Do not make up your mind
   that you will move, or that you will not move, but wait for guidance
   from God as to what He would have you do.

   The next thing is never be too positive in your expectations. I suppose
   we must have expectations--that old-fashioned benediction, "Blessed are
   they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed," is very
   difficult to gain. Expect that if God has promised you anything, He
   will be true to His Word--but, beyond that, do not expect anything
   beneath the moon, for, if you do, you will be sure to be disappointed
   sooner or later. It is of the man whose heart is fixed, trusting in the
   Lord, that it is said, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings." But if
   his heart had been fixed merely on the attainment of certain worldly
   ends, he would have been overwhelmed when the evil tidings came! As to
   anything in this world, let this be the rule by which you are
   governed--"having food and raiment, be therewith content"--and never
   cherish too optimistic expectations.

   Next, avoid all security as to the present. If you have anything that
   you prize very highly, hold it very loosely, for you may easily lose
   it. Read the word, "mortal," plainly imprinted on the brows of all your
   children. Look into the dear eyes that are to you like wells in the
   desert and remember that they may be closed in less than an hour and
   the light of life be gone from them! Your beloved one and you are,
   alike, mortal--and either of you may soon be taken from the other. Have
   you property? Remember that wealth has wings and that it flies away
   like a bird upon swift pinions. Have you health? Then think what a
   marvelous mercy it is that--

   "A harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long"--

   and remember that, very soon, those strings may be all jarring and some
   of them may be broken. Hold everything earthly with a loose, hand, but
   grasp eternal things with a death-like grip! Grasp Christ in the power
   of the Spirit! Grasp God, who is your everlasting Portion and your
   unfailing Joy. As for other things, hold them as though you held them
   not, even as Paul says, "it remains that both they that have wives be
   as though they had none...and they that use this world, as not abusing
   it: for the fashion of this world passes away." Of everything below, it
   is wise for us to say, "This is not my abiding portion." It is very
   necessary to say this and to realize that it is true, for everything
   here is covered with birdlime--and the birds of paradise get stuck to
   it unless they are very watchful. Mind what you are doing, you
   prosperous people, you who have nice homes, you who are investing your
   money in the funds--mind that you do not get bird-limed! There is
   nothing permanent for you here! Your home is in Heaven--your home is
   not here--and if you find your treasure here, your heart will also be
   here--but it must not be so. You must keep all earthly treasures out of
   your heart and let Christ be your Treasure--and let Him have your
   heart.

   The next observation I would make is this--Bow before the Divine Will
   in everything. "It is not in man who walks to direct his steps." Why
   should it be? O Lord, You are Master, You are King! Then why should we
   wish to have our own way? Is it right that the servant should take the
   master's place? There are some of you who are in trouble and probably
   your chief trouble arises from the fact that you will not absolutely
   submit to the Lord's will. I pray that the Holy Spirit may enable you
   to do so, for trouble loses all its sting when the troubled one yields
   to God! If you had directed your own way and this trouble had come upon
   you because of the choice that you made, you might have cause to be
   distressed. But as the Lord has so directed and arranged your affairs,
   why should you be cast down? My dear Friend, you know--or, at any rate,
   you ought to know--that you cannot be supreme. You must be content to
   be second. You must say to the Lord, "Your will, not mine, be done."
   You will have to say it sooner or later! And if you are a child of God,
   you ought to have said it long ago, so say it at once!

   I heard one who I thought was a Christian, say, "I cannot think that
   God was right in taking away my dear mother from me." I replied, "My
   Sister, you must not talk like that." Perhaps someone else says, "I did
   feel that it was hard when my dear child was taken from me." Yes, my
   dear Friend, you may have felt that it was hard, but you ought to have
   felt that it was right. God must be free to do as He pleases and He
   always does what is right--therefore you must submit to His
   will--whatever He pleases to do.

   My last observation is--Pray about everything. Remember what Paul wrote
   to the Philippians, "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by
   prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made
   known unto God." Pray about everything! I make no exception to this.
   Pray about waking in the morning and pray about falling asleep at
   night. Pray about any great event in your life, but pray equally about
   what you call the minor events. Pray as Jacob did when he crossed the
   brook Jabbok, but do not forget to pray when there is no angry Esau
   near and no special danger to fear. The simplest thing that is not
   prayed over may have more evil in it than what appears to be the direst
   evil when once it has been brought to God in prayer. I pray that all of
   you who love the Lord may commit yourselves afresh to Christ this very
   hour. I wish to do so myself, saying, "My Master, here I am. Take me
   and do as You will with me. Use me for Your Glory in any way that You
   please. Deprive me of every comfort if so I shall the more be able to
   honor You. Let my choicest treasures be surrendered if Your Sovereign
   Will shall so ordain." Let every child of God make a complete
   surrender, here and now, and ask for Grace to stand to it. Your
   greatest sorrow will come when you begin to be untrue to your full
   surrender to the Lord--so may you never prove untrue to it!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JEREMIAH 10.

   Verses 1, 2. Hear you the word which the Lord speaks unto you, O house
   of Israel: Thus says the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be
   not dismayed at the signs of Heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at
   them. Among the heathen, if certain stars were in conjunction, it was
   considered unlucky. And certain days of the week were also regarded as
   unlucky, just as to this day there are people who think that it is very
   unfortunate to commence anything on a Friday. There are a great many
   foolish superstitions floating about this silly world, but you
   Christian people should never allow

   such follies to have any influence upon you. Neither the fiends of
   Hell, nor the stars of Heaven can ever injure those who put their trust
   in God!

   3, 4. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out
   of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They
   deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with
   hammers, that it move not Those ancient Prophets seemed to take delight
   in heaping scorn upon the god-making of the heathen. Even the heathen
   poets made sport of the god-making! One of them very wisely said that
   it would be more reasonable to worship the workmen who made the god
   than to worship the god which the workmen had made!

   5. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must need be
   borne, because they cannot go. Pretty gods they must be! They cannot
   move and cannot even stand till they are nailed up! They cannot stir
   unless they are carried from place to place.

   5-8. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it
   in them to do good. Forasmuch as there is none like unto You, O LORD;
   You are great, and Your name is great in might Who would not fear You,
   O King of nations? For to You does it appertain: forasmuch as among all
   the wise men of the nation, andin all their kingdoms, there is none
   like You. But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a
   doctrine of vanities. To teach people to worship mere stocks and stones
   may well be called, "a Doctrine of vanities."

   9. Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from
   Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue
   and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.
   Step into any Roman Catholic shrine in England, or on the Continent, or
   for that matter, into any Anglicanshrine, for they are all very much
   alike, and you will see that the modern "gods" are no better than those
   upon which the Prophets of old poured scorn! And I think it is our duty
   to pour scorn upon these saints, Madonnas and bambinos and I know not
   what besides!

   10-13. But the LORD is the true God, He is the living God and an
   everlasting king: at His wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations
   shall not be able to abide His indignation. Thus shall you say unto
   them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they
   shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He has made
   the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and
   has stretched out the heavens by His discretion. When He utters His
   voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He causes the
   vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He makes lightning with
   rain, and brings forth the wind out of His treasures. To what a height
   of sacred imagery does Jeremiah mount! He seems to shake off his usual
   melancholy spirit when he comes to sing the praises of the Lord! He
   uses very similar language to that of Job, his fellow-sufferer.

   14. Every man is brutish in his knowledge. Every idolater proves that
   he knows no more than a brute beast when he worships a stock or a
   stone.

   14, 15. Every founder is confounded by the engraved image: for his
   molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are
   vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they
   shall perish. The next verse brings out very vividly the contrast
   between these false gods and the one living and true God--

   16. The Portion of Jacob is not like they: for He is the former of all
   things; and Israel is the rod of His inheritance: The LORD of Hosts is
   His name. What a blessed name that is for God--"The Portion of Jacob"!
   And the other side of the Truth is equally blessed--"Israel is the rod
   of His inheritance." God belongs to His people and they belong to Him!
   If we can but realize that these blessings are ours, we are building on
   the solid foundation of the richest possible happiness! The form of the
   prophecy now changes, for God was about to send His people, because of
   their sin, into a long and sad captivity. So the Prophet says, in the
   name of the Lord--

   17, 18. Gather up your wares out of the land, O inhabitant of the
   fortress. For thus says the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the
   inhabitants of the land at once, and will distress them, that they may
   find it so. They had fled to their fortresses for shelter, for the
   Babylonians were coming up against them. But no hope of deliverance was
   held out to them and they were told to pack up their little bundles, to
   put their small stores as closely together as they could, for they had
   to go away into a far distant country as captives of the mighty King
   Nebuchadnezzar. God compares their captivity to the forcible ejection
   of stones from a sling--"I will sling out the inhabitants of the land
   at once." How severely God chastened His people in Jeremiah's day! Yet,
   when we think of their innumerable provocations and of how they
   revolted again and again against the Lord, we are not surprised that at
   last the Lord sent them into captivity. Now listen to Jere-

   miah's lamentation over the people whom he looks upon as already in
   captivity. He speaks in the name of the nation and says--

   19. Woe is me for my hurt! My wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this
   is a grief and I must bear it Ah, child of God, you also must learn to
   say that! There are some trials and troubles which come upon you
   against which you may not contend, but you must say, "Truly this is a
   grief and I must bear it."

   20. My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children
   are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth
   my tent anymore, and to set up my curtains. Alas, poor Israel! She was
   like a tent removed with none to set her up again. There are some
   churches in the present day that are in this sad condition--the
   faithful fail from among them, there are no new converts and no earnest
   spirit, so that the church has to say--"My tent is spoiled and all my
   cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not:
   there is none to stretch forth my tent anymore, and to set up my
   curtains." Yes, poor afflicted church, that may be all true, yet your
   God can visit you and make the barren woman to keep house and to be a
   joyful mother of children! And you who have lost your dearest one and
   seem to have no stamina left--your children are all taken from you--but
   your God can build you up! Is He not better to you than ten sons? And
   has He not said to you, "Your Maker is your Husband; the Lord of Hosts
   is his name"?

   21. 22. For thepastors have become brutish andhave not sought the Lord:
   therefore they shall not prosper, andall their flocks shall be
   scattered. Behold, the noise of the bruit is come. "Bruit" is an old
   Norman word--one wonders how it got in here. It might be rendered, "The
   noise of the tumult is come."

   22-24. And a great commotion out of the north country, to make the
   cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons. O LORD, I know that the
   way of man is not in himself: it is not in man who walks to direct his
   steps. O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in Your anger, lest
   You bring me to nothing. What a suitable prayer this is for a sick man,
   for a tried Believer, for the child of God in deep despondency of soul!
   I scarcely know any better words that any of us could use. The
   suppliant does not ask to go unchastised, but he says, "O Lord, correct
   me, but with judgment: not in Your anger; lest You bring me to
   nothing."

   25. Pour out Your fury upon the heathen that know You not, and upon the
   families that call not on Your name: for they have eaten up Jacob, and
   devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.
   So he asks God to, instead of smiting His own children, to smite His
   enemies. And knowing what we do about the Babylonians, we do not wonder
   that Jeremiah put up such a prayer as that.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sinner's Only Alternative

   (No. 2894)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.

   "Now therefore come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians: if
   they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but
   die." 2 Kings 7:4.

   OUTSIDE the gates of Samaria, at the time mentioned in our text, you
   might have seen four miserable beings, gaunt and thin, with that
   sharpness of eye and visage which is always the effect of protracted
   hunger. They were lepers, suffering from a loathsome disease and
   emaciated by starvation. They held, as it were, a miniature council of
   war, and the result of their deliberations was that they said to one
   another, "Why do we stay here to die? If we go into the city, even
   should we be permitted to remain there, famine is so rife that we would
   soon die. And if we continue to sit here, it is quite certain that we
   must pine away and perish. Let us go to the camp of the Syrians--here
   is a little hope in that direction, though it may be a very slender
   one. The Syrians may put us to death and so end our miseries. Perhaps
   death by the sword is preferable to death by famine--at any rate, we
   can but die in any case. Let us choose the desperate alternative-- let
   us take that course which, although it requires the greatest boldness,
   holds out some slight hope of success."

   You know the result of their decision. They went to the Syrian camp,
   found that the host had fled, feasted themselves to the fullest and,
   possibly, began to appropriate some of the plunder that abounded all
   around them. Then, suddenly, the thought struck them, "Here we have
   bread and corn in abundance, yet the people in Samaria are starving.
   This is a time of common distress so, though they did throw us out of
   the city, it would be a deed unworthy even of lepers if we left our
   fellow creatures without news of our discovery. Let us go back and tell
   the good news to the people in the city, that their suffering may be
   relieved as our own has been." They did so and soon the famished crowds
   poured out of Samaria and fed to the fullest!

   You are familiar with the narrative, so I will base upon it an argument
   which may prove useful to any enquiring ones who may be here. There are
   probably with us some who have before them an alternative somewhat
   similar to the one mentioned in our text. If so, I hope they will
   imitate these poor lepers in their actions and, afterwards, count it
   their joyful privilege to deliver to others a message as cheering as
   the one which these lepers carried to the famine-stricken people of
   Samaria!

   I. First, then, THERE ARE SOME OF YOU WHO HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE PRESENTED
   TO YOUR CONSCIENCES.

   There was a time when you were careless about eternal things, but that
   time has passed. You can look back, possibly only a few weeks, to the
   time when the Sabbath was to you a day of revelry, when the House of
   God was entirely neglected by you, when the Bible was a Book which you
   would not have read unless you had been flogged to read it and when
   prayer was a duty and privilege that you utterly despised. But now your
   conscience has been somewhat awakened and though not thoroughly as yet,
   still partially you have begun to perceive that what is written in
   Scripture is true, that we have gone astray like lost sheep, that our
   iniquities have prevailed against us and that our very righteousnesses
   are as filthy rags. You have heard the Gospel preached. It matters not
   where--whether in the cathedral, or in the theater, or anywhere else.
   But now that you have listened to the Word, Satan has interposed and
   has said to you, "Christ will not receive such sinners as youare! The
   Grace of God was never intended for men who have degraded themselves as
   you have.

   There may be hope for other men, but there is none for you--the gate of
   Mercy is fast closed against you and it has been said of you, "'He that
   is filthy, let him be filthy still; he has disobeyed his God, let him
   receive the penalty for that disobedience.'"

   Now you perceive that there are just two courses open to you. You can
   sit still, but then you know that you must perish. Or you can go to
   Christ, but your fear is that you will still perish. Yet you can but
   die if you go to Him and He rejects you--but if you do not go to Him,
   you will surely perish. Even should you believe in Him, you fear that
   you may be lost--but if you do not believe in Him, there is no hope at
   all for you. Should you go to Him in prayer? Your fears tell you that
   He may repel you and say to you, "Get out! What right have you, who
   once cursed Me, to expect any favor from Me? You, who have scorned My
   Grace a hundred times and defied My Law, what do you mean by falling
   upon your knees and entreating My mercy? Go away, ungrateful wretch,
   and perish in your sins!" Yet still this Truth of God is present to
   your mind--that if you do perish there, you do but perish, and it is
   quite certain that you will perish if you remain where you are! Let me
   try and work out this question for you, sitting down by your side, as
   one of the leprous men may have sat down by his fellow. You know, my
   Friend and Brother, that should you die as you now are, it is
   absolutely certain that you will perish. Do not listen to Satan's
   lie--"You shall not surely perish." You all know that the Bible is the
   Book of God. I can hardly believe any man who tells me that he doubts
   whether the Bible is the Word of God. The Truth of Scripture is being
   so perpetually confirmed by all the discoveries of those who travel in
   the land where it was written that I can scarcely credit the doubts
   concerning its authenticity as being honest.

   But even if you reject the Word of God, you must believe that God is
   just. If there is a God, He must punish men for sinning against Him.
   How can any moral government exist if sin goes unpunished, if virtue
   and vice lead to the same end? Conscience, fallen though it is, and no
   longer like God's candle in the soul, still has sufficient Light of God
   left to assure men that God must punish sin! Supposing that you do
   accept the Word of God as true--you know that the unregenerate can
   never see the face of God with acceptance, that those who have not been
   cleansed from sin can never stand before the thrice-holy Jehovah, for
   there can by no means enter Heaven, anything that defiles! As to your
   ultimate fate, if you continue as you now are, there can be no question
   the fire of Hell must be your everlasting portion! Now turn to the
   other alternative--there is for you at least some hope there. Even your
   poor trembling heart admits that there is at least some hope that if
   you seek mercy, you shall find it. I can assure you that there is not
   only hope, but that there is certainty that you will obtain it! Jesus
   casts out none that come to Him and He freely receives the vilest of
   the vile!

   But I put the matter now as your unbelief puts it--it is not an
   absolute certainly to you that Christ will reject you, is it? You are
   not quite sure that if you pray to Him, He will reject your petition,
   or that if the tears of penitence shall steal down your cheek, God will
   refuse to pardon you. I am only stating the question as you yourself
   state it. If I were speaking according to my own convictions, I would,
   on the authority of God's Word, affirm again and again that if you come
   to Him through Jesus Christ, His Son, God will certainly receive you!
   But even putting it in your way, is it not the wisest course for you to
   say--

   "If I perish, I will pray, And perish only there"?

   Let us look at the matter in another light. It is certain that if you
   perish as you now are, you will perish without pity and without mercy.
   The Law of God, by which you are already condemned, knows nothing about
   forgiveness--and the Law provides no sacrifice for sin. If you perish
   without seeking mercy at the hands of Christ, there can be no mercy for
   you--rigorous, unabated, undiluted Justice must be your portion! But
   now, do you not feel that even if you could perish after coming to God
   through Christ, yet you would not perish without having some ray of
   pity thrown upon you? Would there not be at least this consolation for
   you--"I did what God commanded me to do. I did come to Him and seek
   forgiveness. I did plead the precious blood of Christ, yet He rejected
   me"? Do you not think that this would be balm to your spirit? But if
   you perish as you now are, you will have this thought ringing in your
   ears forever--"You heard of Christ but you believed not on Him. You
   lived where the Light of the Gospel was clearly shining, yet you shut
   your eyes to it. Christ was preached close to you, yet you refused to
   trust Him. You would have none of His warnings--you put your fingers in
   your ears and ran on to destruction." But should you perish after
   having sought mercy through Christ, you would be able to say, "I did
   seek it. I did knock, I did pray, I did trust, I did yield my heart to
   God, yet I perished." If such perishing were possible--though we know
   that it is not--it would be far preferable to perishing without having

   sought the Savior in His own appointed way! For your own sake, then, I
   urge you to choose this alternative and I ask you to let me take you by
   the hand and lead you to Him who, with arms outstretched, waits to
   welcome you that He may give pardon to the guilty, life to the dead and
   salvation to the lost!

   Yet further, you ought to remember that all those who have continued in
   a state of nature have, without exception, perished. Not one, however
   high in station, however excellent in morality, however profound in
   learning, however lofty in fame has ever been able to pass the
   threshold of Heaven except through the blood and merit of the Lord
   Jesus Christ! In the black list of the unregenerate, there is no
   exception to their condemnation. But take the other side and at least
   we can assure you, from our own case, that even supposing that some
   perish though they trust in Christ--which is not true-- yet there are
   some who do not! Certainly there are some who, in this life, receive
   the pardon of their sins and know that they have received it and who,
   in death, are cheered with the prospect of a glorious immortality! Saul
   of Tarsus was led to repent of sin, though he said that he was the
   chief of sinners. Others in his day who had no more right to mercy than
   you have, sought and found it! And there are hundreds, yes, I might say
   thousands in this Tabernacle right now who could rise, if this were the
   proper season to do so, and each one say, "This poor man cried and the
   Lord heard him and delivered him out of all his troubles." Well, then,
   if God has, to your knowledge, saved some who have come to Him--I say
   that He saves all who come to Him through Christ! But I am dealing with
   the question from your standpoint--then it would be wise and right for
   you, also, to say--

   "I'll to the gracious King approach,

   Whose scepterpardon gives.

   Perhaps He may command my touch,

   And then the suppliant lives.

   Perhaps He will admit my plea,

   Perhaps will hear my prayer,

   But if Iperish, I willpray

   And perish only there.

   I can but perish if I go!

   I am resolved to try,

   Forifstay away,

   I know I must forever die." But you can go on to say, in the words of
   the same gracious writer--

   "But if I die with mercy sought,

   When I the King have tried,

   This were to die (delightful thought)!

   As sinner never died."

   No, not one ever died thus! You would be the first who thus
   perished--so take this alternative and, as the Holy Spirit has
   quickened you to make you feel your need of a Savior, I pray that the
   same Holy Spirit may lead you, this very hour, to plunge into the
   stream--sink or swim--that whether you perish or are saved, you may
   say, "Your wounds, O Jesus, shall be my hiding place! Your blood shall
   cleanse me from all sin! Your righteousness shall be my clothing! You,
   and You alone, shall be my All-in-All."

   II. Now I pass on to observe that THE DISCUSSIONS OF THESE LEPERS ENDED
   IN ACTION.

   I wish this could be said of all of you. How many holy resolutions have
   been strangled in this House of Prayer? How many good thoughts have
   been murdered in those pews? See if you cannot find their blood upon
   your own clothes. Many a time the tear which betokened the first rising
   emotion has been wiped away--and the emotion has gone with it. May it
   not be so now, but may God grant that, like the lepers, we may put into
   action what we think over and what, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, we
   resolve to do!

   And, first, let me remind you that the action of these lepers was bold.
   Cowardice would have sat still and said, "It is true that we shall
   perish if we remain here, but we will not go just yet to the Syrian
   camp. We are very hungry, but we may be able to go without food for
   another hour or so." And thus only the extreme pinch of starvation
   would have driven them out. The fear of a sword-thrust might have kept
   them still, but it did not. They said, "We will risk it. We know that
   it is a desperate experiment, but, for better or for worse, for life or
   for death, we will go to the camp of the Syrians." So they said and so
   they did! And you will be wise if you act in the same fashion. It may
   seem a very bold thing for you,

   my unknown but trembling Hearer, to think of going to Christ by faith.
   "Why," you say, "I have not the presumption to do so after what I have
   been!" Perhaps some of you could tell of immoral conduct. Others could
   speak of the Gospel despised and of privileges neglected which make
   your guilt even more heinous and you say, "No, we do not have the face
   to go to Christ. We are too black, too guilty, too diseased. We cannot
   cover our sores, we cannot hide the leprosy which gleams in deadly
   whiteness from our brow. We cannot go, we dare not go!" But do you not
   recollect those lines of Hart's that we so often sing--

   "Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude! None but
   Jesus

   Can do helpless sinners good"?

   Oh, yes, do venture on Him! Though it seems impossible that God would
   receive you, He can do what would be impossible to all others. O you
   blackest of the black and vilest of the vile, trust Him to pardon you,
   for He can do it! It surpasses your faith, does it? But it is God who
   has promised to pardon, so judge Him not by yourself! Measure not His
   ability by your rules! Fathom not the depths of His Grace with your
   short-lined plummet! Honor Him by believing that even such a sinner as
   you are may find Grace and pardon--and find them now!

   I recollect that John Bunyan, in his "Grace Abounding to the Chief of
   Sinners," says that there were times when he felt that his sins were so
   great and his horror at them was so terrible that he must go to Christ
   at all costs. He said, "Though I sometimes used to think of Christ as
   of One who stood with a pike in His hand to push me back, yet my dire
   necessities came upon me with such force that I would have run upon the
   very pike sooner than continue to endure my sin." Sinner, venture to
   run upon the pike and you will find that there is no sword or pike in
   Christ's hands! And when you think that you are about to run upon the
   sword, He will clasp you in His arms, press you to His bosom and say to
   you, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions and, as
   a cloud, your sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed you."

   O Sinner, if you think that my Master is a hard Master. If you think it
   would be too bold an action on your part to come to Him, you do not
   really know Him! I once thought Him to be such an One as myself. For
   five long years I thus slandered Him till my heart was driven almost to
   despair and I was ready to choose strangling rather than life! I said
   it could not be that Christ could ever forgive such a sinner as I was.
   I wrote bitter things against Him, as well as against myself, till at
   last, when I could stand it no longer, I came into His Presence with
   the rope around my neck, prepared to hear my sentence--but I ventured
   to give one look at Him and oh, what a change that look brought to me!
   My soul, at this hour, renews its transports at the remembrance of the
   change that came over my spirit the moment I learned to believe in
   Jesus! The burden of my sin was gone in an instant! My five years of
   agony were soon forgotten in the joy of being able to say, "I'm
   forgiven! I'm forgiven!" Then I could have shouted for joy because the
   love of God was shed abroad in my heart. Oh, that I could be the means
   of bringing even one of you to trust my Master as I then trusted Him! I
   am sure, if you would do so, that you would find Him so good and
   gracious that you would say, "The half has never been told." I have
   never been able to tell the thousandth part of His love! I have tried
   to tell of His mercy, but how little of it have I been able to set
   forth! I have made but a poor daub where there ought to have been a
   fine picture of a Prince with every virtue shining in His face and love
   streaming from His eyes of compassion!

   Poor troubled Soul, come and trust Him, even though it may seem to you
   to be a bold thing to do. Like the woman who stole a cure, so do you
   come behind Him and touch the hem of His garment. As the dog under the
   table, without leave or license, eats the crumbs that fall, do you the
   same. Though you think it is against law and against reason, still dare
   to believe in Jesus! He will be better to you than all your
   fears--better even than your faith--and you shall find that you did not
   trust Him without a reason!

   But while these lepers did a bold thing, I note that they did it
   unanimously. It is not said that three of them went to the Syrian camp,
   but that the fourth said, "No, I will not go now." It is not recorded
   that two of them said, "When we have a more convenient season, we will
   go." It was a mercy for them that they were all hungry, for, if they
   had not been, they would not have gone where food was so abundant. It
   was also a mercy for them that they were all lepers--or else they might
   not have dared to go. What a mercy it is for you, Sinner, if you know
   that you are a sinner! What a blessing it is that you have not yet
   reached that state of mortification which is the prelude of eternal
   death! You feel as if you were shut out as these lepers were. I thank
   God for it, because now that you seem to be shut out of Israel, it may
   be that you

   will begin to go to Israel's God and find mercy, help and hope in Him!
   You will not all go to Him tonight, but oh that you would! There will
   come under our notice--our faith is in God that it shall be so--perhaps
   a dozen, or a score, each of whom will say, "I will venture to trust
   Christ." "But what are they among so many?" While we bless God that we
   have so many seals to our ministry, what a sorrowful reflection it is
   that so many thousands come into this place and go away unsaved!

   There are many of you who can say, "The harvest is past, the summer is
   ended and we are not saved." Is it because the Gospel is not preached
   here? No, that cannot be the reason, for we know that the Truth of God
   is fully and faithfully preached here, yet we sow much and reap little
   compared with what our hearts desire! Is there anyone here who resolves
   to sit down and die? If you do so resolve, do it deliberately, but I
   pray the Lord to cause you to make the right decision. You will not
   decide aright unless He chooses for you--but if you will make the wrong
   choice, do it deliberately and do it solemnly. I wish you would say it
   if you really mean it, for then I hope you would soon reverse it--"I
   intend to choose the pleasures of this world and, from this time
   forward, to live without God and without Christ." If you talk like
   that, you may as well add, "and I mean to die and be damned," for that
   must follow if you continue in your present course. In that pew where
   you are, let your damnation warrant be signed and sealed. "No," you
   say, "not so!" But, Sirs, you had better make that league with death
   and that covenant with Hell rather than remain as some of you
   are--indifferent and careless! This is the great fault of our
   church-goers and chapel-goers. When we once get worldlings in to hear a
   sermon, they listen with attention and if they are impressed by what
   they hear, it often happens that the impression is a saving one. But
   with you who are used to hearing sermons, it is often merely going from
   one place to another to listen to this preacher or that--as though the
   preaching of the Gospel was only intended to amuse you.

   How often you come to hear us, just as you go to see a popular actor,
   that you may spend an evening and be able, when you are asked, "Have
   you heard So- and-So?" to say, "Oh, yes! I heard him on such-and-such a
   night." Sirs, do you think we preach merely for this? If you think so,
   it proves that you do not know us! Is it such a fine thing to make a
   display of ourselves before you? Is it such a grand thing to have all
   your eyes fixed upon us? God knows that I would sooner break stones on
   the road than be a minister if it were not for the hope of winning
   souls! I know of no life that has more trouble in it. I know of no
   occupation that brings more awful despondency of spirit upon a man's
   mind than my ministry brings upon me. So, if God does not enable me to
   win souls by it, I pray Him to deliver me from it! I would renounce my
   charge for all it ever brings me in, or all the honor it ever gives me
   if it were not that sinners were saved, backsliders reclaimed and God
   glorified! I do pray you, Sirs, to shake off your indifference. Be
   honest even with the devil. If you mean to serve him, be prepared to
   take his pay. If you enjoy the pleasures of sin, be honest enough to
   let Satan have a reversionary interest in your soul--and look forward
   to making your bed in Hell--be prepared to lie down in everlasting
   torments! Or else, I evoke you, by the love of God before whom I
   stand--embrace that other alternative and fly to Him who will in no
   wise caste you out!

   Bear with me while I again remind you that the action of the lepers was
   also instantaneous. They said, "We will go to the camp of the Syrians,"
   and at once they went. Too many are like that son who said, "I go,
   Sir," and went not. All of us who are now Believers can recollect
   times, before our conversion, when we were impressed under solemn
   sermons, yet the impression soon passed off. Some of you can also
   remember how you made haste home from the service and hurried upstairs
   for quiet meditation and prayer. But the idle conversation of the
   afternoon dissipated the impression that had been made. Many there are
   who have felt serious searching of heart under a sermon and who have
   said, "Please, God, spare us another day and we will think over these
   things." But what do they say concerning them now? There is a
   gray-headed man over yonder--let him go back in thought to his early
   days. When he was a little boy, his mother had bright hopes concerning
   him. And when he was a lad, everybody looked upon him as a young
   Timothy. But now he is more like Demas and his silvery hair is a
   reminder of the silver and gold which he obtained by forsaking God and
   loving this present evil world! And, all the while, the root of the
   matter was not in him. Gray-headed man, recall that early vow of yours
   which was registered in Heaven, but which you have broken!

   There are men here, in the high tide of business, who, when they were
   much younger, resolved and re-resolved that they would serve the
   Lord--yet they are still as far from doing so as they ever were. If you
   wrote down your resolves in your pocketbook, I wish you would read them
   over again and read them with repentance as you say, "These vows were
   made in the power of the flesh and, therefore, they were broken--but
   the sin of breaking them remains upon my soul.

   The lepers went instantly to the Syrian camp and so were saved from
   starvation. And we should go to Christ, not by long-protracted
   resolving, but by instantaneous submission as justification by faith is
   an instantaneous gift! The faith that saves is, doubtless, an
   instantaneous act! Believe in Christ, trust Christ and do it now, for,
   as soon as you have done that, you are saved.

   We will leave this part of the subject when I have just remarked that
   these lepers were all well rewarded for what they did. Not one of them
   perished of famine--they were all saved. Not one came back
   empty-handed, but all were greatly enriched. And not one of you,
   seeking mercy through Christ, shall be refused, but all who are led by
   the Spirit to trust Christ shall be blessed, saved and adopted into the
   family of God!

   III. I have no time for the last point except just briefly to refer to
   the fact that THE LEPERS NO SOONER FOUND WHAT WAS GOOD FOR THEMSELVES
   THAN THEY WENT TO TELL IT TO OTHERS. And if you have found Christ,
   after you have rejoiced in Him and fed upon Him and enriched yourself
   with Him as your choicest Treasure, then go and tell others all you can
   about Him.

   "Oh, but I cannot preach!" says one. Try, Brother! "But I cannot
   preach," you say again, "for I have tried to do so, but failed." Then
   write a letter, Brother, or speak a word for Jesus--

   "Tell it unto sinners, tell, That you are saved from death and Hell." I
   cannot make out how some people keep this secret! I cannot keep any
   secrets and I am sure that I could not keep this one. No sooner does
   this secret get into the soul of a man than it tries to burn its way
   out! You recollect that when John Bunyan was converted, he said that he
   wanted to tell the very crows on the plowed land all about it! And I
   think it will be the same with you when you find the Lord. If you have
   learned this great secret, you will want to tell it to your fellow
   workmen. Perhaps you are employed behind the counter, so when the shop
   is shut in the evening, you will be telling this secret to those who
   are with you in the common room. If you are a husband, you will never
   be content until you have told it to your wife. Or if you are a mother,
   I am sure you will want to be a preacher to your children. It is a
   great and holy fire which will burn and not smolder!

   There was a spark once got into the stubble and the Angel of Discretion
   said to it, "Lie still, Spark, lie still! If you begin to burn, the
   next stalk will catch fire and then the next, and the next until the
   whole field will be ablaze--and then the homestead and then the village
   itself will be burned down." But preach as he might, the fire would
   burn and the Angel of Discretion well-near had his wings burned before
   he turned to flee. There are, in some of our churches, certain friends
   who are very angels of prudence. They say, "Young men, do not try to
   speak for Christ too soon. Do not attempt to do it before you are fully
   qualified for the task." My dear Sirs, if God has told any man this
   secret, he cannot help telling it to sinners! If the Lord has touched a
   man's lips with the live coal from the heavenly altar, his lips will
   burn as well as the coal! If the New Life has been given to him, it
   must find a way out so as to convey the blessing to others!

   What a mass of men there is constantly attending this place! I suppose
   that two-thirds of my usual congregation consists of men. What a noble
   band of men we would have if all were converted to Christ and then went
   forth as messengers for Christ to the Church and to the world! Sirs, do
   you really know Christ and yet you have not witnessed for Him to
   others? Take care that before the Great Tribunal of God you are not
   held responsible, through your neglect, for the ruin of your fellow
   men! You young men of ability, educated in our grammar schools and
   trained in our colleges--it is a lamentable fact that all too often, if
   you join the church, you feel as if you had only to give it your name
   and not your whole self! If a man joins a rifle corps, he attends drill
   and throws himself into the whole affair with heart and soul,
   endeavoring to promote the interests of the corps in every way that he
   can! But if he joins a church, it is as much as you can do to get him
   to drill once a year--and he seems to have nothing to do but to stand
   at ease.

   "O Sirs, when you join the Church, I hope you will give up your whole
   selves to it! If not, I pray you to withhold your names. Up, up, in the
   name of God and tell t starving London what the lepers told starving
   Samaria--that there is bread to be had! Do you say, "I am myself a
   sinner"? Your once leprous lips will not spoil the message if you have
   been to Christ and have trusted in Him as your Savior. Do you say, "I
   am unworthy"? Ah, but He who took away your unwor-thiness, took away
   the disability which that unworthiness gives! You are not worthy to be
   called God's son by nature, but by Grace you may be worthy to be His
   ambassador!

   My poor Friend over there, you often weep because you cannot do more
   for Christ. Be of good courage and do all that you can for Him. If you
   cannot speak to thousands, be content to speak to one. And if you
   cannot bring hundreds to the Savior, be glad if, now and then, you can
   bring one mourning soul to Him to be comforted. My dear Hearers and
   especially you who are the members of this Church, if you have obtained
   mercy, I beseech you by the compassionate heart of your dying Redeemer,
   by that hope you have that He will shortly come again, be instant in
   season and out of season, preach and teach the Truth of God, knowing
   that your labor shall not be in vain in the Lord. Oh, that in the day
   of Christ's appearing, it may be seen that many sheaves have been
   brought into the heavenly garner through your being stirred up to labor
   by the ministry in this House of Prayer!

   To you, unpardoned Soul, I have spoken at length, and God knows how
   truly from my heart. Let me speak just this word once more before you
   go home. I am told that just under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral
   there is the mark of a workman's hammer, where it is said that a man
   who was at work on the roof, fell down and there met with his death. I
   do not know where it is, but there may be the spot, in this House of
   Prayer, where a soul will be lost forever. This may be the moment when
   the wax upon that soul's death-warrant shall grow cold because its
   owner deliberately says, "I will have none of these things," and when
   God shall say, "You shall have none of them. I will leave you alone.
   Your conscience shall never be troubled again, but you shall go through
   life in peace, you shall go to your death without any care and only in
   Hell shall you open your eyes to your true condition." God grant that
   it may not be so with any of you! Yet I feel as if it would be so with
   you unless Sovereign and Irresistible Grace shall prevent it and in
   that case, there will be a spot in this House of Prayer where a soul
   will be born to God! What man will give his heart to Christ? Are there
   none of you who will do so? Must I go back to my Master with no joyful
   tidings? Is there no one here who will say--

   "I'll go to Jesus, though my sin Has like a mountain rose. I know His
   courts, I'll enter in Whatever may oppose"?

   Are there none who will do so? Great God, are all hearts hard? O Spirit
   of God, come now, in this solemn moment, and break the hearts of stone
   with the mighty hammer of the Word of God! Cut and wound with Your
   two-edged sword and then heal with Your wondrous ointment even now! I
   say no more, but leave it with Him. May it be so, for Jesus' sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM84.

   May the Spirit of God bless to us every syllable of this familiar Psalm
   as we read it!

   Verses 1, 2. How amiable are Your tabernacles, O LORD ofHosts! My
   soullongs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my
   flesh cries out for the living God. Perhaps the Psalmist would never
   have said, "How amiable are Your tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts!" if he
   had not been detained from them so long that he could truly say, "My
   soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord." It is very
   sad, yet it is all too true, that we often need to be deprived of a
   mercy in order to be made to value it aright. Would it not be wiser on
   our part if we prized our privileges while they were yet spared to us?
   Still it is a good thing to have our love to the assemblies of God's
   House increased by temporary absence from them. See how fervent was the
   Psalmist's desire. His longing turned even to fainting at the very
   thought that, perhaps, he would never go there again--"My soul longs,
   yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord." And his very "flesh" also
   joined in the intense longing of his soul. You cannot often get your
   flesh to do anything that is good, or to desire anything that is right,
   yet, sometimes, even our very body seems to be so swayed by the Holy
   Spirit that it is compelled to go in the right way!

   3. Yes, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for
   herself, where she may lay her young, even Your altars, O LORD ofHosts,
   my King, and my God. The Psalmist envies even the birds that twitter
   around the sanctuary and wishes that he, too, had wings that he might
   fly to God's altar with them--and there take up his permanent abode.

   4. Blessed are they that dwell in Your house. The Psalmist meant those
   priests who lived in the Temple and, in a spiritual sense, his words
   apply to those who dwell in God wherever they are and who can truly
   sing--

   "Wherever we dwell, we dwell in Thee,

   On the land or on the sea."

   "Blessed are they that dwell in Your house"

   4. They will still be praising You. Selah. Constant communion leads to
   constant adoration.

   5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in You. Who throws his whole
   soul into the worship--not such as come up to the House of God and
   leave their hearts at home! "Blessed is the man whose strength is in
   You."

   5, 6. In whose heart are the ways of them. (Or, better, "are Your
   ways"). Who passing through the valley of Baca (or, "Weeping") make it
   a well Finding solace in their suffering, sanctification and in their
   affliction.

   6, 7. The rain also fills the pools. They go from strength to strength,
   everyone of them in Zion appears before God. Blessed are the pilgrims
   who are journeying to the upper Zion, the Jerusalem which is above, the
   mother of all the saints! The margin renders it, "They go from company
   to company." Or it may mean, "They go from strength of faith to greater
   strength." And so they pass on--

   "Till each appears in Heaven at length."

   8. O LORD God of Hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob.
   Selah. "You are a prayer-hearing God. Did You not hear Jacob at the
   brook Jabbok? Then, O God of Jacob, also give ear to me! If I have not
   yet come to be like prevailing Israel, I am like wrestling Jacob, so,
   give ear to me as You did to Jacob."

   9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed.
   We hold up Christ before His Father and say to Him--

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

   10. For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. He means, of
   course, better than a thousand spent anywhere

   else!

   10. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell
   in the tents of wickedness. ' 'I had rather dust the mats in Your house
   than sit on Satan's throne. I had rather wash the feet of Your saints,
   or perform any menial duties for them, than rule over all the hosts in
   the realms of darkness."

   11, 12. For the LORD Godis a sun andshield: the LORD willgive Grace
   andglory: no good thing willHe withhold from them that walk uprightly.
   O LORD of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusts in You. He will never
   walk uprightly unless he trusts in the Lord, neither will he receive
   the fullness of the blessing except as he learns to trust to the
   fullest, for the Master still says, "According to your faith, be it
   unto you."
     __________________________________________________________________

A Blessed Gospel Chain

   (No. 2895)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   2, 1876.

   "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves Me, he will keep My
   words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make
   Our abode with him." John 14:23.

   THIS is a blessed chain of Gospel experience. Our text is not meant for
   the men of the world who have their portion in this life, but for the
   chosen, called and faithful who are brought into the inner circle of
   Christ's disciples and taught to understand the mysteries of His
   Kingdom. It was in answer to the question of Judas ("not Iscariot") as
   to how Christ would manifest Himself to His own and not to the world,
   that these words were spoken. Christ explained that it would be
   manifest who were His own people by certain marks and signs. They would
   be those who love Him and keep His commandments and so win the
   confidence of the Father--and the Father and the Son would come to
   these loving and obedient disciples and make Their abode with them. God
   grant that all of us may be able to take each of the steps here
   mentioned so that our Lord may manifest Himself to us as He does not
   unto the world!

   The subject upon which I am about to speak to you is one which the
   preacher cannot handle without the people. I must have God's people
   with me in spirit to help me while I am dealing with such a topic as
   this. You know that in the Church of England service there are certain
   places where the clergyman says, "saying after me," so that it is not
   simply the minister uttering the prayer or the confession, but he is a
   sort of preceptor leading the rest of the congregation. In a similar
   style, I want you people of God, as the Holy Spirit shall enable you,
   to bend all your thoughts and energies in this direction and step by
   step climb with me to these distinct spiritual platforms--ascending
   from the one to the other by the Spirit's gracious aid--that your
   fellowship may be with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

   I. Our text begins with the first link in this golden chain, namely,
   LOVE TO CHRIST--"If a man loves Me."

   This, "if," seems to me to stand at the portals of our text like a
   sentinel at the gate of a palace, to prevent anybody from entering who
   ought not to enter. It is an, "if," that may be passed around the
   present assembly, for I fear that all in this house do not love the
   Lord Jesus Christ. If you cannot answer in the affirmative the question
   asked by the lips of Jesus, Himself, "Do you love Me?" you have nothing
   to do with the rest of this verse. Indeed, what have you to do with any
   of the privileges revealed in the Bible, or with any of the blessings
   promised there, as long as you are without love to Christ? Let that,
   "if," stand, then, as with a drawn sword--like the cherubim at the gate
   of the Garden of Eden--to keep you from daring to intrude where you
   have no right to go if you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ! "If a man
   loves Me."

   Are you a lover of the Lord, dear Hearer? Put not that question aside,
   but answer it honestly, in His sight, for there are some who only
   pretend to love Him, but really do not--some who make a loud
   profession, but their language is hypocritical, for their conduct is
   not consistent with their profession. Do you love the Lord Jesus with
   your whole heart? He is well worthy of your love, so let the question
   go round the whole assembly and not miss any one of us, "Do you love

   Me?"

   For there are some, too, who are Christ's disciples only by profession.
   All they give Him is a cold-hearted assent to His teaching. Their head
   is convinced and, in a measure, their life is not altogether
   inconsistent with their profession, but their heart is dead. Or, if it
   is at all alive, it is like that of the church of Laodicea, neither
   cold nor hot, but lukewarm--

   and that is a state which Christ abhors! He must occupy the throne of
   our hearts and be the best loved of all, or else we lack that which is
   essential to true Christianity!

   "If a man loves Me," says Christ. So, do you love Him? I do not ask
   whether you love His offices, though I hope you do. You love the
   Prophet, the Priest, the King, the Shepherd, the Savior and whatever
   other title He assumes. Each of these names is music to your ears--but
   do you love Christ, Himself? I will not ask whether you love His work,
   especially the great Redemption which comprehends such innumerable
   blessings. I hope you do, but it is a personal love to Christ that is
   spoken of here. Jesus says, "If any man loves Me." Have you realized
   Christ, personally, as still alive, gone into Heaven and soon to come
   again in all the glory of His Father and of the holy angels? Say,
   Brother, Sister, do you love Him? "If," says Christ, "ifa man loves
   Me"--so it is right and wise for each one of us to put that question to
   ourselves, even though we know that we can answer it satisfactorily and
   say--

   "Yes, I love You, and adore-- Oh, for Grace to love You more!" And if
   there should be any doubt about the matter, we ought to put the
   question, pointedly, again and again and again and let not ourselves
   escape till there is a definite answer given, one way or another! Heart
   of mine, do you really love the Savior? Brothers and Sisters, put this
   question to yourselves--and if you do love Him, let your love well up
   like a mighty geyser--the hot spring that leaps up to a great height!
   So let the hot spring of your love to Jesus leap up now--and let each
   one of you say to Him--

   "My Jesus, I love You, I know You are mine, For You all the follies of
   sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer, my Savior are You, If ever I loved
   You, my Jesus 'tis now."

   If you can do so, then you may add--

   "I will love You in life, I will love You in death,

   And praise You as long as You lend me breath

   And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,

   If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now." Remember that if you do love
   Him, He must have loved you first. Think of His ancient love--the love
   that was fixed upon you before the earth was--when He saw you in the
   glass of futurity and beheld all that you would be in the ruinous fall
   of Adam and by your own personal transgression--and yet loved you,
   notwithstanding all that! Think of Him when the fullness of time was
   come, stripping Himself of all His Glory and descending from the Throne
   of Infinite Majesty to the manger of humiliation and, being there, as a
   Baby, swaddled in His weakness! Will you not love Him who became God
   Incarnate for you? Think of Him all through His life--a life of
   poverty, for He had nowhere to lay His head--a life of rejection, for,
   "He came unto His own and His own received Him not"--a life of pain,
   for He bore our sicknesses--a life of dishonor, for He was despised and
   rejected of men! Will you further think of Him in the Garden of
   Gethsemane? Will not your love be stirred as you watch the bloody sweat
   and hear His groans and mark His tears as He pleads with God until He
   prevails? Follow Him to the judgment seat and hear Him there charged
   with sedition and with blasphe-my--if you can bear it!

   Then see the soldiers as they spit in His face and mock Him while they
   thrust a reed into His hand for a scepter and put on His brow a crown
   of thorns as His only diadem! See Him tied up to be scourged till the
   cruel thongs lacerate and tear His precious flesh and He suffers
   indescribable agonies! And when you have followed Him that far, go
   still further and stand at the foot of the Cross and mark the crimson
   stream that flows from His hands, feet and side! Stand and watch Him
   when the soldier's spear has pierced His heart and made the blood and
   water flow forth for your pardon and cleansing. Did He suffer all this
   for you and do you not love Him in return? May I not tell that, "if,"
   to get out of the way and let you pass, that you may take the next
   step? Track Him as He rises from the grave for you--as He ascends to
   Heaven for you and obtains great gifts for you! Up there, before His
   Father's face, He pleads for you and governs all things as King of
   kings and Lord of lords--and governs all for you! Up there He prepares
   many mansions for His own people and gets ready to come to earth the
   second time that He may receive His people unto Himself, that where He
   is they may be forever and forevermore!

   As you think of all this, love the Lord, you who are His saints, you
   who have been washed in His blood, love Him! You who are wearing the
   spotless robe of His righteousness--love Him! You who call Him,
   "Husband," love Him--you who are married to Him--united in bonds that
   can never be severed!

   II. If this is true of you, let us pass on to the next point--that of
   KEEPING CHRIST'S WORDS. "If any man loves Me, says Christ, "he will
   keep My words. "Let us see how far we have kept His words.

   I trust that, first, we keep His words by treasuring them and prizing
   them. Brothers and Sisters, I hope that we venerate every word that
   Christ has ever uttered. I trust that we desire to treasure up every
   syllable that He has ever spoken. There is not a word of His, recorded
   in the Gospels, or in any other of the Inspired pages of Revelation, by
   which we do not set more store than for much fine gold.

   I trust that we keep Christ's words, next, by trying to knowthem. Are
   you all diligent students of the Word of God? Do you search the
   Scriptures? Do you live upon the Truths of God that the Lord has
   spoken? You should, for every word that comes out of His mouth is the
   true food of your souls! I must ask you whether you are doing these two
   things. Are you keeping Christ's words by prizing them and by seeking
   to be so familiar with them that you know what His words are?

   Then, next, do you endeavor to lift the latch and to find your way into
   the inner meaning of His words? Do you pierce the shell to get at the
   kernel? Does the Spirit of God lead you into all Truth, or are you
   content with the rudiments of the faith? This is the way to keep
   Christ's words, namely, by endeavoring, to your very utmost, to
   understand what the meaning of those words may be!

   Then, when you know the meaning of them, do you seek to keep them in
   your hearts?Do you love what Christ has spoken so that you delight to
   know what it is and love it because it is His Doctrine? Will you sit at
   His feet and receive the instruction that He is willing to impart? Have
   you attained to that stage that you even love His rebukes? If His words
   come home to you and sharply reprove you, do you love them even then,
   and lay bare your heart before Him that you may feel more and more the
   faithful wounds of this, your beloved Friend? Do you also love His
   precepts? Are they as sweet to you as His promises, or, if you could do
   as you wish, would you cut them out of the Bible and get rid of them? O
   Brothers and Sisters, it is a blessed proof that Divine Grace has been
   largely given to us when even the smallest word uttered by Jesus Christ
   is more precious to us than all the diamonds in the world and we feel
   that we only want to know what He has said and to love whatever He has
   spoken!

   "If a man loves Me, he will keep My words." This declaration of our
   Lord suggests this question--Do we keep His words practically? That is
   a most important point, for you will not be able to get any further if
   you stumble here. Do you endeavor, in a practical way, to keep all His
   moral precepts? Are you trying to be in your lives, as far as you can,
   like He--or are you selfish, unkind, worldly? Are you endeavoring to be
   like He who has left you an example that you should follow in His
   steps? Come, answer honestly! Is this the objective of your life? Are
   you seeking to be molded by the Holy Spirit in that way? And are you
   practically keeping Christ's words as to the precepts of the Gospel?
   Have you believed on Him? Believing on Him, have you been baptized
   according to His command? Being baptized, do you come to His Table
   according to His bidding, "This do in remembrance of Me"? Or do you
   turn on your heels and say that these are nonessential things?

   Beloved, if your heart is right with God, you will want to know all His
   words and to put them into practice! What care I about the words of any
   earthly church? They are only the words of men! But search and find the
   words of Christ-- and wherever they lead you, even though you are the
   only one who has ever been led in that way--follow wherever He leads.
   You cannot take the next step mentioned in my text unless you can
   deliberately say, "Yes, Lord, 'Your words were found and I did eat
   them; and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for
   I am called by Your name, O Lord God of Hosts,' and I long to walk in
   all Your statutes and ordinances, blamelessly, even to the end of my
   days." You may err, you may make mistakes--you may even sin--but the
   intent of your heart must be that having loved the Lord, you will keep
   His words in those various senses that I have mentioned.

   III. If you have been enabled to pass through these two gates, you may
   now come to the next one which tells us of A HIGH PRIVILEGE AND GREAT
   JOY--"He will keep My words; and My Father will love him."

   What wonderful words these are--"My Father will love him"! It is quite
   certain that He will do so, for when a man loves Jesus, he is in
   sympathy with the Eternal Father, Himself. You know, my Brothers and
   Sisters, that the Father's

   love is fixed upon His only-begotten Son. One with Himself in His
   essential Deity, He has loved Him from eternity! But since Jesus has
   been obedient unto death, "even the death of the Cross," we cannot
   imagine what must be the Father's complacency in the blessed Person of
   our risen and ascended Lord! This is a deep subject and there is no
   human mind that can ever fathom the depths of it and tell how truly and
   how wonderfully the Father loves His everlasting Son! So, you see,
   Brothers and Sisters, that if we love Jesus Christ, our heart meets the
   heart of God, for the Father also loves Him! Have you never felt, when
   you have been trying to praise Jesus, that you are doing, in your
   feeble way, just what God has always been doing in His own Infinite
   way? The ever-blessed Spirit is continually glorifying Jesus--and when
   you are doing the same, God and you--though with very unequal
   footsteps--are treading the same path and are in sympathy, one with the
   other!

   Then, besides the fact that you are in sympathy with the Father in
   having one Object of love, you are also in sympathy with Him as to
   character. Jesus said, "If a man loves Me, he will keep My words."
   Well, when you are keeping Christ's words--when the Divine Spirit is
   making you obedient to Jesus and like Jesus--you are treading the path
   where your Heavenly Father would have you walk and, therefore, He loves
   you!

   Let me make a clear distinction here. I am not now speaking about the
   general love of God towards all mankind-- that love of benevolence and
   beneficence which is displayed even towards the thankless and the evil.
   Neither am I speaking, just now, concerning the essential love of God
   towards His own elect whom He loves irrespectively of their character
   because of His own Sovereign choice of them from eternity. I am
   speaking of that complacent love which God, as a Father, has towards
   His own children. You know that you often say to your child, "If you do
   this or that, your father will love you," yet you know that a father
   will love his child, as his child, and always must do so even if his
   character is not all that the father desires it to be. But what a love
   that is which a father has to a good, dutiful, obedient child! It is a
   love of which he talks to him again and again, a love which he
   manifests to him in many sweet and kindly words, a love which he
   displays to him in many actions which he would not otherwise have done,
   bestowing upon him many favors which it would not have been safe to
   bestow upon him if he had been a naughty, disobedient child.

   Never forget that our Heavenly Father exercises wise discipline in His
   house. He has rods for His children who disobey Him and He has smiles
   for His children who keep His commands. If we walk contrary to Him, He
   has told us that He will walk contrary to us. But if our ways please
   Him, there are many choice favors which He bestows upon us. This
   teaching is not suggestive of legal bondage, for we are not under Law,
   but under Grace. But this is the Law of God's House under the rule of
   Grace--for instance, if a man keeps the Lord's commandments, He will
   have power with God in prayer. But when a man lives habitually in sin,
   or even occasionally falls into sin, he cannot pray so as to prevail,
   he cannot win the ear of God as he used to do. You know right well that
   if you have offended the Lord in any way, you cannot enjoy the Gospel
   as you did before you so sinned. The Bible, instead of smiling upon
   you, seems to threaten you in every text and every line--it seems to
   rise up, as in letters of fire, and burn its way into your conscience!

   It is certainly true that the Lord deals differently with His own
   children according to their condition and character. So, when a man is
   brought into such a state of heart that he keeps Christ's words, then
   his character is of such a kind that God can take a complacent delight
   in him and, in this sense can love him. It is in such a case as this
   that the Father will let us know that He loves us, that He will assure
   us of that love and shed it abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He
   will give us special blessings, perhaps in Providence, but certainly in
   Grace. He will give us special joy and rejoicing--our horn shall be
   exalted and our feet shall stand upon the high places of the earth. All
   things--even His trials--shall be blessed to the man who walks aright
   with God--and the way to do that is to love Christ and to keep His
   words! Of such a man, Jesus says, "My Father will love him."

   IV. If you have passed through these three gates, you come to another
   which bears this inscription, "WE WILL COME UNTO HIM."

   This is a singular use of the plural pronoun--" We will come unto him."
   It is a proof of the distinct Personality of the Father and of the Son.
   Jesus says, "If a man loves Me," (do not forget the previous links in
   this blessed Gospel chain), "he will keep My words; and My Father will
   love him." And then follows this gracious assurance--"We will come unto
   him." Does not this mean, first, distance removed?There is no longer a
   gap between such a man's soul and his God. He feels heavy in heart,
   perhaps, and thinks, "I cannot get near to God," but he hears this
   comforting message, "We will come unto him" and, soon, over all the
   mountains of division that there may have been in the past, like a roe,
   or a young

   hart, the Well-Beloved comes and the Great Father, when He sees, in the
   distance, His child returning to Him, runs to meet Him and holds him to
   His heart! What a wondrous Divine coming this is! Christ and His
   Father, by the Holy Spirit, come to pay the Believer a most gracious
   visit! Yes, Beloved, if you are living in love to Christ and keeping
   His words, there will not be any distance separating you from the
   Father and the Son, but the text will be blessedly fulfilled in your
   experience--"We will come unto him."

   And while it means distance removed, it also means honor conferred.
   Many a great nobleman has beggared himself that he might receive a
   prince or a king into his house. The entertainment of royalty has meant
   the mortgaging of his estates! That is a poor return for the honor of
   receiving a visit from his sovereign. But, behold, my Brothers and
   Sisters, how different it is with us! The obedient lover of the Lord
   Jesus Christ has the Father and the Son to visit him and he is greatly
   enriched by their coming! He may be very poor, but Jesus says, "We will
   come unto him." He may be obscure and illiterate, but Jesus says, "We
   will come unto him." Do you all, dear Friends, know what this coming
   means? Did you ever know the Son to come to you with His precious blood
   applied to your conscience till you realized that every one of your
   sins was forgiven? Have you taken Jesus up in your arms, spiritually,
   as old Simeon did literally, and said with him, "Lord, now let you Your
   servant depart in peace according to Your word, for my eyes have seen
   Your salvation"? Has Jesus seemed, to your faith, to be as near to you
   as one who sat on the same chair with you and talked with you in most
   familiar conversation? It has been so with some of us--and it has often
   been so.

   This also has meant knowledge increased. Jesus has revealed Himself to
   us by coming to us even as He came to the two disciples on the way to
   Emmaus. Then, in addition, have you not known the Father come to you in
   His Divine relationship, yet making you feel yourself His child and
   causing you to realize that He loved you as truly as you love your own
   children, only much more deeply and fervently than human love can ever
   be? Have you not received at His hands such tokens for good and such
   benedictions as only He could give--so that you felt the Divine
   Fatherhood to be something coming very near to you and the Spirit of
   God, operating within you, has made you cry, "Abba, Father," with an
   unstammering tongue? "We will come unto him." The Savior will come and
   the Father will come--and the blessed Spirit will represent Them both
   in the Believer's heart!

   So, "We will come unto him," means distance removed, honor conferred
   and knowledge increased. And it also means assistance brought, for, if
   the Father and the Son come to us, what more can we need? With Their
   gracious Presence in our souls we have Omnipotence and Omniscience,
   Infinity and All-Sufficiency on our side--and Grace to help us in every
   time of need!

   V. The last clause of the text, and the sweetest of all, is, "AND MAKE
   OUR ABODE WITH HIM."

   Can you catch the full meaning of that phrase? Jesus says that the
   Father and the Son will visit us--they will come to us as the three
   blessed ones came to Abraham when he was at the tent door and he
   entertained the Lord and His attendant angels--but they did not make
   Their abode with him. They went on their way and Abraham was left in
   the plains of Mamre. God often visited Abraham and spoke familiarly
   with him, but our Savior's promise goes beyond that. He says, "We will
   come unto him, and make Our abode with him." To make your abode with a
   person is for that person and yourself to have the same house and
   home--and to live together. In this case, it means that the Lord will
   make His people to be His Temple wherein He will dwell continually. "We
   will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." I have turned that
   thought over and over again until I have got the sweetness of it into
   my own heart, but I cannot communicate it to your minds and
   hearts--only the Holy Spirit can do that.

   See what this expression means. What knowledge of one another is
   implied here! Do you want to know a person? You must live with him--you
   do not really know someone, however much you may think you know him,
   until you have done so. But, oh, if the Father and the Son come and
   live with us, we shall know Them--know the Father and the Son! This is
   not the portion of carnal minds--neither is it for professing
   Christians who have not fulfilled the conditions laid down by our Lord.
   It is for those who love Christ and keep His words--those who
   consciously live in the enjoyment of the Father's complacency and who
   have fellowship with the Father and with the Son by the Spirit! To
   these privileged individuals, God reveals Himself in His Triune
   Personality--and to them He will make known all that is in His Covenant
   of love and mercy!

   This expression also implies a sacred friendship, for, when God comes
   to dwell with men, He does not thus dwell with His enemies, but only
   with those who love Him and between whom and Himself there is mutual
   sympathy. O Beloved, if

   God the Father and God the Son shall indeed come to dwell with us, it
   will be to us a proof of wondrous love, dear familiarity and intense
   friendship! If you go to live with an earthly friend, it is quite
   possible for you to stay too long and to outstay your welcome. But God
   knows all about the man with whom He comes to live and Jesus says, "We
   will make Our abode with him," because He knows that His Spirit has
   purified and sanctified that heart and made it ready to receive Himself
   and His Father, too! You remember how Jeremiah pleaded with the Lord
   not merely to be as a sojourner? "O the hope of Israel, the Savior
   thereof in time of trouble, why should You be as a stranger in the
   land, and as a wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night?"
   But this is not the way that the Father and the Son deal with us, for
   Jesus says that They will make Their abode with us! Does not this imply
   a very sacred friendship, indeed, between God and our soul?

   It also reveals the complete acceptance of the man before God, for,
   when anyone comes to stay with you, it is taken for granted that you
   exercise hospitality towards him. He eats and drinks in your house and,
   for the time, he makes himself at home with you. "But," you ask, "is it
   possible that God should accept the hospitality of man?" Yes, it is.
   Listen to the words of Christ, Himself--"Behold, I stand at the door
   and knock: if any man hears My voice, and opens the door, I will come
   in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Oh, the blessedness
   of thus entertaining the King of kings! Then will He drink of my milk
   and my wine and eat the pleasant fruits that are grown in the garden of
   my soul. Will that which I present to Him be acceptable to Him? It must
   be, or else He would not live in my house! And when the Father and the
   Son come to dwell in the soul of the Believer, then all that he does
   will be accepted. If he is, himself, accepted, his thoughts and his
   words, his prayers and his praises, his almsgiving and his labors for
   Christ will be accepted by both the Father and the Son!

   What a blessed state for anyone to reach! For then it shall come to
   pass that this reception on God's part, from us, shall be followed by a
   sevenfold reception on our part, from Him. You do not imagine, I hope,
   that, when God the Father and God the Son make Their abode in a man
   that the man will continue to be just as he was when they came to him?
   No, my Brothers and Sisters, the Lord pays well for His lodging! Where
   He stays, He turns everything that He touches into gold. When He comes
   into a human heart, it may be dark, but He floods it with the Light of
   Heaven. It may have been cold before, but He warms it with the glow of
   His Almighty Love. A man without the indwelling of God is like the bush
   in Horeb when it was only a bush--but when the Father and the Son come
   to him, then it is with him as when the bush burned with fire yet was
   not consumed! The Lord brings Heaven to you when He comes to you--and
   you are rich beyond the intents of bliss. All things are yours, for you
   are Christ's and Christ is God's, and Christ and God have come to make
   Their abode with you!

   Now, according to our Lord's promise, "We will come to him, and will
   make Our abode with him," it is implied that there they mean to stay
   Let me take your thoughts back, for a minute, to the earlier links in
   this blessed Gospel chain and remind you that it is only, "ifa man
   loves Me," and it is only, '"if he keep My words, "that the Savior's
   promise applies. "We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him."
   Have the Father and the Son come to your heart? Then I charge you, do
   nothing that might cause them to depart from you even for a moment. If
   you ever get into conscious enjoyment of the Divine Indwelling, be
   jealous of your heart lest it should ever depart from your Lord, or
   drive Him from you. Say, with the spouse, "I charge you, O daughters of
   Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor awake my Love, until He pleases."

   "But," perhaps you ask, "can we keep Him? Can we always keep Him?" I
   believe you can. By the blessed help of the Divine Spirit who has
   taught you to love Him and to keep His words, you may have near and
   dear fellowship with your Lord by the month and by the year together! I
   am sure that we have too low a standard of the possibilities of
   Christian fellowship, Christian enjoyment and Christian living. Aim at
   the highest conceivable degree of holiness and though you will not be
   perfect, never excuse yourselves because you are not! Always aim at
   something higher and yet still higher than you have already reached.
   Ask the Lord to come and abide with you forever. You will be happy
   Christians if you attain to this privilege and stay in that condition.
   And we shall be a blessed Church if the most or all of us should attain
   to it. I mean to go in for this blessing, by God's gracious help--will
   not you, my Brother, my Sister? Can any of you be content to live a
   lower life than is possible to you? I hope you will not be, but that
   you will reach all of these steps that I have pointed out to you and
   ask God in prayer to help you to surmount them. "Lord, help me to love
   Jesus. Set my soul on fire with love to Him. Lord, enable me to keep
   all His words and never to trifle with His Truth in anything. And then,
   Father, look upon me with complacency. Make me such that You can take
   delight in me. See the resemblance to Your

   Son in me, because you have made me to be like He and then, Father, and
   Savior, come and abide with me forever and ever. Amen." Such a prayer
   as that, truly presented, will be answered and the Lord shall get glory
   from it!

   But, alas, many of you have nothing to do with this text because you do
   not love Christ! And the first thing you have to do is not to think
   about loving Him, but about trusting Him, for you know that the only
   way of salvation is by trusting Christ. So, if you do not trust Him,
   you are not in the way of salvation. Have you ever thought of what is
   involved in being an unbeliever? The Apostle John says, "He that
   believes not God has made Him a liar because he believes not the record
   that God gave of His Son." Do you really mean to make God out to be a
   liar? Surely you cannot! The very thought is too horrible to be
   entertained for a moment! Well, then, believe His record concerning His
   Son. That record declares that He is the Propitiation for our sins.
   Then if you rely upon that Propitiation and trust to Him who made it,
   you are saved!

   I often have the remark made to me by an anxious soul, "But, Sir, I
   cannot believe. I wish I could." This is the answer which I generally
   give to the person who says that--"What? You cannot believe? Come, now,
   let us have that matter out. You cannot believe God? Could you believe
   me?" Of course, the answer is, "Oh, yes, Sir, I can believe you!" I
   reply--"Yes, I suppose that is because you have confidence in my
   character and believe that I would not tell you a lie. Then, in the
   name of everything that is good and reasonable, how is it that you dare
   say that you cannot believe God? Is He a liar? Has He ever given you
   any cause to say to Him, 'I cannot believe You'? What do you mean? Give
   me some reason why you cannot believe God! What has He done that you
   cannot believe Him?"

   Well, they do not quite see it in that light but, still, they return to
   that sentence, "I cannot believe." Well now, Sinner, if Jesus Christ
   were present and He were to say to you, "Trust Me and I will save you.
   Believe My promise and you shall enter into eternal life." Would you
   look Him in the face and say, "I cannot believe You"? And if He asked
   you the question, "Why can you not believe Me?" What would be your
   reply? Surely a man can believe what is true. There have been times,
   with me, since I have known the Savior, when it seemed to me as if I
   could not doubt my Lord--as if I could not find a reason, even if I
   ransacked Heaven, earth and Hell, why I should doubt Him. I proclaim
   that I do not know any reason why I should not trust Christ! I cannot
   conceive of any. Well, will men continue this monstrous, unjust,
   ungenerous conduct? Alas, they will.

   "But," says someone, "if I do trust my soul to Christ, will He save
   me?" Try Him and see. You have His own promise that He will cast out
   none who come to Him. So, if you believes in the Lord Jesus Christ this
   very moment--this very moment you are saved! What more need I say? May
   the Blessed Spirit cause you to cease, by your unbelief, from
   practically making God a liar and may you now come and trust in Jesus,
   the Substitute and Surety for His people! So shall you rest your weary
   hearts upon His loving bosom and it shall be well with you forever and
   ever. May God bless you all, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 14:15-31.

   Verses 15, 16. If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I willpray the
   Father, and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with
   you forever Is it not very sweet to think that the Spirit of God is
   given to the Church in answer to the prayer of Christ? Prayer is a holy
   exercise, for Jesus prayed. And what a powerful influence prayer has,
   for His prayer has brought to us "another Comforter."

   17. Even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it
   sees Him not, neither knows Him. This poor world will not receive
   anything which it cannot see. It is ruled by its senses--it is carnal
   and fleshly--and minds not the things that are unseen. It cannot
   discern them.

   17, 18. Butyou knowHim, for He dwells with you, andshall be in you. I
   willnot leave you comfortless: I will come to you. That expression, "I
   will not leave you comfortless," might be rendered, "I will not leave
   you orphans."

   19. Yet a little while, and the world sees Me no more; but you see Me:
   because I live, you shall live also. What a wealth of meaning these
   words contain! The sentences are very simple, but they are also
   sublime. The gorgeous language in which some orators indulge is, when
   the meaning of it is condensed, like great clouds of steam which
   produce but a few drops of water! But here you have vast Truths of God
   pressed into a small compass and those that seem most plain are

   really the most deep. "Because I live, you shall live also." As surely
   as Christ lives, so must His people! They cannot die, for He lives to
   die no more--and they live in Him.

   20. At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me,
   and Iin you. Mysterious triple union-- Christ in the Father, we in
   Christ and Christ in us. This is a complete riddle to all who have
   never been taught by the Spirit of God.

   21, 22. He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves
   Me: and he who loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love
   him, and willmanifest Myself to him. Judas (not Iscariot)said unto Him,
   Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us, and not unto
   the world? He really did answer the question, though perhaps not
   directly. This is the process by which He manifests Himself unto His
   people and not unto the world--

   23, 24. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves Me, He will
   keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him,
   and make Our abode with him. He that loves Me not keeps not My sayings:
   and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent
   Me. There is Divine Authority at the back of every word uttered by the
   Man, Christ Jesus. His message comes not from Himself, alone, but from
   the Eternal Father as well.

   20-28. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
   But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send
   in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
   remembrance, whatever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, My
   peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not
   your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard how I
   said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you loved Me, you
   would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is
   greater than I. And truly so He was, for Christ had, for a while, laid
   aside His own greatness and taken the position of a Servant.

   29, 30. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it
   is come to pass, you might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with
   you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in Me. His
   words must come to an end, for He was going to perform His mightiest
   deeds. He could converse no longer, for He was going from converse to
   conflict. He must meet His great enemy now and leave His dearest
   friends.

   31. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the
   Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. And
   so He went to the Garden of Gethsemane--a brave, gentle, confident,
   victorious spirit "straitened" till He had accomplished the great work
   of our redemption!
     __________________________________________________________________

Harvest Time

   (No. 2896)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, AUGUST 11, 1854.

   "Is today not the wheat harvest?" 1 Samuel 12:17.

   [A peculiar and even unique interest attaches to the present Sermon, as
   it was the first of Mr. Spurgeon's discourses that was ever printed.
   Although it has appeared in another form, the publishers thought that
   it ought to be included in the regular weekly series, so it is now
   reprinted exactly 50 years after it was delivered. When cholera was
   desolating London and the wicked war in the Crimea was still being
   waged, the young pastor sounded a cheerful note to comfort the
   Christians of that day while he also warned others of the consequences
   of continuance in evil-doing. The message spoken half a century ago is
   by no means out of date even now.--Pub.]

   I SHALL not notice the connection, but I shall simply take these words
   as a slogan and my sermon will be founded upon a harvest field. I shall
   rather use the harvest for my text than any passage that I find here.
   "Is today not the wheat harvest?" I suppose the dwellers in cities
   think less of times and seasons than dwellers in the country. Men who
   were born, trained up, nourished and nurtured among cornfields,
   harvests, sowing and reaping, are more likely to notice such things
   than you who are always engaged in mercantile pursuits and think less
   of these things than rustics do. But I suppose if it is almost
   necessary that you should regard the harvest less than others, it ought
   not to be carried to too great an extreme. Let us not be forgetful of
   times and seasons. There is much to be learned from them and I would
   refresh your memories by a harvest field.

   What a wondrous temple this world is, for in truth it is a temple of
   God's building wherein men ought to worship Him. What a wondrous temple
   it is to a mind spiritually enlightened which can bring to bear upon it
   the resources of intellect and the illuminations of God's Holy Spirit!
   There is not a single flower in it that does not teach us a lesson.
   There is not a single wave, or blast of thunder that has not some
   lesson to teach us, the sons of men. This world is a great temple and
   as if you walk in an Egyptian temple, you know that every mark and
   every figure in the temple has a meaning--so when you walk this world,
   everything about you has a meaning! It is no fanciful idea that there
   are "sermons in stones," for there really are sermons in stones and
   this world is intended to teach us by everything that we see. Happy is
   the man who not only has the mind, but has the spirit to get these
   lessons from Nature! Flowers, what are they? They are but the thoughts
   of God solidified--God's beautiful thoughts put into shape. Storms,
   what are they? They are God's terrible thoughts written out that we may
   read them. Thunders, what are they? They are God's powerful emotions
   just opened that men may hear them. The world is the materializing of
   God's thoughts, for the world is a thought in God's eyes. He made it
   first from a thought that came from His own mighty mind and everything
   in the majestic temple that He has made has a meaning!

   In this temple there are four evangelists. As we have four great
   evangelists in the Bible, so there are four evangelists in Nature--and
   these are the four evangelists of the seasons--spring, summer, autumn,
   winter.

   First comes spring and what does it say? We look and we behold that by
   the magic touch of spring, insects which seemed to be dead begin to
   awaken and seeds that were buried in the dust begin to lift up their
   radiant forms. What does spring say? It utters its voice, it says to
   man, "Though you sleep, you shall rise again. There is a world in
   which, in a

   more glorious state, you shall exist. You are but a seed, now, and you
   shall be buried in the dust and in a little while you shall arise."
   Spring utters that part of its evangel. Then comes summer. Summer says
   to man, "Behold the goodness of a merciful Creator--'He makes His sun
   to shine on the evil and on the good'--He sprinkles the earth with
   flowers, He adorns it with those gems of creation, He makes it blossom
   like Eden and bring forth like the Garden of the Lord." Summer utters
   that. Then comes autumn. We shall hear its message. It passes and
   winter comes forth crowned with a coronal of ice and it tells us that
   there are times of trouble for man. It points to the fruits that we
   have stored up in autumn, and it says to us, "Man, take heed that you
   store up something for yourself--something against the day of wrath.
   Lay up for yourself the fruits of autumn, that you may be able to feed
   on them in winter." And when the old year expires, its death knell
   tells us that man must die. And when the year has finished its
   evangelistic mission, there comes another to preach the same lesson
   again.

   We are about to let autumn preach. One of these four evangelists comes
   forth and it says, "Is today not the wheat harvest?" We are about to
   take the harvest into consideration in order to learn something from
   it. May God's most blessed Spirit help His feeble dust and ashes to
   preach the unsearchable riches of God to your souls' profit!

   We shall talk of three joyful harvests and of three sorrowful harvests.

   I. First, we shall speak of THREE JOYFUL HARVESTS that there will be.

   The first joyful harvest that I will mention is the harvest of the
   field which Samuel alluded to when he said, "Is today not the wheat
   harvest?" We cannot forget the harvest of the field. It is not right
   that these things should be forgotten. We ought not to let the fields
   be covered with corn, have their treasures stored away in the barns and
   all the while to remain forgetful of God's mercy. Ingratitude, that
   worst of evils, is one of the vipers which make their nest in the heart
   of man--and the creature cannot be slain until Divine Grace comes and
   sprinkles the blood of the Cross upon man's heart. Such vipers die when
   the blood of Christ is upon them. Let me just lead you for a moment to
   a harvest field. You shall see there a most luxuriant harvest, the
   heavy ears bending down almost to touch the ground, as much as to say,
   "From the ground I came. I owe myself to the ground--to that I bow my
   head"--just as the good Christian does when he is full of years. He
   holds his head down the more fruit he has upon him. You see the stalks
   with their heads hanging down because they are ripe. And it is goodly
   and precious to see these things!

   Now just suppose the opposite. If this year the ears had been blighted
   and withered. If they had been like the second ears that Pharaoh
   saw--very lean and very scanty--what would have become of us? In peace,
   we might have depended on large supplies from Russia to make up the
   deficiency. Now, in times of war, referring to the war in the Crimea,
   when nothing can come, what would become of us? We may conjecture, we
   may imagine, but I do not know that we are able to come to the truth.
   We can only say, "Blessed be God, we have not yet to reckon on what
   wouldhave been. But He, seeing one door closed, has opened another."
   Seeing that we might not get supplies from those rich fields in the
   South of Russia, He has opened another door in our own land. "You are
   My own favored island," He says, "I have loved you, England, with a
   special love. You are My favored one and the enemy shall not crush you.
   And lest you should starve because provisions are cut off, I will give
   you full barns at home and your fields shall be covered, that you may
   laugh your enemy to scorn and say to him, 'You thought you could starve
   us and make us perish, but He who feeds the ravens has fed His people
   and has not deserted His favored land.'"

   There is not one person who is uninterested in this matter! Some say
   the poor ought to be thankful that there is abundance of bread. So
   ought the rich! There is nothing which happens to one member of society
   which does not affect all. The ranks lean upon one another--if there is
   scarcity in the lower ranks, it falls upon the next and the next--and
   even the Queen upon her throne feels in some degree the scarcity when
   God is pleased to send it. It affects all men. Let none say, "Whatever
   the price of corn may be, I can live," but rather bless God who has
   given you more than enough! Your prayer ought to be, "Give us this day
   our daily bread," and remember that whatever wealth you have, you must
   attribute your daily mercies as much to God as if you lived from hand
   to mouth. And sometimes that is a blessed way of living-- when God
   gives His children the hand-basket portion instead of sending it in a
   mass. Bless God that He has sent an abundant harvest! O fearful ones,
   lift up your heads! And you discontented ones, be you abashed and let
   your discontent no more be known! The Jews used to observe the feast of
   tabernacles when the harvest time came. In the country they always have
   a "harvest home" and why should not we? I want you all to have one.
   Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! For the harvest is

   come--"Is today not the wheat harvest?"Poor desponding Soul, let all
   your doubts and fears be gone. "Your bread shall be given you and your
   waters shall be sure." That is one joyful harvest!

   Now, the second joyful harvest is the harvest of every Christian. In
   one sense, the Christian is a seed. In another, he is a sower. In one
   sense, he is a seed sown by God which is to grow, ripen and germinate
   till the great harvest time. In another sense every Christian is a
   sower sent into the world to sow good seed and to sow good seed only. I
   do not say that Christian men never sow any other seed than good seed.
   Sometimes, in unguarded moments, they take garlic into their hands
   instead of wheat--and we may sow tares instead of corn. Christians
   sometimes make mistakes and God sometimes allows His people to fall so
   that they sow sins--but the Christian never reaps his sins--Christ
   reaps them for him. He often has to have a concoction made of the
   bitter leaves of sin, but he never reaps the fruit of it. Christ has
   borne the punishment! Yet bear in mind, if you and I sin against God,
   God will take our sin and He will get an essence from it that will be
   bitter to our taste! Though He does not make us eat the fruits, yet He
   will still make us grieve and sorrow over our sins. But the Christian,
   as I have said, should be employed in sowing good seed and, doing so,
   he shall have a glorious harvest!

   In some sense or other, the Christian must be sowing seed. If God calls
   him to the ministry, he is a seed sower. If God calls him to the
   Sabbath school, he is a seed sower. Whatever his office, he is a sower
   of seed. I sow seed broadcast all over this immense field--I cannot
   tell where my seed goes. Some are like barren ground and they refuse to
   receive the seed that I sow. I cannot help it if any man should do so.
   I am only responsible to God, whose servant I am. There are others and
   my seed falls upon them and brings forth a little fruit, but,
   by-and-by, when the sun is up, because of persecution, they wither away
   and they die. But I hope there are many who are like the good ground
   that God has prepared--and when I scatter the seed abroad, it falls on
   good ground and brings forth fruit to an abundant harvest! Ah, the
   minister has a joyful harvest, even in this world, when he sees souls
   converted! I have had a harvest time when I have led the sheep down to
   the washing of Baptism, when I have seen God's people coming out from
   the mass of the world and telling what the Lord has done for their
   souls! When God's children are edified and built up, it is worth living
   for and worth dying ten thousand deaths for to be the means of saving
   one soul! What a joyful harvest it is when God gives us converted ones
   by tens and hundreds--and adds to His Church abundantly such as shall
   be saved!

   Now I am like a farmer just at this season of the year. I have got a
   good deal of wheat down and I want to get it into the barn for fear the
   rain comes and spoils it. I believe I have got a great many, but they
   will persist in standing out in the field. I want to get them into the
   barns. They are good people, but they do not like to make a profession
   and join the Church. I want to get them into my Master's granary and to
   see Christians added to the Church. I see some holding down their heads
   and saying, "He means us." So I do. You ought to have joined Christ's
   Church before this and unless you are fit to be gathered into Christ's
   little garner here on earth, you have no right to anticipate being
   gathered into that great garner which is in Heaven!

   Every Christian has his harvest. The Sabbath school teacher has his
   harvest. He goes and toils and often he plows very stony ground, but he
   shall have his harvest. Oh, poor laboring Sabbath school teacher, have
   you seen no fruit yet? Do you say, "Who has believed our report, and to
   whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Cheer up, you do labor in a good
   cause--there must be some to do your work. Have you seen no children
   converted? Fear not--

   "Though seed lies buried long in dust,

   It shan't deceive your hope.

   The precious grain can never be lost,

   For God insures the crop."

   Go on sowing and you shall have a harvest when you shall see children
   converted! I have known some Sabbath school teachers who could count a
   dozen, or twenty, or thirty children who have, one after another, come
   to know the Lord Jesus Christ and to join the Church. But if you should
   not live to see it on earth, remember, you are only accountable for
   your labor--not for your success! Sow still, toil on! "Cast your bread
   upon the waters: for you shall find it after many days." God will not
   allow His Word to be wasted--it shall not return to Him void, but shall
   accomplish that which He pleases. There may be a poor mother who has
   often been sad. She has a son and a daughter and she has been praying
   that God might convert their souls. Mother, your son is still an
   ungainly boy. He grieves your heart. The hot tears still scald your
   cheeks on account of him. And you, Father, you have reproved him often.
   He is a wayward son and he is still running the downward road. Cease
   not to pray! O my Brothers and Sisters who are parents, you shall have
   a harvest!

   There was a boy once, a very sinful child who listened not to the
   counsel of his parents. But his mother prayed for him and now he stands
   to preach to this congregation every Sabbath. And when his mother
   thinks of her first-born preaching the Gospel, she reaps a glorious
   harvest that makes her a glad woman! Now, Fathers and Mothers, such may
   be your case. However bad your children are at present, still press
   toward the Throne of Grace and you shall have a harvest. What do you
   think, Mother, would you not rejoice to see your son a minister of the
   Gospel, your daughter teaching and assisting in the cause of God? God
   will not allow you to pray and your prayers be unheeded!

   Young man, your mother has been wrestling for you a long time and she
   has not won your soul yet. What do you think? You cheat your mother of
   her harvest! If she had a little patch of ground, hard by her cottage,
   where she had sown some wheat, would you go and burn it? If she had a
   choice flower in her garden would you go and trample it under foot? But
   by going on in the ways of the reprobate, you are cheating your father
   and your mother of their harvest! Perhaps there are some parents who
   are weeping over their sons and daughters who are hardened and
   unconverted. O God, turn their hearts! Bitter is the doom of that man
   who goes to Hell over the road that is washed by his mother's tears,
   stumbles over his father's reproofs and tramples on those things which
   God has put in his way--his mother's prayers and his father's sighs!
   God help that man who dares to do such a thing as that! And it is
   wondrous Grace if He does help him.

   You shall have a harvest, whatever you are doing. I trust you are all
   doing something. If I cannot mention what your peculiar engagement is,
   I trust you are all serving God in some way--and you shall assuredly
   have a harvest wherever you are scattering your seed. But suppose the
   worst--if you should never live to see the harvest in this world, you
   shall have a harvest when you get to Heaven! If you live and die a
   disappointed man in this world, you shall not be disappointed in the
   next! I think how surprised some of God's people will be when they get
   to Heaven. They will see their Master and He will give them a crown,
   "Lord, what is that crown for?" "That crown is because you gave a cup
   of cold water to one of My disciples." "What? A crown for a cup of cold
   water?" "Yes," says the Master, "that is how I pay My servants. First I
   give them Grace to give the cup of water and then, having given them
   Grace, I give them a crown." "Wonders of Grace belong to God!" He that
   sows liberally shall reap liberally and he that sows grudgingly shall
   reap sparingly.

   Ah, if there could be grief in Heaven, I think it would be the grief of
   some Christians who had sown so very little. After all, how little the
   most of us ever sow! I know I sow but very little compared with what I
   might. How little any of you sow! Just add up how much you give to God
   in the year. I am afraid it would not come to a farthing per cent.
   Remember, you reap according to what you sow. O my Friends, what
   surprise some of you will feel when God pays you for sowing one single
   grain! The soil of Heaven is rich in the extreme. If a farmer had such
   ground as there is in Heaven, he would say, "I must sow a great many
   acres of land." And so let us strive, for the more we sow, the more
   shall we reap in Heaven. Yet remember it is all of Grace and not of
   debt!

   Now, Beloved, I must very hastily mention the third joyful harvest. We
   have had the harvest of the field and the harvest of the Christian. We
   are now to have another--and that is the harvest of Christ

   Christ had His sowing times. What bitter sowing times they were! Christ
   was One who went out bearing precious seed. Oh, I picture Christ sowing
   the world! He sowed it with tears. He sowed it with drops of blood. He
   sowed it with sighs. He sowed it with agony of heart and, at last He
   sowed Himselfin the ground, to be the seed of a glorious crop! What a
   sowing time His was! He sowed in tears, in poverty, in sympathy, in
   grief, in agony, in woes, in suffering and in death. He shall have a
   harvest, too. Blessings on His name, Jehovah swears it! The everlasting
   predestination of the Almighty has settled that Christ shall have a
   harvest! He has sown and He shall reap! He has scattered and He shall
   gather in. "He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days; and the
   pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands." My Friends, Christ
   has begun to reap His harvest! Yes, every soul that is converted is
   part of His reward! Everyone who comes to the Lord is a part of it.
   Every soul that is brought out of the miry clay and set on the King's
   Highway is a part of Christ's crop. But He is going to reap more! There
   is another harvest coming, in the latter day, when He shall reap
   armfuls at a time and gather the sheaves into His garner. Now men come
   to Christ in ones and twos and threes--but then they shall come in
   flocks, so that the Church shall say, "Who are these that come in as
   doves to their windows?"

   There shall be a greater harvest when time shall be no more. Turn to
   the 14th Chapter of Revelation, and the 13th verse--"And I heard a
   voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die
   in the Lord from henceforth: yes, says the Spirit that they may rest
   from their labors; and their works do follow them." They do not go
   before

   them and winthem Heaven. "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and
   upon the cloud One sat like unto the Son of Man, having on His head a
   golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came
   out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the
   cloud, Thrust in Your sickle, and reap: for the time is come for You to
   reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the
   cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped."
   That was Christ's harvest. Observe but one particular. When Christ
   comes to reap His field, He comes with a crown on His head. There are
   the nations gathered together before that crowned Reaper!--

   "They come, they come--the exiled bands!

   Wherever they rest or roam

   They heard His voice in distant lands,

   And hastened to their home."

   There they stand, one great army before God. Then comes the crowned
   Reaper from His Throne. He takes His sharp sickle--see Him reap sheaf
   after sheaf--and He carries them up to the heavenly garner. Let us ask
   the question of ourselves, whether we shall be among the reaped
   ones--the wheat of the Lord?

   Notice again, that there was first a harvest, and then a vintage. The
   harvest is the righteous--the vintage is the wicked. When the wicked
   are gathered, an angel gathers them. But Christ will not trust an angel
   to reap the righteous. "He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle."
   O my Soul, when you come to die, Christ will, Himself, come for you--
   when you are to be cut down, He that sits upon the Throne will cut you
   down with a very sharp sickle in order that He may do it as easily as
   possible. He will be the Reaper, Himself--no reaper will be allowed to
   gather Christ's saints in, but Christ, the King of saints! Oh, will it
   not be a joyful harvest when all the chosen race, every one of them,
   shall be gathered in? There is a little shriveled grain of wheat that
   has been growing somewhere on the headland and that will be there.
   There are a great many who have been hanging down their heads, heavy
   with grain, and they will be there, too. They will all be gathered in--

   "His honor is engaged to save The meanest of His sheep! All that His
   heavenly Father gave, His hands securely keep!

   II. But now we are obliged to turn to THE THREE SAD HARVESTS. Alas!
   Alas! The world was once like an Eo-lian harp--every wind that blew
   upon it gave forth melody. Now the strings are all unstrung and they
   are full of discord so that when we have a strain of joy, we must have
   the deep bass of grief to come after it.

   The first sad harvest is the harvest of death. We are all living, and
   what for? For the grave. I have sometimes sat down and had a reverie
   like this. I have thought--Man, what is he? He grows and grows till he
   comes to his prime. And when he is forty-five, if God spares him,
   perhaps he has then gained the prime of life. What does he do then? He
   continues where he is a little while and then he goes down the hill.
   And if he keeps on living, what is it for? To die. But there are many
   chances to one, as the world has it, that he will not live to be
   seventy. He may die very early. Do we not all live to die? But none
   shall die till they are ripe. Death never reaps his corn green, he
   never cuts his corn till it is ripe. The wicked die, but they are
   always ripe for Hell when they die. The righteous die, but they are
   always ripe for Heaven when they die. That poor thief there, who had
   not believed in Jesus--perhaps an hour before he died he was as ripe as
   a 70 years saint. The saint is always ready for glory whenever Death,
   the reaper, comes, and the wicked are always ripe for Hell whenever God
   pleases to send for them.

   Oh, that great reaper! He sweeps through the earth and mows his
   hundreds and thousands down! It is all still-- Death makes no noise
   about his movements and he treads with velvet footsteps over the earth.
   That ceaseless mower, none can resist him! He is irresistible and he
   mows, and mows, and cuts them down! Sometimes he stops and whets his
   scythe--he dips his scythe in blood and then he mows us down with war.
   Then he takes his whetstone of cholera and mows down more than ever.
   Still he cries, "More! More! More!" Ceaselessly that work keeps on!
   Wondrous mower! Wondrous reaper! Oh, when you come to reap me, I cannot
   resist you, for I must fall like others--when you come, I shall have
   nothing to say to you. Like a blade of corn I must stand motionless and
   you must cut me down! But, oh, may I be prepared for your scythe! May
   the Lord stand by me and comfort me and cheer me--and may I find that
   Death is an angel of life--that death is the portal of Heaven, the
   vestibule of Glory!

   There is a second sad harvest and that is the harvest that the wicked
   man has to reap. Thus says the voice of Inspiration, "Whatever a man
   sows, that shall he also reap." Now there is a harvest that every
   wicked man has to reap in this world. No man ever sins against his body
   without reaping a harvest for it. The young man says, "I have sinned
   with impunity." Stop, young man! Go to that hospital and see sufferers
   writhing in their agony. See that staggering, bloated wretch and I tell
   you, stop your sinning lest you become like he! Wisdom bids you stop,
   for your steps lead down to Hell. If you enter into the house of the
   strange woman, you shall reap a harvest. There is a harvest that every
   man reaps if he sins against his fellows. The man who sins against his
   fellow creature shall reap a harvest. Some men walk through the world
   like knights with spurs on their heels and think they may tread on whom
   they please--but they shall find their mistake. He who sins against
   others, sins against himself--that is Nature. It is a law in Nature
   that a man cannot hurt his fellows without hurting himself.

   Now, you who cause grief to others minds, do not think the grief will
   end there. You will have to reap a harvest even here. Again, a man
   cannot sin against his estate without reaping the effects of it. The
   miserly wretch who hoards up his gold, sins against his gold. It
   becomes cankered and from those golden sovereigns he will have to reap
   a harvest. Yes, that miserly wretch, sitting up at night and straining
   his weary eyes to count his gold--that man reaps his harvest. And so
   does the young spendthrift. He will reap his harvest when all his
   treasure is exhausted. It is said of the prodigal, that "no man gave to
   him"--none of those that he used to entertain--and so the prodigal
   shall find it. No man shall give anything to him. Ah, but the worst
   harvest will be that of those who sin against the Church of Christ I
   would not that a man should sin against his body. I would not that a
   man should sin against his estate.I would not that a man should sin
   against his fellows, but, most of all, I would not have him touch
   Christ's Church! He that touches one of God's people, touches the apple
   of His eye.

   When I have read of some people finding fault with the servants of the
   Lord, I have thought within myself, "I would not do so." It is the
   greatest insult to a man to speak ill of his children. You speak ill of
   God'schildren and you will be rewarded for it in everlasting
   punishment! There is not a single one of God's family whom God does not
   love--and if you touch one of them, He will have vengeance on you.
   Nothing puts a man on his mettle like touching his children and if you
   touch God's Church, you will have the direst vengeance of all! The
   hottest flames of Hell are for those who touch God's children! Go on,
   Sinner, laugh at religion if you please, but know that it is the
   blackest sin in the whole catalog of crime. God will forgive anything
   sooner than that--and though that is not unpardonable, yet, if not
   repented of, it will meet the greatest punishment. God cannot bear that
   His elect should be touched. And if you do so, it is the greatest crime
   you can commit.

   The third sad harvest is the harvest of almighty wrath, when the wicked
   at last are gathered in. In the 14th Chapter of Revelation, you will
   see that the vine of the earth was cast into the winepress of the wrath
   of God and, after that, the winepress was trodden outside the city and
   blood came out up to the horses' bridles--an amazing figure to express
   the wrath of God! Suppose, then, some great winepress in which our
   bodies are put like grapes. And suppose some mighty giant comes and
   treads us all under foot? That is the idea--that the wicked shall be
   cast together and be trodden underfoot until the blood runs out up to
   the horses' bridles! May God grant, of His Sovereign Mercy, that you
   and I may never be reaped in that fearful harvest--but that rather we
   may be written among the saints of the Lord!

   You shall have a harvest in due season if you faint not. Sow on,
   Brother! Sow on, Sister! And in due time you shall reap an abundant
   harvest. Let me tell you one thing if the seed you have sown a long
   while, has never come up. I was told once, "When you sow seeds in your
   garden, put them in a little water overnight--they will grow all the
   better for it." So, if you have been sowing your seed, put it into
   tears and it will make your seed germinate better. "They that sow in
   tears shall reap in joy." Steep your seed in tears and then put it into
   the ground--and you shall reap in joy. No bird can devour that seed! No
   bird can hold it in its mouth! No worm can eat it, for worms never eat
   seeds that are sown in tears.

   Go your way and when you weep most, then it is that you sow best. When
   most cast down, you are doing best. If you come to the Prayer Meeting
   and have not a word to say, keep on praying! Do not give it up, for you
   often pray best when you think you pray worst. Go on, and in due
   season, by God's mighty Grace, you shall reap if you faint not.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 SAMUEL 12.

   In Samuel's old age the people desired to have a king. And though it
   went much against the grain, yet, by the Lord's advice, Samuel
   consented to it. Here he makes his last protest.

   Verse 1. And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto
   your voice in all that you said unto me, and have made a king over you.
   "I have not stood in your way. I have not sought my own honor. I have
   at once frankly resigned my office among you."

   2. And now, behold, the king walks before you: and I am old and
   gray-headed; and behold, my sons are with you and I have walked before
   you from my childhood unto this day. ' 'My sons come here today, not as
   my successors, but as fellow subjects with you of your newly-chosen
   king; they are not in opposition to him anymore than I am." Like an old
   servant who is about to be dismissed, Samuel asks them to bear witness
   to his character--and this he does partly as a lesson to the king who
   had taken his place and partly as a clearance of himself in rendering
   up his charge.

   3. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the LORD, and before
   His anointed--whose ox have I taken? Or whose ass have I taken? Or whom
   have I defrauded? Or whom I have oppressed? Or of whose hand have I
   received any bribe to blind my eyes? And I will restore it to you. It
   is so usual a thing, among Oriental judges and rulers, to expect bribes
   that you cannot, in those countries, take a single step in a court of
   law without bribery. It was therefore a very unusual circumstance that
   Samuel should be able to challenge anybody to say that he had ever
   wrongfully taken so much as a single farthing. And the great rulers in
   those countries are accustomed to enrich themselves by levying heavy
   taxes upon the people. But Samuel affirmed that his services had been
   perfectly gratuitous, so that all he had done for the people had cost
   them nothing. If they had any fault to find with his government, it
   could only be because it had been so just and also so cheap--his yoke
   had indeed been easy to their necks! What a fine sight it is to see an
   old man thus able to challenge all who had known him throughout a long
   life to testify that he had not led a selfish life, or profited from
   his own interests even in the least degree!

   4. 5. And they said, You have not defrauded us, nor oppressed us,
   neither have you taken anything of any man's hand. And he said unto
   them, The LORD is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this
   day, that you have not found anything in my hand. And they answered, He
   is witness. In the most solemn way, they cleared him. When he rendered
   to them the account of his stewardship, they all bore witness that
   everything had been done, not merely according to strict rectitude, but
   in the most generous spirit of self-consecration. May all of us be
   enabled to live as that, so when our sun goes down, it shall be as
   cloudless a sunset as was that of Samuel!

   6-8. And Samuel said unto the people, It is the LORD that advanced
   Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of
   Egypt Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the
   Lord of all the righteous acts of the LORD, which He did to you and to
   your fathers. When Jacob was come into Egypt, and your fathers cried
   unto the LORD, then the LORD sent Moses and Aaron, who brought forth
   your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place. A
   remembrance of past mercies is very profitable to us. National mercies
   ought not to be forgotten and personal favors should always be fresh in
   our memory. Alas, the old proverb is only too true, "Bread that is
   eaten is soon forgotten." So is it even with the bread which God gives
   us--we eat it, yet soon forget the hand that fed us. Let it not be so
   with us.

   9-11. And when they forgot the LORD their God, He sold them into the
   hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Ha-zor, and into the hand of the
   Philistines, and into the hand of the King of Moab, and they fought
   against them. And they cried unto the Lord, and said, we have sinned,
   because we have forsaken the LORD, and have served Baalim and
   Ashta-roth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we
   will serve You. And the LORD sent Jerubbaal, and Be-dan, and Jephthah,
   andSamuel, and deliveredyou out ofthe hand ofyour enemies on every
   side, andyou dwelled safely. They often transgressed and were as often
   afflicted. But whenever they returned to the Lord with their confession
   of sin and again sought His mercy, He was always quick to deliver them.
   Let us profit by their experience. Have we brought ourselves into
   trouble through sin? Have we wandered and backslidden and are our
   hearts, therefore, heavy? Let us return unto the Lord and confess our
   sin, for He has not cast us away, He will turn again at the voice of
   our cry! He will forgive us and graciously receive us unto Himself
   again.

   12, 13. And when you saw that Nahash the king ofthe children of Ammon
   came against you, you said unto me, No, but a king shall reign over us:
   when the LORD your God was your king. Now therefore behold the king
   whom you have

   chosen, and whom you have desired! And, behold, the LORD has set a king
   over you. ' 'He has consented to your request, though it was a foolish
   one." Remember, Brothers and Sisters, it is not every answer to prayer
   that is a token of God's favor. If our prayers are very foolish and
   even if there is sin in them, God may sometimes give us what we ask in
   order to show us our folly and make us smart for having offered such a
   prayer. Though, under God's government, they had been most highly
   privileged, they felt they must have a king like the nations which were
   not so favored. "So now," says Samuel, "God has given you this king, so
   do your best with him." Samuel had a hopeful spirit and he hoped that
   though the circumstances were not as he would have wished them to be,
   yet that the people might do well, after all.

   14-17. If you will fear the LORD andserve Him, and obey His voice, and
   not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall both you and
   also the king that reigns over you continue following the LORD your
   God. But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against
   the commandment of the LORD, then shall the hand of the LORD be against
   you, as it was against your fathers. Now therefore stand and see this
   great thing which the LORD will do before your eyes. Is today not the
   wheat harvest? I will call unto the LORD, and He shall send thunder and
   rain; that you may perceive and see that your wickedness is great,
   which you have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking for a king.
   This was to be a token to them that Samuel was God's Prophet. On a
   previous occasion, in answer to his prayer, God had thundered against
   the Philistines. But this time His thunder was His voice against
   Israel! In reading the Bible we must always remember that it was not
   written in England but in Palestine. Wheat harvest there takes place
   about the month of May--when the weather is usually settled and such
   things as thunder and rain are almost unknown. It was extraordinary,
   therefore, as when we speak of "a bolt out of the blue."

   18, 19. So Samuel called unto the LORD; and the LORD sent thunder and
   rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel.
   And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for your servants unto the
   LORD your God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins
   this evil, to ask for a king. That thunderstorm was a powerful preacher
   to them and the rain drops that fell so copiously brought the teardrops
   in their eyes. The phenomena of Nature frequently impress men with a
   sense of God's power and prostrates them before Him.

   20-22. And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not: you have done all
   this wickedness: yet turn not aside from following the LORD, but serve
   the LORD with all your heart, and turn you not aside: for then should
   you go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are
   vain. For the LORD will not forsake His people for His great name's
   sake: because it has pleased the LORD to make you His people. How
   gently the old Prophet speaks! What a change from the pealing thunder
   to this gracious voice! It seems like the clear shining after rain.

   23-25. Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the
   LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the
   right way: Only fear the LORD, andserve Him in truth with all your
   heart: for consider how great things He has done for you. But if you
   shall still do wickedly, you shall be consumed--both you and your king.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Source

   (No. 2897)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 6,
   1876.

   "The woman said unto him, Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the
   well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?" John 4:11.

   THIS was a sensible and very important question. May the Holy Spirit
   graciously enable us to answer it aright! Our Lord's great objective in
   His talk with this woman at the well was not to convince her of His
   oratorical power, for He spoke to her as simply as one would speak to a
   child. Many sermons are far too elaborate in their construction--they
   are evidently intended to display the preacher's own powers. But if we
   would imitate the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Prince of Preachers, we
   would not strain after effect--and we would get a better effect without
   any straining--by taking the living Truth of God and telling out, as
   simply as possible, the story of salvation.

   Jesus Christ's sole objective in talking with this woman was to bring
   her to salvation. That is also my objective with regard to my hearers
   and readers and, my dear unconverted Friends, if you shall agree with
   me in that objective and shall breathe the prayer, "Lord, help the
   preacher to speak to my soul that I may find Christ," there will be joy
   among the angels of Heaven over sinners repenting and returning to the
   Lord!

   Our Savior, in seeking to win this woman to Himself, was completely
   successful. He hit the mark He aimed at. His shot struck the very
   center of the target. Only one sermon was preached to her--no, it was
   hardly a sermon--just a brief talk with her and the woman received the
   Living Word! Alas, there are some of you who have had a great many
   affectionate talks from godly mothers and fathers, or from earnest
   ministers, teachers, or other Christian friends--but, so far, they have
   not been as successful as Jesus of Nazareth was on this occasion! You
   have heard many sermons--you cannot tell how many you have heard--and
   some of them have produced some effect upon you, but, up to the
   present, you have not been slain by the sword of the Spirit, nor
   quickened by Jesus Christ the Life-Giver. I hope the Lord is about to
   do what has not been done before! And, with the accumulated
   responsibility upon you of having heard the Gospel so often in vain, I
   think you should the more earnestly breathe the prayer to God, "O Lord,
   let this be the effectual time of speaking to me! Call me as You did
   the Samaritan woman. While the preacher is speaking and I am listening
   to Your Word as it shall be proclaimed, graciously grant that Jesus may
   be revealed to my soul and that He may say to me, 'I that speak unto
   you am He.'" If you are brought to pray that prayer from your heart, I
   believe that it will be answered and so, as I have already said, there
   will be joy in the Presence of the angels of God over you! Our Lord
   aimed at this woman's conversion by simply instructing her and bringing
   the truth home to her conscience. Let us see whether if we do the same
   thing, trusting in the same Spirit that anointed our Master, similar
   results will follow here as followed at the well of Sy-char.

   First, then, I am going to expound the teaching which preceded the
   woman's question and suggested it Then, secondly, I will answer the
   question. And thirdly, I will draw some inferences from it

   I. First, then, WHAT WAS IT THAT LED THIS WOMAN TO ASK OUR SAVIOR THE
   QUESTION, "Where then do You get that living water?"

   Jesus Christ had told her that had she known Him, she would have asked
   of Him and He would have given her Living Water. There was Jacob's
   well. They were, both of them, close to it and they could look down
   into it. There was some

   water in it, but the well of Sychar was not a well of "living water."
   You probably know that the expression which is translated, "living
   water," refers to water that springs up from a fountain. But the well
   of Sychar is not a well of that kind. The water in it is surface
   water--the gathering of the neighboring hills--land water, not spring
   water. Jesus Christ seemed to draw His illustration from that
   fact--"The water in that well runs into it and is drawn out from it.
   But if you had asked Me, I would have given you water that bubbles
   up--water that is full of life, very different from this well
   water--water from the great deep that 'couches beneath.'" You know the
   difference between those two sorts of water. I have illustrated it
   before by the two wells which are in the courtyard of the Doge's palace
   at Venice. One of them has its copper or bronze margin worn with holes
   cut by the string by which little cans are let down to fetch up the
   water that wells up from the spring. It is so precious because it
   springs up from a living fountain. The other well, which looks very
   much like the one I have mentioned, is not worn at all. Very few people
   care to draw from it--and the reason is because it is simply filled
   with water brought into the city. It is flat, dead water, not "living
   water" at all. So Jesus Christ had used this illustration in speaking
   with the woman--"You have come here to draw this water out of the
   well--the mere rain water that runs into Jacob's well. But if you had
   asked of Me, I would have given you water of a far better sort-- water
   with life in it--water which would be life to you--water which would be
   in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

   The woman caught the figure, though she did not at first understand its
   spiritual meaning. Its spiritual meaning is this--that Jesus Christ has
   Grace in Himself--Grace to give to sinners--Grace to give to those who
   ask Him for it, for He said to the woman, "You would have asked of Him
   and He would have given you Living Water." In the Lord Jesus Christ,
   then, there is a deep fountain of Grace always springing up within
   Himself. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell."
   And it does dwell in Him! To Him, the Spirit has been given without
   measure! There is no meager supply of Grace in Christ. He has an
   abundance and I might almost say a redundance forever springing up
   within Himself. And this He has on purpose to give away! He has it not
   for Himself, for He needs it not. Almighty and ever-blessed as He is by
   Nature, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit, He
   needs no Grace for Himself--what He has is all to give away! He came
   into this world to open up channels by which He might distribute all
   His Grace to thirsty souls!

   And He gives it all away far the asking--Almighty Grace to be had for
   the asking! No human merit can demand it and no performance of any
   earthly ceremony is required in order to obtain it. Here it is in a
   nutshell--" You would have asked and He would have given." "If any man
   lacks wisdom, let him ask of God." And if any man lacks pardon, let him
   do the same. If any man lacks anything that is essential to his purity,
   to his happiness, to his present life, or to his future life, it is
   stored up in Christ and it can be had from Him for the asking! "He that
   spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He
   not with Him also freely give us all things?"

   The teaching of the text to you unconverted people is this--if ever you
   are saved, it must be by the Grace of God. That Grace is in Jesus
   Christ. It has been put into Jesus Christ not because He needs it
   Himself, but that He may distribute it--and He does distribute
   it--whoever asks it of Him receives it from Him. "For everyone that
   asks receives and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall
   be opened." And when you receive this Grace, it will remain in you. It
   will not be like ordinary water which you drink and which then is done
   with, but it will live in you. It shall turn into a well of Living
   Water! Inside your soul there shall be an ever-springing Well of Life
   which never shall cease to flow, either in summer or in winter and
   which, in Glory, shall enable you to understand what that eternal life
   was which Jesus gave to you and of which He said to His Father, "This
   is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus
   Christ, whom You have sent."

   II. Now, secondly, I am going TO ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT THIS WOMAN
   PUT TO CHRIST. Her question was, "'Where then do You get that living
   water?' How did You come to have it? If You have living water, how is
   it that You have it? It is not in that well. And even if it were there,
   You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep: 'Where then do You
   get that living water?'" What an important question this is to put in a
   spiritual sense! Lord Jesus, we hear that You have an abundance of
   Grace treasured up in You which You freely distribute among those who
   ask You for it, but where did You get it? How is it that You have this
   Grace? In what way did it come to be stored up in You? 'Where then do
   You get that living water?'"

   While I am asking this question, I pray every unconverted one who
   desires to find peace with God to say to himself or herself, "I am now
   to hear how it is that Christ can save. I am now to learn why it is
   that He is the Giver of Grace to the guilty." Perhaps, dear Friends,
   while you are listening you may see something in Christ which you never
   saw before and faith may spring up in your soul almost insensibly to
   yourself--and before you go out of this place, you may be able to say,
   "I cannot fully explain this great mystery, but I know enough of the
   Lord Jesus Christ to believe in Him. I cannot but believe in Him, now
   that I see how it is that He is so mighty to save!"

   The first answer to the question, "Where then do You get that living
   water?" is this--He has it in His very Nature. Jesus Christ is able to
   save because He is Divine. "With God, all things are possible" and
   Jesus Christ is God, so all things are possible with Him! "God is Love"
   and Jesus Christ is God, so He, too, is Love! God possesses all things
   and Christ is God, so He has all things freely to distribute among the
   sons of men! Jesus of Nazareth, as He sat on the well at Sychar, seemed
   to that woman, at first, to be only an ordinary Jew and she wondered
   that He, being a Jew, should even speakto her, a woman of Samaria. But
   veiled under the form of that Son of Mary, there was God, Himself, made
   flesh and dwelling among men! Oh, it is glorious to think that He who
   has come to redeem you is no mere man, but over all God blessed
   forever!

   If a man were to tell me that he was going to take the world upon his
   shoulders, I would distrust his power to bear such a burden, even
   though he were as strong as Samson! But Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
   cannot only bear up this world, but the entire universe in His hand,
   for all fullness of power dwells in Him! If any man were to say that he
   would take upon himself the sins of the whole world, I would be even
   more diffident than if he proposed to play the part of Atlas and to
   bear the world upon his shoulders. But when Jesus, who counted it not
   robbery to be equal with God, takes upon Himself the form of a Servant
   and yet has the iniquity of us all laid upon Him, I can understand how
   He can bear the tremendous load, for He bears the earth's huge pillars
   and spreads the heavens abroad! When we think of Jesus as Divine,
   nothing seems to be impossible to Him! The strength of sin, which is
   the Law, is not too great for Him who made the Law and kept it, too!
   The sting of death, which is sin, shall certainly not be able to
   destroy, or even to resist the Almighty Power of Him who has the keys
   of death and of Hell!

   If you commit your soul, my dear Friends, to the keeping of a man, or
   of an angel, you will have made a fatal mistake! If all the angels in
   Heaven were to band themselves together to save a soul and were to ask
   me to be the soul that they would seek to save, I would have nothing to
   do with them! Nobody who is less than Deity can save sinners! But Jesus
   is "mighty to save" because He is God as well as Man! This is a basis
   upon which the soul's hope may well be founded and established forever.
   If the interposing Mediator is, indeed, "very God of very God"--and He
   is--we see from where He has this Living Water and we can come to Him
   with the utmost confidence, knowing that He is able to save unto the
   uttermost all that come unto God by Him!

   Another answer to the Samaritan woman's question is that Christ has
   this Living Water by the Divine Purpose and Appointment. It was the
   Divine Plan that Jesus Christ, the second Person of the blessed Trinity
   in Unity, should be appointed to be the Treasury of Grace for all His
   elect ones. In the council chamber of eternity it was ordained that the
   Son of God should, in due time, come into this world and take upon
   Himself our nature and also our sin. And He was set apart, in the
   eternal purpose, to do so and, in the proclamation of the Gospel, that
   decree of the Lord is published to the sons of men! The Lord God has
   set forth His Son Jesus as the one Propitiation for the sins of men! He
   is authorized by God to be a Savior and He comes here, by Divine
   appointment, to bestow upon us the blessings of His Grace. When an
   ambassador comes to this land from another country, he brings
   credentials to prove that he is duly accredited by the authority that
   he represents--and our Lord Jesus Christ comes to men with credentials
   which prove that He was appointed by God to this service before all
   worlds were made--and that He will be Divinely sustained in that
   Appointment till time shall be no more! And then, having completed His
   mediatorial work, He will surrender the Kingdom to His Father-- and God
   shall be All-in-All. So now, as Mediator, He stands, appointed by the
   Most High to distribute the blessings of His Grace which is the Living
   Water of which our text speaks!

   To me, this Truth of God is inconceivably sweet, for, when I trust in
   Jesus Christ to save me, I rejoice to know that He is no amateur Savior
   who has come on His own authority and at His own bidding. But, behold,
   the Father Himself has sent Him! He is the Messiah, the Sent One, the
   Anointed, the Christ of God! God must accept His Son, for He sent Him
   into the world for this very purpose. If I bring to God the blood of
   Jesus as the Atonement for my sin, He must ac-

   cept it, for He Himself ordained it as the medium of reconciliation! My
   blessed Savior, if I hide in You, I cannot be either dragged or driven
   from You, for God has set You apart to be the City of Refuge to which
   my poor soul may flee for protection and shelter! God has appointed
   Jesus "to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and
   forgiveness of sins." It seems to me that these are two grand answers
   to the question of the Samaritan woman, "Where then do You get that
   living water?"--first, from His own natural and essential Deity and,
   secondly, as the Mediator appointed and sustained by the eternal
   Father!

   But, thirdly, the Lord Jesus could give a further answer to the woman's
   question by referring to the anointing which He had received from the
   Holy Spirit. On the day of His Baptism in the Jordan, the Spirit
   descended upon Him like a dove and sat upon Him. He could truly say,
   "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach
   the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to
   preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind,
   to set at liberty them that are bruised and to preach the acceptable
   year of the Lord." He was anointed by the Holy Spirit for the work of
   distributing the Living Water to the sons and daughters of men. He was
   God's CHRIS-TOS--God's "Anointed." Those are two very precious titles
   which are often put together, Jesus Christ--the Anointed Savior--they
   describe both His office and His qualification for that office. Well,
   then, behold Jesus Christ, with the fullness of the Spirit abiding upon
   Him, coming into the world endowed with all those Divine gifts which,
   as Mediator, He needed, that He might be able to carry out the work
   which the Lord had of old appointed Him to do! The Spirit of God is
   still with Him and He gives the Spirit to those who seek Him. This,
   then, is the third answer to the woman's question, "Where then do You
   get that living water?" He has it because the Spirit of God is upon
   Him.

   There is another answer which may convince some who have not been
   comforted or enlightened by the previous ones. It could not have been
   given to the woman, at the time she put the question, except by way of
   anticipation. But say that Christ has this Living Water because His
   redeeming work is finished. He had it, virtually, during His life on
   earth, in foresight of the work which He had undertaken to finish.
   Hence it was that multitudes of souls went to Heaven long before Christ
   had paid the ransom for them. His pledge and promise being a guarantee
   that the great deed would surely be accomplished. Think of this--that
   the Son of God whom the holy angels worshipped without ceasing, should
   have come here in the form of a Baby who nestled in a woman's arms that
   He might save us! Oh, let the joy-bells ring as we think of God in
   human flesh! Does not the thought of Christ's Incarnation bring hope to
   the lost? May not sinners see, in it, how the Living Water finds a
   channel in which it can flow down to them in the Person of the
   Incarnate God--"Emmanuel, God With Us"? "Unto us a Child is born, unto
   us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulders: and
   His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The
   Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." He lived for 30 years in this
   world, a quiet, humble life, working out a righteousness for all His
   people, fulfilling all the relationships of life into which He was
   brought and so, when He came to be baptized, He openly revealed the
   work that He was doing all His life, namely, fulfilling all
   righteousness! Throughout the whole of His earthly career He was living
   for us and working for us--and the merit of His unique life stands to
   the credit of all who believe in Him.

   At last the time came for Him to die, for, "without shedding of blood
   there is no remission of sins." The Living Water could not come to us
   unless Christ's heart was opened to let it out. He must give His life a
   ransom for many or else there could never be any ransomed souls. You
   know the sad, sad story. Jesus goes forth from the place where He had
   instituted the memorial supper. He enters Gethsemane's garden, utters a
   series of agonizing prayers in the course of which a shower of His
   precious blood falls upon the earth where He kneels. He rises from the
   ground, meets His betrayer and receives the cruel traitor kiss. He
   thrusts aside the sword with which His too eager disciple would have
   defended Him and He is led like a lamb to the slaughter. And like a
   sheep dumb before her shearers, He opens not His mouth to answer His
   accusers. He gives His back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that
   pluck out the hair. He hides not His face from shame and spitting. Yes,
   though He is Lord of All, He voluntarily yields Himself up to a felon's
   death and gives up His immaculate body, which had never been stained by
   sin, to be pierced with the nails and every bone to be dislocated by
   the jar as the Cross is first lifted up and then hurled down into its
   place!

   He hangs in the burning sun, parched with fever. He has no friend or
   comforter, for even God has forsaken Him while He is bearing His
   people's sin! His enemies mock and laugh at His agonies. He yields up
   His soul unto death without a murmuring word. He knew that the price of
   pardon was His blood, but His pity never withdrew and, until He could
   say, "It is finished," He held on to life. When it was finished, He
   submitted Himself to death--and the Lord of

   Glory was laid in the new tomb in the garden. Now, if you ask me, from
   where, then, has Jesus of Nazareth, God Incarnate, got that Living
   Water, I answer in three words--"Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha." Put
   these three together-- the place where He sweat great drops of blood,
   the place where He was scourged and the place where He died--and you
   can comprehend why He has this Living Water!

   Another answer to the woman's question, "Where then do You get that
   living water," is that He has it in the reward which His Father
   promised to Him for His mediatorial work "He shall see of the travail
   of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My
   righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities"
   God's only-begotten and well-beloved Son is to receive a full reward
   for all that He endured--and all that He has so far received of His
   Father is not for Himself--for He needs nothing--but He has received it
   that He may distribute it among the rebellious children of men! The
   Psalmist truly sang, "You have ascended on high, You have led captivity
   captive: You have received gifts for men; yes, for the rebellious,
   also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." And this is where He
   got that Living Water! Poor Soul, groping in the dark and trying to
   believe in Jesus, ought not this to enable you to believe in Him?
   Christ has lived, loved, bled, died and now there is a reward due to
   Him which can only be met by the salvation of all for whom He died!
   See, then, how He has the Living Water and come and trust Him to give
   it to you freely!

   There is one other answer to the woman's question, "Where then do You
   get that living water?" It is this. Because of His intercession at His
   Father's right hand in Glory. Jesus, the God-Man, the Mediator between
   God and men, ever lives to make intercession for us. "Therefore He is
   able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him,
   seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them." Look at Him, my
   Brothers and Sisters! The risen Christ at God's right hand! If you can,
   see Him standing there in His robes of glory and beauty, for He is no
   longer a sacrificing Priest, for His one Sacrifice in which He offered
   up Himself is finished forever! Now He has put on the royal robes of
   the High Priest, for He is both a Prince and a Priest--and there He
   stands with our names engraved upon His breastplate--each glittering
   jewel dear to the eyes of God. Wherever He moves, the bells and the
   pomegranates upon His glorious garments pour forth sweet music in the
   ear of the Most High, for Christ is altogether lovely in the eyes of
   His Father and He is always dear to the heart of His Father.

   There He stands as the great Representative Man, fully acceptable to
   God--no, more--dearly beloved of God and, for His sake, God looks upon
   all who are in Him with Infinite Love and Divine Complacency! Some of
   you may know what it is to have a beloved son away in America or
   Australia for many years. By-and-by he comes home and he brings his
   wife. You have never seen her, but you love her for his sake. Possibly
   he also brings home a dozen children. Well, that is a large addition to
   your family, but you welcome them all for your boy's sake, do you not?
   I am sure you do! And you seem to see his image in them all! All who
   belong to him are dear to you for his sake. So, the ever-blessed God
   looks with unspeakable love upon the whole family of Christ because of
   the love which He bears to their Covenant Head, Lord and Surety. This
   eternal life that is in Him--this boundless love that God gives to
   Him--this intercessory power that He has with the Father and that He
   uses on our behalf--this is from where He got that Living Water!

   III. Now may God the Holy Spirit especially aid us while we briefly
   notice, in the third place, THE INFERENCES TO BE DRAWN FROM THIS TRUTH
   OF GOD. If this is from where Christ got this Living Water, then He is
   still able to bless the children of men.

   If He had received Divine Grace from some temporary source of supply,
   it would have been exhausted long ago. But, since He received it from
   His own Divine Nature, from the purpose and plan of God, from the
   anointing of the Holy Spirit, from His own finished work and from His
   ever-living power and infinite merit--since all these fountains of
   Grace are as full today as they ever were and since they always will be
   just as full--the stream of Grace will continue to flow from the same
   Source! If the deeps from which a well draws its water are always the
   same, then depend upon it, the supply in the well will always be the
   same! If, therefore, the great deeps from which Christ draws the Living
   Water cannot be supposed to be lessened, the Living Water is in Him, at
   this moment, as much as it was 1800 years ago!

   The remembrance of this Truth should bring consolation to the soul of
   anyone who may have said, "I wish that I had lived long ago when Christ
   was upon this earth in visible form." You should not speak so, for you
   may as readily receive Grace from Christ as did the woman of Samaria.
   The very words which Jesus spoke to that poor fallen creature, He also
   addresses to you, "If you knew the gift of God...you would have asked
   of Him, and He would have given you Living Wa-

   ter." Ask and you shall have, even as she asked and received! It is
   abundantly clear that there is an ample supply of Grace stored up in
   Christ Jesus for all who trust Him.

   It is equally clear that He needs nothing from us. If He had drawn the
   living water out of the well at Sychar, He would have wanted to borrow
   the woman's water pot. He would have said, "Now, Mistress, you must
   lend Me your rope and your water pot, for, otherwise, I cannot get at
   the water in the well." But, as the Living Water comes only from
   Himself, He needs nobody's water pot or rope! This is a very important
   matter, because you, Sinners, will persist in bringing your water pots
   and your ropes to help Christ. You want to aid the Lord Jesus Christ,
   in some way or other, in His work of saving you. "Ah," you say, "I know
   that He is a Savior, but then I must..." Well, what "must" you do?
   "Oh," says one, "I must do this," and another says, "I must do that." I
   will tell you all, the "must" there is about your case--you must be
   willing to benothingand let Christ be everything! You must be the
   emptiness and He must be the fullness. You must be the poverty and He
   must be the riches. You must be the poor miserable beggar and He must
   be your great Enricher, your All-in-all. That is all that is needed.

   Then, once more, since this Living Water comes to Christ from His
   essential Deity and all the other grand things of which I have spoken,
   it is not exhausted at this present time. There is an abiding fullness
   in Christ since the Living Water comes thus to Him. Millions of happy
   spirits are now in Heaven who have drunk of this Living Water, but
   Christ is just as able to save millions upon millions more! Your sins
   cannot exhaust Christ's fullness! I remember when the thirst of my soul
   was so strong, by reason of my acute sense of sin, that I compared
   myself to behemoth, of whom the Lord said to Job, "He trusts that he
   can draw up Jordan into his mouth." Well, now, if your soul's thirst is
   so great that it will take more than Jordan to satisfy you--and the
   rivers of Abana and Pharpar after that and Kishon after that. And the
   Mediterranean Sea after that and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans after
   all those--if you could drink up all that is good in the whole universe
   and still thirst for more--if you will receive Grace from Christ, He
   will fill you to the full, yet He will still be just as full of Grace
   as He ever was!

   There was a sailor, who, if I remember the story rightly, once called
   at Lubbock's Bank to cash his pay notes. I think he was to draw £50, so
   he said to the clerk, "I don't like to be hard on anybody. As you have
   to pay out all this money, I will take ten pounds now and I will call
   again another day for some more, as I don't want to break you up." Of
   course, you may imagine how they smiled at the simplicity of the man
   who thought that he might break the bank by drawing out such an
   enormous sum of money as fifty pounds all at once! You smile at the
   illustration, yet that is just exactly how many sinners treat the Lord
   Jesus Christ. They seem to think it is too much to expect to receive
   from Him the full and free forgiveness of all their sins. They imagine
   that it is too much for Christ to give all at once, but they do not
   know that the Lord Jesus Christ has already pardoned enough sinners to
   make Heaven as bright with redeemed spirits as the sky is with stars!
   And yet He has as much pardoning mercy left as He ever had! After you
   draw from a perennial fountain as much water as you need, it still
   springs up as copiously as ever and so is it with the Living Water
   which is stored up in Christ! And you may have it, poor thirsty
   Soul--as much as you need. I will not underestimate the greatness of
   your sin. It is, indeed, enormous. But since Christ has borne it in His
   own body on the tree, He knows its weight and all about it. And as soon
   as you trust in Him, you will realize that He has put it all away
   forever!

   So I think that the final inference to be drawn is that we should all
   take of this Living Water which Christ so freely gives. "Ah," says one,
   "I bless God that I drank of it years ago." Never mind, Brother. Never
   mind, Sister. Come and drink of it again! Keep on receiving Jesus
   Christ again and again, continually looking unto Him as the Author and
   Finisher of your faith. Let us all go to Him--saints and sinners, saved
   and unsaved--this very moment. May the Holy Spirit draw us and may we
   all, as one man, say, "I give myself up to You, O Savior, to save me;
   and I trust You to cleanse me from all my sin and to present me at
   last, faultless, before the Presence of Your Glory with exceeding joy.
   I am nothing, and I have nothing that I can bring to You to merit Your
   esteem. I am nothing but a mass of sin and misery--not even feeling my
   sin as I ought to feel it. Look upon me, O Savior, in love and mercy,
   and give me the Grace to drink of the Living Water this very hour, if I
   never drank of it before. And if I did drink of it long ago, let it
   spring up within me just now, and may I be conscious of its power to my
   own comfort and to Your praise and Glory!"

   If this is your prayer, my Brothers and Sisters, God will bless you!
   And we shall meet in Heaven, by His Grace, still to drink of the Living
   Water forever and ever! And to His blessed name we will ascribe all the
   praise and glory for our salvation, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN4:l-34.

   Verses 1-4. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard
   that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus
   Himself baptized not, but His disciples), He left Judaea, and departed
   again into Galilee. And He needed to go through Samaria. And, surely,
   not only because it was the more convenient way, but because He had
   designs of love for some souls there that His Father had given Him.
   There are many needs in Divine Providence because of the needs of
   Divine Grace!

   5, 6. Then He came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near
   to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's
   well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat on
   the well: and it was about the sixth hour. Wearied and needing rest,
   yet there was no rest for Him except that He found His sweetest rest in
   winning immortal souls unto Himself!

   7. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus said unto her,
   Give me a drink. That is practically what Jesus still says to the sons
   and daughters of men--"Give me a drink." He asks for your love, for
   your trust, for your confidence. It is His food and drink to bless your
   soul and to give you the blessing that you need--and it is a
   refreshment to His spirit when you give Him the opportunity of thus
   blessing you.

   8. (For His disciples were gone away unto the city to buy food). It was
   a great mercy that the disciples were out of the way just then. Had
   they been there, they might have tried to keep this poor woman from
   speaking to the Savior and, sometimes, Brothers and Sisters, it may be
   well for us to be laid aside. God may do more good without our presence
   than with it. Who can tell?

   9. 10. Then the woman of Samaria said unto Him, How is it that You,
   being a Jew, asks a drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? For the
   Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto
   her, If you knew the gift ofGod, and who it is that says to you, Give
   Me a drink; you wouldhave asked ofHim, andHe wouldhave given you living
   water. See, then, the evil of spiritual ignorance! And also see how the
   chain of Grace works, "If you knew.. .you would have sought.. .and He
   would have given." When God gives the knowledge of Christ to the soul,
   then there comes the spirit of prayer--and then consequent blessings!

   11, 12. The woman said unto Him, Sir, You have nothing to draw with and
   the wellis deep. Where then do Youget that living water? Are You
   greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank
   thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? She took the
   Savior's figure literally--and there are still many who cannot see the
   spiritual meaning of God's Word and run their heads against the hard
   stern letter which kills--instead of seeking and finding the inner
   living spirit which gives life. These are the people who build their
   hopes of salvation upon outward ordinances and who impute saving power
   to "sacraments." Would God that they knew better!

   13-15. Jesus answered and said unto her, Whoever drinks of this water
   shall thirst again: but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give
   him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
   him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman said
   unto Him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come here
   to draw. She was still unable to see the inner meaning of the Savior's
   words! The outward sense still held her fast. She needed to have her
   conscience aroused, for that would prove to be the way into her heart.
   Christ has different doors for entering into different people's souls.
   Into some He enters by the understanding. Into many, by the affections.
   To some, He comes by the way of fear. To another, by that of hope--and
   to this woman He came by way of her conscience.

   16-19. Jesus said unto her, Go, callyour husbandand come here. The
   woman answered and said, Ihave no husband. Jesus said unto her, You
   have well said, Ihave no husband: for you have had five husbands; and
   he who you now have is not your husband: in that said you truly The
   woman said unto Him, Sir, I perceive that You are a Prophet Something
   had come home to her conscience through what the Savior said to her, so
   she began to speak about what He was, not about what she was! This
   often happens when the preacher is enabled, by Divine Grace, to come
   home to the conscience. The result is that the hearer says, "What a
   wonderful preacher he is!" But that will do no good--that is not the
   point at which we are aiming. "The woman said unto Him, Sir, I perceive
   that You are a Prophet," and off she goes, on a tangent, to enquire
   about various forms of religious observance! Evil as she was, she was
   still a person who wished to be re-

   garded as a religious woman! And it is strange how often a certain
   religiousness will flourish even in the most depraved heart--not true
   godliness, however. So she propounded this difficulty to the Savior--

   20. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and You say that in
   Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. "There are so many
   sects, can You tell me which is the right one?" That is the question
   which men often put to us when we begin to touch their consciences.

   21. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour comes when you
   shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
   Father This question is of very temporary interest. The hour comes when
   neither of these places, nor yet any other, shall be considered sacred!

   22-24. You worship you know not what: we know what we worship: for
   salvation is of the Jews. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true
   worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the
   Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that
   worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. No longer is any
   consecrated building necessary to true worship! Indeed, no building can
   be consecrated. No longer are we to be confined to canonical hours. No
   longer is God to be sought with the sensuousness of sweet music or of
   fragrant incense--He is to be sought with the heart, soul and spirit!

   25, 26. The woman said unto Him. I know that Messiah comes, which is
   called Christ: when He is come, He will tell us all things. Jesus said
   unto her, I that speak unto you am He. This great Truth of God burst
   upon her with all the forge of a Divine Revelation--and faith came with
   the information! The words that had gone before had prepared her to
   expect this manifestation of Christ to her soul.

   27-34. Andat thispoint His disciples came andmarvelled that He talked
   with a woman: yet no man said, What do You seek? Or, Why do You talk
   with her? The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the
   city, and said to the men, Come, see a Man who told me all things that
   I ever did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and
   came unto Him. In the meanwhile His disciples urged Him, saying,
   Master, eat But He said unto them, I have food to eat that you know not
   of Therefore said the disciples, one to another, Has any man brought
   Him something to eat? Jesus said unto them, My food is to do the will
   of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work
     __________________________________________________________________

The Search Warrant

   (No. 2898)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.

   "But there are some of you that believe not." John 6:64.

   ARE there really? Yes. He that searches the hearts says so. Then it is
   high time for us to enquire, "What is it to believe in Christ? What is
   it to believe to the saving of the soul?" It is not merely to consider
   the Gospel to be true. It is not simply to endorse the Doctrine that
   Christ is God. Those who hold a sound creed may be destitute of
   precious faith and those who are able to defend the Divinity of Christ
   with admirable scholarship may, nevertheless, be without God in the
   world. To believe in Christ includes much more than a religious
   profession. It is so to believe the Gospel as to forsake all other
   beliefs for the possession of its blessed hope! It is to imbibe the
   spirit of the Word of God while you accept the letter of its pure
   teaching! Or, in other words, it is to come to Jesus and to prove, in
   your own souls, His power to save.

   Just as the faith of Abraham led him to leave his kindred and his
   father's house under the guardian care of Jehovah, so saving faith
   leads a man to leave his self-sufficiency with all the carnal pursuits
   and ambitions that encircled, like a farmstead, his natural and
   primitive home and to go forth, led by Jesus Christ, not knowing where
   he goes. Just as faith led the harlot Rahab to anticipate the doom of
   Jericho--to hang the scarlet line in her window and then to rest
   securely in her house though the town walls upon which it was built,
   were shaking--so, by faith, the sinner comes to the blood of
   sprinkling, hangs the promise of Redemption in the window of his soul
   and though he feels himself to be, naturally, no better than others,
   yet he rests secure because that scarlet line is there and he is safe!
   Or, to use another figure, just as the Hebrew householder slew the
   lamb, dipped the bunch of hyssop in its blood, sprinkled it upon the
   lintel and the two side posts of his house and then calmly ate the
   Passover supper, though he knew that the destroying angel was flying
   through the land of Egypt and though, perhaps, he could even hear the
   shrieks of the dying and the wailing of the bereaved--yet he remained
   quietly in his house knowing that though he might be the guiltiest of
   men, the blood secured his safety according to the promise of God!

   To believe in Jesus, then, is to trust our soul's salvation to what
   Jesus has done for us, to prove what He is doing in us and to rely
   entirely upon His promise to save us even to the end. It is to drop
   from the giddy elevation where we stand on the rotten timbers of
   self-righteousness and to fall into the Omnipotent arms of Him who
   stands ready to receive us. It is to tear off the rags of our own
   spinning that we may be clothed with the righteousness which is from
   Heaven. Faith is the reverse of sight! It is to believe that we are
   saved when sin tells us that we are lost. It is to believe that Christ
   has cleansed us when we still feel defilement within. It is to believe
   that we shall see His face in Glory when clouds and darkness enshroud
   our path and doubts and fears distress our heart. This is the faith
   which saves the soul!

   We are not saved by faith, itself, as a meritorious work. There is no
   merit in believing in God and even if there were, it could not save us,
   since salvation by merit has been once and for all solemnly excluded.
   Nor does faith save us as an efficient cause. Faith is the channel of
   salvation, not the fountain and source of it. Hence faith, though it
   saves, never boasts. He that boasts has not faith and he that has faith
   can say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord
   Jesus Christ." When the poor man who was bitten by the fiery serpent
   looked to the bronze serpent upon the pole, it was his eyes that saved
   him--yet it was not the merit of looking, nor was it his eyes that were
   the efficient cause of his cure-- all the glory of it was to be given
   to God who had ordained that the bronze serpent would be the means of
   healing to all

   who looked to it. So, faith is the eye with which we look to Christ,
   yet it has neither merit nor efficacy in itself--all the merit and
   efficacy lie in the precious blood of Him to whom we look.

   Again, faith is an empty hand. Yes, it is the filthy hand of the
   leprous sinner and Christ puts His mercy into that black hand. Is there
   any merit in the hand? God forbid! Is there any efficiency to save in
   the hand? Oh, no, my Brothers and Sisters--the hand which givesmust
   have the glory, not the hand which takes! He who bestows the blessing
   must have the honor of it, not the faith by which we receive the
   blessing from Him. Now, having thus spoken upon what faith is, and
   having tried to show you its peculiar position in the work of
   salvation, I am solemnly reminded, by our text, that "there are some of
   you that believe not." The context shows that these words were spoken
   by Christ to His disciples. They were gathered around Him and He was
   addressing them. Some of them had murmured because what He said to them
   was too "hard" for them to receive and the Lord Jesus, being able to
   read their hearts, could say to them, "There are some of you that
   believe not." And the Inspired Evangelist adds, "For Jesus knew from
   the beginning who they were who would not believe, and who would betray
   Him."

   I am going to speak first about those whose unbelief is secret And
   secondly, about those who are known to us to be unbelievers.

   I. First, THERE ARE SOME WHOSE UNBELIEF IS SECRET--it is known only to
   Christ.

   If you had looked upon those disciples of Christ, you would have judged
   that they had received the gift of eternal life. You would have said,
   "God forbid that I should condemn any of those men who have come out
   from an ungodly generation and have professed to be followers of the
   Prophet of Nazareth!" Although it would be wrong for us to judge our
   fellow creatures, Jesus judged His disciples and judged them rightly,
   for He can penetrate even to the heart. He can discern the secret
   thoughts, intents and motives of all men. And the day is coming when He
   will finally judge the whole race of mankind. His eyes even now pierce
   through the hypocrite's disguise, but His hands shall tear it away when
   He shall say to those who cry to Him, "Lord! Lord!"--"Verily I say unto
   you, I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of iniquity." We
   know not the hollowness of their pretense, but Christ knows all about
   it. And if the Holy Spirit shall help us, we may be enabled to show it
   to them. Oh, that it may be so, even now, that they may stand with
   their souls revealed, and their consciences convicted--and that they
   may now seek faith--seeing that they have it not!

   What reason for alarm and for heart-searching there is here, for it is
   to be feared that even in the ministry there are some who have not
   faith! Yes, Brothers, there have been in all ages men who have worn the
   robes of God's ambassadors, but who have not been at peace with Him. It
   is a solemn and dreadful fact that there have been men who have broken
   the bread at the Lord's Table and who have been leaders in God's
   Israel, yet who, notwithstanding that, have had neither part nor lot in
   the matter! Brothers in the ministry and young men who occasionally go
   out to preach the Word and who are hoping, by-and-by, to have a settled
   pastorate, let us ask ourselves this question--Is it not possible that
   we, although preachers of the Word, may yet be without faith? Are we
   seeking to teach others what we have not ourselves learned? Are we only
   like scaffolds, used in the building of Christ's Church, yet not part
   of the spiritual structure, or like Noah's laborers who helped to build
   the ark, yet were drowned by the great deluge? Are we like Elijah's
   ravens which brought him bread and meat from Ahab's table, yet remained
   unclean birds of evil omen? Let us seriously question ourselves, for
   God has sometimes done good works by bad men--yet this has not saved
   the men--even as it was with Judas who worked miracles as the other
   Apostles did, preached as they did, yet who, nevertheless, was "a son
   of perdition" who went to "his own place" among the lost!

   Further, is it not possible that there are some in the other offices of
   the church who have not faith? Men and Brothers, let me speak to you
   who are the fathers in Israel. Though but young, myself, yet, as God's
   servant delivering His message, I speak to you with authority. Is it
   not possible that you may serve tables, as deacons of the Church, and
   yet that you may be an intruder at Christ's Table? You may be an elder
   and an overseer of others and yet have to say, "They made me the keeper
   of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept." It is solemn
   work to be made a watcher over the souls of men! But what must be our
   position if, after watching over others, our own soul should still be
   in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity? "I speak as unto
   wise men; judge you what I say"--office-bearing and the choice of the
   Church cannot guarantee your salvation!

   And as this is true of some ministers and of some Church officers, it
   may be true of others who are engaged in various works of piety. I
   thank God that we have here many Sabbath school teachers, tract
   distributors, street preachers--in

   fact, I hope that there are very few persons in this Church who are
   notregularly engaged in doing good in one way or other. If there are
   among them any who do not believe, I am happy to say that I do not know
   them. Yet is it possible, dear Friend, that you are teaching a Sunday
   school class although you need to become as a little child before you
   can enter the Kingdom of Heaven? May you not be distributing messages
   of mercy to others, in the streets, or from door to door and yet be,
   yourself, in need of that mercy? If that is your sad case, you are like
   a man with a leprous hand dealing out medicine to the sick! Take care,
   Christian workers, that in this day of activity, when there is so much
   to do, you do not neglect the personal act of faith which unites your
   soul to Christ. See to this vital and all-important matter. Make the
   outside of the cup and platter clean, as far as you can, but see that
   the inside is not full of hypocrisy. However active you are in the
   Lord's service, I pray that your exclusive self-examination may be as
   earnest as your expansive zeal! May you be as much concerned to be
   saved as to proclaim salvation to others!

   Now I speak to the Church members in general. I thank God that He is
   adding to this Church every day. Sometimes I hear a whisper from one
   side that those of us whose business it is to examine candidates for
   Church fellowship are too severe in our judgment of them. And, on the
   other side, there are some who say that we are not searching enough!
   Brothers and Sisters, it is enough for me and my fellow laborers in
   Christ, when we can say with singleness of spirit--and not with
   eye-service, as men-pleasers--"We have sought to serve God in this
   matter. I do verily believe that for the most part, what we have bound
   on earth has been bound in Heaven--and what we have loosed on earth has
   been loosed in Heaven. At any rate, if we have erred in any case it has
   been neither by favor nor by prejudice, but we have sought, after
   lifting up our hearts to Heaven, to give a righteous judgment in every
   instance. Yet, with all the care that may be exercised, there is not,
   beneath Heaven, a single church that is perfect!

   Some of you are members of this Church and some are members of other
   churches, yet it is almost certain that there are some of you who
   believe not. I do not profess to be able to separate the tares from the
   wheat, but Jesus can do it--He knows those among you who have no faith!
   You may talk about faith and yet not really have it yourselves. You may
   have a great gift in prayer and yet not have faith. You may be an
   acceptable preacher and yet not have faith. You may walk uprightly
   before your fellow men and yet not have faith. You may be a generous
   subscriber to every holy work and yet not have faith. How nearly a man
   may be a Christian and yet be lost! The counterfeit may be made to look
   so like the genuine that men may look at it again, and again, and again
   and yet may pronounce the real to be counterfeit and the false to be
   genuine! The Lord grant that if there are, in this congregation, any
   who have a name to live and yet are dead, they may be awakened to a
   sense of their true condition before God before it is too late--and
   that Christ may give them life!

   Brothers and Sisters, I do not know that at the present moment if I
   have any doubt of my own personal interest in Christ. Yet I do know
   that it is a very solemn thing to be so sure and that it is a damnable
   thing to be presumptuous concerning such a matter. There will be times,
   with all of us, when it will do us good to sit down and seriously ask,
   "Are these things so, or are they not?" Let us dig down to the very
   foundations of our faith and see what it is upon which we are building
   for eternity! There will be times when all our past experience will be
   blown to shreds, like the sail of the mariner in a great gale. There
   will be times when our strongest evidence will snap like a mast broken
   by the fury of the storm. There will be times when all our comforts and
   joys will go like hencoops washed overboard from a laboring ship. Oh,
   what a blessed thing it is, at such a time as that, to cast our great
   bower anchor into the sea and to calmly sing--

   "In every high and stormy gale My Anchor holds within the veil"

   When anyone can say--

   "His oath, His covenant and His blood, Support me in the sinking
   flood"--

   he may feel that he is everlastingly secure and that Jesus is, indeed,
   his Savior! May the Holy Spirit enable you to judge-- for we
   cannot--whether you have this saving faith or not!

   II. Now, in the second place, I am to speak about THOSE WHO ARE KNOWN
   TO US AS UNBELIEVERS.

   First, there is a very pleasing class of persons here who say, " We
   have no faith, but we are very anxious to have itt" I bless God for
   you, dear Friends, and I wish that we had thousands like you! You feel
   your need of Christ, you long to be saved, you hate sin, you hate
   self-righteousness--yet you have no faith. There are certain questions
   that each of you often puts to us. First, "May I believe in Christ?" I
   answer--Of course you may, because Christ bids you do so and what He
   bids you do, you may do. "But am I fit to believe in Him?" No fitness
   is required. "But am I the person who may believe

   in Jesus?" There is no special person indicated, for the Gospel runs on
   this wise and it is to be preached to every creature under Heaven,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." As to the
   question whether you may believe in Jesus, whoever you are, I say--Yes,
   certainly--come and welcome, for Christ has said, "Whoever will, let
   him take the water of life freely." Your next question probably is,
   "Can I believe ?" I do not know, but I should think that you can. I
   will put a few questions to you--Can you believe that Christ is God?
   "Yes." Can you believe anything that God says? "Yes." You can believe,
   then, for Christ said it and Christ is God--that He came to seek and to
   save that which is lost, and you know that you are lost. God says,
   through His servant, the Apostle Paul, "that Christ Jesus came into the
   world to save sinners." And you know that you are a sinner, therefore
   He came into the world to save you! Surely you can believe that! I know
   many persons who say that they cannot believe, when in truth they can,
   yet they do not know that they can! How is it, then, that there are
   still so many who believe not?

   The chief reason is because they will not believe--they are too
   proud--they love their own righteousness too much, they think
   themselves too wise to submit to the righteousness of Christ. But you
   ask, "Can Ibelieve in Jesus?" I say ra-ther--Can you? I ask you the
   question! You who are as evil as Hell--can you believe that Christ can
   save you? "Yes, Sir," you say, "I can believe that." Can you believe
   that He is willing to save you--good and gracious Christ that He
   is--hanging on the Cross and bidding you trust Him? "Oh, Sir!" you say,
   "I cannot help believing that." Well, then, you have proved that you
   can believe, for you have done it already! I used to think that
   believing in Christ was some mysterious thing and I could not make out
   what it was--but when I heard that it was just this--"Look unto Me, and
   be you saved," I found that the only reason why it was so hard was that
   it was so easy! If it had been a more difficult matter, then my proud
   spirit would have tried to accomplish it! But being so easy, my proud
   spirit would not do it.

   You remember why Naaman could not wash in the Jordan as the Prophet
   bade him? It was because he would not-- his proud spirit would not let
   him. "I thought," he said--that was where the mischief lay, for what
   right had he to think? "I thought he will surely come out to me and
   stand, and call on the name of the Lord, his God, and strike his hand
   over the place and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers
   of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in
   them and be clean?" That is why he could not wash in the Jordan,
   because he would not, but persisted in asking questions, needing to be
   wiser than God.

   tried Heart, you may believe and I think I may say that you can
   believe! God is true--you know that--and it cannot be hard to believe
   when you know that. Christ is able to save--you know He is--so it
   cannot be difficult to believe in Him. Christ is willing to save--you
   know He is--then is it hard for you to believe in Him? So I say that
   you can believe. May God bless you and make you willing to believe,
   for, if He makes you willing, He will be sure to show you that you are
   able to believe!

   The next class without faith is not one over which we can rejoice so
   much as over those who are anxious to have faith--I mean the despairing
   ones. There are some souls that feel their sin to be very heavy. They
   have the Gospel faithfully preached to them, but they are so proud that
   they will have it that Christ is not willing to save them, so they will
   not go to Him. There is such a thing as proud humility--when a person
   feels a sort of self-conception of being base. "No," he says, "I cannot
   take the medicine. I am too sick." Now that man is as much a suicide,
   spiritually, as though he took poison, or stabbed himself to death! God
   says that He is able to save you, but you say that He is not. You are
   lying in the very teeth of His promise and charging Him to be a liar!
   The Apostle Paul, writing under the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
   says that Christ is able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto
   God by Him--yet you, in effect, say, "No, He is not." Why, you are
   imitating Satan--setting up your wisdom in the place of God's--instead
   of accepting God's Word as true!

   1 know that when I first heard that Christ could save such a sinner as
   I was, I thought the news was too good to be true, but the Holy Spirit
   led me to trust in Him and then I proved that it was true. If you are a
   poor miserable beggar and some good man here should say to you, "Come
   home with me and I will give you a good situation. No, more, I will
   take you into my home and you shall be my son and heir." You would say,
   "Well, I can hardly believe it, but I will go and see if it is true." I
   hope you will say to God, who has promised you far more than that,
   "Lord, I am as evil a sinner as there is out of Hell, but if You will,
   You can make me clean. Lord, do it! I give myself to You." And if, poor
   despairing Soul, you can say, "It is God with whom I have to deal and
   He can do anything. It is a dying Savior with whom I have to deal

   and He must be willing to forgive. It is the risen Redeemer of whom I
   have to think--He can speak peace to my soul and He will do it!" If you
   can thus trust yourself with Him, you will honor God and you will be
   saved!

   But there is still a larger class in perhaps greater danger. I mean,
   the careless and thoughtless. How many of you have come in here out of
   a curiosity which may never bring you here again? For you, death is a
   dream, Heaven a fiction and Hell a bugbear. You know that the Word of
   God is true, yet you never trouble yourself about its warnings and
   threats. You say, "Let us eat and drink, and enjoy ourselves," but as
   for your immortal soul, you have left that to take care of itself as
   the ostrich leaves its eggs in the wilderness. Permit me, for a minute
   or two, to show you that I care for your soul even if you do not care
   for it yourself. You who are indifferent to your spiritual welfare,
   remember that you belong to the most hopeless class under Heaven! The
   profane are frequently converted, but the indifferent not so often. I
   have noticed that those who get into the habit of going first to one
   place of worship, and then to another, are very rarely saved--yet that
   is not because they oppose the Truth of God. No, if they would do that,
   there might be some hope concerning them! When you are at home, take up
   a flint and an India rubber ball of the same size. Then take a hammer
   and strike both of them with it. Every time you smite the ball, you
   make an impression upon it, but it quickly returns to its original
   shape. When you hit the flint with the hammer, you may produce no
   impression for a time, but, by-and-by, after one of your blows, it is
   shivered to atoms. Many of you are like that India rubber ball. Under
   the preaching of the Gospel, you are interested, moved, affected--but
   the impression is never very deep and you soon return to your original
   form--you are shallow with regard to heavenly things. We cannot get at
   your conscience, we cannot reach your heart--would God that we could!

   I pray you to remember, however, that there is a time coming when Death
   will preach far more effectually to you than I can! I recollect a
   narrative of a young woman, a fair and lovely lady, whose mother was
   very proud of her. She had introduced her into all the fashionable
   circles of the city. Her dresses were always becoming, but also
   expensive and even extravagant. She lived only to go to one party and
   another, and to one amusement and another. Her mother had not
   observed--for mothers do not like to notice such things--that there had
   been a great paleness on her daughter's cheeks. A rapid decline set in
   and, at last, to the mother's terror and the daughter's dismay, the
   doctor thought it his duty to say that it was impossible that she could
   live many weeks. Neither mother nor daughter had ever cared for
   ministers. Religion would have stood in the way of their chosen
   pursuits, so they avoided it--but now the minister was sent for. He was
   an earnest, faithful servant of Christ, so, instead of striving to
   bolster her up with false hopes, he began to talk of death, judgment,
   eternity and the wrath of God. The young woman deeply felt the force
   and the truth of his words--and said to her mother, "I cannot think
   what you have been doing with me. You have led me to believe that these
   fine dresses and those parties and amusements were all I had to live
   for! Why did you not tell me I must die? Why did you not bid me prepare
   for eternity? O my Mother, would that you had told me that I must soon
   leave this world and enter the eternal state!" She begged them to bring
   out her last fineries and she said, "Mother, I feel it is too late now,
   for I shall die, but hang those things up and look at them, and never
   bring up another child as you have brought me up! And as for yourself,
   I charge you to think how soon you, too, must die."

   So I say to all careless ones here--Think of the grave to which you
   must go sooner or later. Think of your last hours and of the only true
   preparation for them. While it is true of you now that you have no
   faith, may it not be true very long--but may you even now seek and find
   faith in the Lord Jesus Christ! For, remember that notto believe in
   Christ is to be already exposed to the wrath of God! Notto believe in
   Christ is to be without salvation and already under condemnation! There
   are many who do not know what it is to have a present salvation, but I
   bless God that there are also many who do know what a present salvation
   is! Do you know what it is? Not long ago I was asked this question, "Is
   it possible for a man to be saved now?""Possible? Possible? If it is
   not possible for him to be saved now, it is not possible for him to he
   saved at all! But the Apostle Paul assures us that "now is the accepted
   time; behold, now is the day of salvation." And no man should give
   sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids until he feels and knows
   that this present salvation is really his!

   Oh, what peace it gives to know that you are now forgiven, now blessed,
   now saved! Oh, how sweet it is to be able to say that God is my Father,
   that I am His child and that He will keep me in perfect safety and
   bring me to be forever where He is! Oh, the delights of this present
   salvation! It is better than a king's throne--it is better than a
   prince's riches. Present salvation--it is Heaven on earth! It is the
   antepast of the peace of immortality! Heaven on earth can only be

   known by those who are saved and who know that they are saved. May that
   be your case and mine, Beloved! Christ's own words are, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall
   be damned." May God bless us all with the true belief which is eternal
   life to all who possess it, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 12:1-32.

   The teaching of our Lord in this chapter has very much to do with
   Christianity in connection with this present life, its cares and
   troubles. God has nowhere promised us exemption from affliction and
   trial. Indeed, it has been said, with much truth, that the Old
   Testament promise was one of prosperity, but that the New Testament
   promise is one of tribulation. You may rest assured that if it had been
   best for us to be taken directly to Heaven when we were converted, the
   Lord would have done it! But as He has not done so, there are wise
   reasons why He keeps His people here for a while. The gold must go
   through the fire before it has its place in the king's crown--and the
   wheat must be exposed to the winnowing fan before it can be taken into
   the heavenly garner.

   Verse 1. In the meantime, when there were gathered together an
   innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trampled one
   another, He began to say unto His disciples first of all, Beware of the
   leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy Hypocrisy, however, of a
   kind that was calculated to spread like leaven. If you know that a man
   is a hypocrite, you do not feel inclined to imitate him. But the
   Pharisees were such well-made hypocrites--such excellent counterfeits--
   that many people were tempted to imitate them! Our Lord teaches us,
   however, that it is no use being a hypocrite.

   2. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; neither
   hid, that shall not be known. For many a day, the hypocrite's true
   character may not be discovered but there is a day coming that will
   reveal all secrets--and woe unto the man whose sin is laid bare in that
   day!

   3. Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the
   light; and that which you have spoken in the ear in closets shall be
   proclaimed upon the housetops. It would be well if we all lived in such
   a fashion that we would not be ashamed to have everything we did
   placarded in the sky. I have heard of one who said that he would like
   to have a window in his heart so that everybody might see what was
   going on. I think that if I had such a window in my heart, I would like
   to have shutters--and I question whether any man would really wish to
   have his heart open to the gaze of all mankind! But at least let our
   lives be such that we should not be ashamed for the Universal Eye to be
   fixed upon them. If you are ashamed to have any one of your actions
   known, be ashamed to do it! If you would be ashamed to hear again what
   you were about to say, do not say it! Check your tongue. Be cautious
   and careful. Live always as one who realizes God's Omniscience. While
   one of the ancient orators was speaking on one occasion, all his
   hearers went away with the exception of Plato--but he continued to
   speak as eloquently as ever, for he said that Plato was a sufficient
   audience for any man. So, if there are none but the eyes of God looking
   upon you, be just as careful as if you were in the street surrounded by
   your fellow creatures. No, be more careful because you are in the
   Presence of your Creator!

   4. 5. AndI say unto you My Friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the
   body, andafter that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn
   you whom you shall fear: Fear Him who after He has killed has power to
   cast into Hell; yes, I say unto you, Fear Him. And how wise and brave
   we shall be if we fear God! It is well put in that Psalm which we
   sometimes sing--

   "Fear Him, you saints, and you will then Have nothing else to fear."

   This great filial fear will chase out all the little, mean, cowardly
   fears, for he who, in the Scriptural sense, fears God, can never be a
   coward in dealing with men.

   6, 7. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them
   is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all
   numbered. Fear not therefore: you are of more value than many sparrows.
   God does not forget the sparrows, but He regards you with far greater
   interest and care, for He counts the very hairs of your head. He not
   only knows that there is such a person, but He knows the minutest
   details of your life and being. It is always a great comfort to
   remember that our Heavenly Father knows us. A dying man who had been
   for many years a Believer had a minister at his bedside who asked him,
   "Don't you know Jesus?" "Yes, Sir," he replied, "I do, but the ground
   of my comfort is

   that He knows me." And surely there is a great force in that Truth of
   God! Your Heavenly Father knows you so completely that He has counted
   the hairs of your head! "Fear not therefore; you are of more value than
   many sparrows."

   8, 9. Also Isay unto you, Whoever shall confess Me before men, him
   shall the Son ofMan also confess before the angels of God: but he that
   denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. What
   courage this ought to give us! In company where the very name of Christ
   is kicked about like a football--where everything is respected except
   true religion--it is not always an easy thing to come forward and say,
   "I, also, am His disciple." But if you will do this, you have Christ's
   pledge that He will acknowledge you before the angels of God. If you do
   not do so, but practically deny Him by a shameful silence, you may
   reasonably expect that He, also, will deny you before the angels.

   10. And whoever shall speak a word against the Son ofMan, it shall be
   forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemes against the Holy Spirit it
   shall not be forgiven. This is one of the very difficult texts of Holy
   Scripture. We are told, in 1 John 5:16 that "there is a sin unto
   death," and I would have you very cautious of ever daring to trifle
   with the Spirit of God since sin against Him is guarded with such
   special warnings! The flaming sword of Divine Vengeance seems to hang
   before the very name of the Holy Spirit, so, whatever you do, never
   trample upon His royal dignity, or blaspheme Him in heart or by lips.

   11. And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates,
   and powers. That is to say, the persecutors--"when they bring you
   there, to be tried for your lives, as many have been in past ages and
   some still are."

   11, 12. Take you no thought how or what thing you shall answer, or what
   you shall say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in the same hour
   what you ought to say. I have often been amazed and delighted with the
   remarkable answers which were given to bishops and priests by poor
   humble men and women who were on trial for their lives. Perhaps you
   remember that Anne Askew was asked, in order to entangle her in her
   speech, "What would become of a mouse if it ate the bread of the holy
   sacrament?" She said that was too deep a question for a poor woman like
   her to answer and she begged the learned bishop on the bench to tell
   her what would become of the mouse--to which his lordship answered that
   it would be damned! Now, what reply could be given to that but the one
   Anne Askew gave, "Alack, poor mouse!"? I do not know that anything
   better could have been said! And on other occasions there have been
   answers which have been deeply theological. And there have been some
   which have been wisely evasive and also some full of weight. And others
   full of Grace and the Truth of God, for the Holy Spirit has helped His
   saints, in time of persecution, to answer well those who have accused
   them.

   13-17. And one of the company said unto Him, Master, speak to my
   brother, that he divides the inheritance with me. And He said unto him,
   Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you? And He said unto them,
   Take heed, beware of covetousness: for a man's life consists not in the
   abundance of things which he possesses. And He spoke a parable unto
   them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth
   plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do,
   because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?There were empty
   cupboards in the houses of the poor and there were hungry children to
   be fed--so this man need not have lacked room where he could bestow his
   fruits!

   18-20. Andhe said, This will Ido: I willpull down my barns and build
   greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will
   say to my soul, Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take
   your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, You
   fool!Which was the last thing he thought--he imagined that he was a
   very wise man! "But God said unto him, You fool!"

   20, 21. This night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall
   those things be, which you have provided? So is he that lays up
   treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Here our Savior shows
   us the frail nature of the tenure upon which we hold all earthly goods
   and how it is not worthwhile to make these the chief things of our
   life, for, while they may leave us, we are quite sure, by-and-by, to
   have to leave them!

   22. And He said unto His disciples, Therefore Isay unto you, Take no
   thought No undue, anxious thought, for such is the meaning of the word
   used here. "Take no thought."

   22-30. For your life, what you shall eat; neither for the body, what
   you shallput on. The life is more than food, and the body is more than
   raiment. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which
   neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them: how much more are
   you better than the fowls? And which of you by worrying can add to his
   stature one cubit?If you then are not able to do that thing which is
   the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how
   they grow: they toil not, they spin not, and yet Isay unto you, that
   Solomon in all his glory was not ar-

   rayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which is
   today in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven; how much more
   willHe clothe you, Oyou oflittle faith? And seek not whatyou shall eat,
   or whatyou shall drink, neither be you of a doubtful mind. For all
   these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father
   knows that you have need of these things. So that, with the knowledge
   of His guarantees to you that you shall always have enough, why do you
   need to be care-worn and anxious? I have often looked at birds in a
   cage and thought of the happiness and carelessness of heart which they
   seem to exhibit. And yet, if you were to forget to give them water, or
   if you were to fail to give them seed, how soon they would die! Perhaps
   the little creature has not enough to last it more than one day, but it
   goes on singing its tune and leaves all anxiety about tomorrow to those
   whose business it is to care for it. You would be ashamed to let your
   bird starve--and will your Heavenly Father let you, who are not His
   birds, but His children, starve? Oh, no! "Your Father knows that you
   have need of these things."

   31, 32. But rather seek you the Kingdom of God; and all these things
   shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your
   Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. He does not give you
   all that you would like to have, but He is going "to give you the
   Kingdom." He gives the lesser gifts to others, but He is saving up the
   Kingdom for you! Luther once said, "All the empires of the earth are
   only so much meal for God's swine--but the treasure is for His
   children. They may have less meal, but they shall have the Eternal
   Kingdom." Oh, how blessed are we if, by faith, we know that this is
   true concerning us! "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
   Kingdom"!
     __________________________________________________________________

"To You"

   (No. 2899)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   9, 1876.

   "To you is the word of this salvation sent." Acts 13:26.

   MY text must be read in the light of the 46th verse, or else I may be
   thought to be guilty of wresting it from its true meaning. Paul
   originally said to the Jews and proselytes in the synagogue at Antioch
   in Pisidia, "To you i s the word of this salvation sent." But they
   rejected the message and, therefore, the Apostle said to them, "It was
   necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you:
   but seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of
   everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." So, if Paul were now
   here, he might, in addressing you, use the very same words which he
   used in addressing Israel of old and say, "To youis the word of this
   salvation sent."

   This fact furnishes us with a warning. Remember, Brothers and Sisters,
   that the Gospel was first sent to Israel. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
   Himself, confined His personal ministry almost entirely within the
   bounds of Palestine and He bade His disciples begin the preaching of
   the Gospel at Jerusalem--and such was the narrowness which naturally
   appertained to their nationality that it took a very long time to bring
   most of the Apostles to preach to any people beside the Jews. In this
   way the Jews had a full opportunity of knowing the Truth of God, but,
   because they were blinded by prejudice and sin, they could not see
   Christ. They judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life, so Paul
   and the rest of the Apostles turned to the Gentiles. I would solemnly
   remind you who now have the opportunity of hearing the Gospel that if
   any nation shall be privileged to have the Gospel sent to it and yet
   shall continue to reject it, God may turn from that nation as readily
   as He turned from the Jews--perhaps even more readily than He turned
   from His ancient and peculiarly favored people, Israel.

   If, in this country, men and women continue to go after the idolatrous
   calves of Ritualism, or turn aside to the modern Sadduceeism of
   skepticism, it may be that the Lord will remove the candlestick out of
   its place and that the Word of the Gospel will no longer be sent to us.
   At present there are many nations to which the Gospel has scarcely been
   sent by the way of preaching it in their own tongue. They have not yet
   heard it, but they must do so, sooner or later. There are other
   countries that were, at one time, the home of saints to whom Christ's
   name was known--yet they are now left in the darkness of Popery, or
   else Mohammedanism has brought the lies of the crescent to take the
   place of the Truth of the Cross. Go to the ruins of the seven churches
   of Asia and ask how it is that, as churches, we know nothing of them
   now-- and learn from their doom not to trifle with the Truth of God
   when it comes to you, nor to judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting
   life lest, perhaps, the messengers of peace should be sent to other
   lands and the Light of the Gospel should no longer shine upon our
   highly favored island!

   And you, dear Friend--speaking personally to you as an individual
   rather than to the nation in general--I pray you to take heed that
   while you are able to hear the Gospel, you also receive it, for it may
   be that very soon you will be unable to come to the House of Prayer, or
   your lot may be cast where the Gospel is not faithfully preached and
   you may have to rue these blessed days in which the Kingdom of God came
   so near to you, yet you did not enter in! Yes, you may lie a-dying and
   you may have to lament the Sabbaths that you have wasted and which
   never will come back to you. And oh, in the next world, with what
   regret you will have to look back upon the desecrated Sabbaths, the
   neglected means of Grace and the despised invitations of God's
   ministers! And you will mourn that you judged yourself unworthy of
   ever-

   lasting life and, therefore, have passed away into that place of woe
   where Gospel invitations can never reach your ears! I am preaching with
   the hope that at least some of you may be saved from such a terrible
   doom as that and that, this very hour, the Gospel which is sent to you
   may be accepted by you!

   There was a little boy whom his mother noticed as always wonderfully
   attentive to the Word. He would frequently put his hand to his ear so
   as to catch every word from the preacher. She said to him, "John, why
   do you do that, my Dear?" He replied, "Did you not hear the minister
   say, the other Sunday, that if there was any part of the sermon that
   would be sure to do us good, the devil would try to cause a disturbance
   just then, so that we might not hear it? So I am determined that if
   there is anything that is likely to do me good, I will hear it." Any
   man, or woman, or child who will hear like that, will not hear in
   vain--that is impossible!

   I. My talk will be very simple and not very long. And, first of all, I
   am going to answer the question, WHAT IS THIS WORD OF SALVATION WHICH
   IS SENT TO US?

   If you read the passage through, as we did just now, you will see that
   the word of salvation, which is sent to us, is the testimony that Jesus
   Christ is the promised Savior. Paul showed that He was of the seed of
   David, the Messiah whom God had promised to His people by the Prophets.
   Jesus of Nazareth was the Seed of the woman who was to bruise the old
   serpent's head, the One of whom the ancient seers spoke so sweetly and
   for whom the 12 tribes, watching night and day, waited so long. This is
   the Messiah, the world's only Hope, the one Redeemer--rightly called
   the King of the Jews--yet also the Savior of all who believe in Him!

   What has this Truth of God to do with you? Why, it has this to do with
   you--that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of
   sin/That same Jesus who was the Son of God, took upon Himself our human
   nature, lived in this world and worked righteousness. And when the due
   time came, He took upon Himself the sins of all His people. The Lord
   laid them upon Him and He carried them up to the Cross and there, upon
   the tree, He bore the full penalty for all the transgressions of His
   people. The penalty for sin was death, so Jesus died. And Paul writes,
   by Inspiration, "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we
   were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Now, because Christ died in the
   place of the ungodly, the forgiveness of sins is being preached, at
   this moment, in tens of thousands of places all over the world! Whoever
   believes in Jesus Christ--that is, simply trust in Him--shall receive
   at once the forgiveness of all his sins--a complete and irreversible
   forgiveness by which the whole of his sin is blotted out as when a man
   strikes his pen through the record of a debt or writes below it,
   "Settled." All his sin is removed, as when the North wind drives away
   the cloud and the sky is bright and clear. All his sin is removed, as
   when the fuller cleanses the filthy garment and makes it white as snow.
   All his sin is removed forever, "as far as the East is from the West."
   So who can lay anything to the charge of the man whose sins Christ has
   forgiven? This forgiveness is preached unto you through the Man, Christ
   Jesus, even to you who believe on His name!

   The word of this salvation is the proclamation of perfect salvation
   through the risen Redeemer, for the Apostle adds, "by Him all that
   believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be
   justified by the Law of Moses." That is to say, there were some sins
   which the Law given to Moses never thought of forgiving, but there are
   no sins which Christ is either unable or unwilling to forgive. The Law
   of Moses could not, in very deed, put away anysin, so fresh sacrifices
   had to be continually offered under the Mosaic dispensation. "But this
   Man" whom we preach unto you, "after He had offered one Sacrifice for
   sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God," having no need to
   present any more sacrifices. So that if you believe on Him, your sins
   shall be not figuratively, but actually put away forever--and there
   shall remain to you no more consciousness of sin. Washed in the
   precious blood of Christ, you shall be whiter than snow and shall enter
   into Heaven, none daring to accuse you, for who shall accuse the man or
   woman whom Christ has justified? This is the word of salvation, then,
   that is sent to you, my dear Friends, as much as to those to whom Paul
   spoke. "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life." He shall
   never perish, for he is forgiven by God and is "accepted in the
   Beloved."

   If there are any of you who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it
   seems to me that you are like a ship that is derelict--left to the
   mercy of the winds and waves. O Soul, yours is an unhappy condition for
   anyone to be in! Though as yet you are not destroyed. Though as yet you
   are not in Hell, it ought to be misery enough for a man to feel, "I am
   not under the direction of God. I have not Christ on board to be my
   Pilot." Stop, young woman! Stop, young man! If that is the case with
   you, go no further as you are, but ask the Lord to direct you from this
   time forth and even forever more! I stand here as a living witness to
   this fact that it is the highest wisdom and happiness to trust in the
   Lord! I have relied upon

   Him since I was 15 years of age and my only grief is that I did not
   trust Him earlier! But since the hour that brought me to His feet and
   enabled me to rest in Him, He has been a good Helper, a sure Guide and
   a blessed Friend to me! And speaking from my own experience, I would
   entreat my Brothers and Sisters who are younger than I am to delay no
   longer, but to take my Heavenly Father to be their Guide also! May the
   Lord, the Holy Spirit, lead you to do so this very hour, for Jesus
   Christ's sake!

   II. Now let us pass on to a second question which is, IN WHAT MANNER IS
   THIS GOSPEL SENT TO YOU? Let me have your ears and your heart while I
   try to answer this important question as the Holy Spirit shall guide
   me.

   Well, first, it was sent to you, dear Friend, whoever you may be, in
   Christ's universal commission which He gave to His disciples, "Go you
   into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." You are a
   creature, are you not? Then the Gospel is to be preached to you! Paul
   wrote to Timothy, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
   You are a sinner, are you not? Then, Christ came to save you and this
   faithful saying is worthy of your acceptation! Our Lord Jesus Christ,
   in His last invitation in the Book of Revelation, says, "Whoever will,
   let him take the water of life freely." Surely, " whoever will"must
   include you, whoever you may be, for you have a will and you can come
   to Christ if you will--

   "Let every mortal ear attend, And every heart rejoice"--

   for, to everyone of woman born--

   The trumpet of the Gospel sounds With an inviting voice."

   Young or old, rich or poor, whomever you may be, "to you is the word of
   this salvation sent" by Him who bade us go into all the world and
   preach the Gospel to every creature, saying, "He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned."

   But it is also sent to you in another sense, for the preaching of it
   has actually come to you. The word of this salvation is sent to every
   creature under Heaven, but the great mass of mankind has not yet heard
   it. "How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how
   shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except
   they are sent?" O Church of the living God, what a sin lies at your
   door because they are not sent and, therefore, the heathen do not hear
   and hence they are not saved! But, "to you," the preacher has come! You
   have heard the Gospel--some of you from your childhood. Can you
   recollect the time when you did nothear it? You say, sometimes, that it
   has been dinned into your ears until you are almost weary of it. When
   we come into the pulpit, we cannot tell you anything fresh--it is just
   the same old story that you have heard so long. "To you" the word of
   this salvation has been sent and you have heard it and know what it is!

   Perhaps some of you may say to me, "Sir, we live in a place where the
   Gospel is not preached. We have rank Ritualism in the parish church and
   nothing but vapid intellectualism in all the Dissenting chapels." I am
   sorry if that is true, but look here, Sirs--you have all got this
   Bible, or you can all get it and it will be a stern witness against
   everyone of you, whether you hear the Gospel preached or not! I suppose
   that a copy of the Bible is in almost every Englishman's house--I
   wonder whether there is one home in this land without it--there should
   not be. Well, then, as long as this invaluable preacher is with you--as
   long as you can read the Word of God in your home, or in the field, or
   in the barn or the shop--to you, indeed, is the word of this salvation
   sent!

   Further, I believe that, to some people, the Gospel is sent in a yet
   more remarkable manner Possibly the very fact that you are here, at
   this service, is one of the many instances in which the Gospel has been
   sent to you. There was a young man, some years ago, who dishonored his
   father's name in the village where he lived--a scapegrace, as they
   called him--and he ran away from home to a distant land. He came to
   London and went on board a vessel, at the docks, expecting to sail.
   This was on a Saturday, but an "accident" occurred and the ship was
   delayed, so he had a Sunday in London. He remembered that his father
   had often spoken of the Tabernacle, so he enquired the way and came
   here--an utterly ungodly young man. Some months after, in a letter
   which he wrote to his home, his father was surprised to find that he
   was commencing to preach the Gospel. He said that on that Sunday night
   when he came here, the Lord met with him and saved him. That was a
   blessed "accident" that kept him from sailing on the Saturday and that
   brought him here to listen to the Gospel of Jesus!

   I never know who may be in my congregation. Ah, Tom, you scapegrace, I
   should not wonder, as you have come in here, if there was another
   wonder in store for you! And I trust that the Lord has sent the Gospel
   to you by that singular Providence which has brought you among us! Out
   of this crowd there must be some who are here under very peculiar
   circumstances. Some of you have come up from the country and you have
   been persuaded by friends to come here. I do not know you, or anything
   about you, but my Lord does and I trust that to you is the word of this
   salvation sent by the very Providence which has brought you here! A
   child takes the seed of a weed, when it is fully ripe, and blows upon
   it in sheer sport--away go the little parachutes, bearing the seeds
   through the air--and you may find that weed over hill and dale miles
   away! We, though not little children, take the Divine Seed of the Truth
   of God and, with our anxious, but believing breath, we blow it abroad
   in this congregation. Where that seed may fall, we cannot tell. It may
   fall upon some stranger from the backwoods of Canada, or some Brother
   from a great city of America, or some lonely worker who has been
   toiling far away in India, or on some at home, unknown to us, who,
   nevertheless, shall receive into good soil the seed, not of a weed, but
   of a precious flower of God! And if the world is not sooner brought to
   its close, even a thousand years hence there may be plants growing that
   can trace their spiritual parentage to the sowing of tonight! O young
   man, young woman, worker for Christ--you can never tell the infinite
   issues of what seemed so small a matter as the sowing of the good Seed
   of the Kingdom!

   Sometimes God sends the Truth very specially home to the heart and
   conscience of the hearer by the singularity of the preacher's words. He
   has been guided by the Holy Spirit to paint the man's portrait to the
   life and the man has been astounded at it. He has imagined that
   somebody must have informed the preacher about him, yet the speaker
   was, all the while, quite innocent of the man's affairs. "Why, the very
   words I have used," says he, "and the inmost thoughts of my heart were
   laid bare!" Do you not know that this is one of the characteristics of
   the Word of God? Paul says that it "is quick, and powerful, and sharper
   than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul
   and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
   thoughts and intents of the heart." If anything in the preaching at any
   time comes right home to you--as though the preacher looked right into
   you, knew all about you and reckoned you up as a boy does a sum in
   arithmetic on His slate--do not begin to wonder how it is done, but
   realize that, in this way, "to you is the word of this salvation sent."
   Oh, that the blessed Spirit would now arrest some of you--laying His
   hand of Grace upon your shoulder as the sheriff's officer does when he
   arrests a man in the name of the law! May the Lord say to you, "You are
   My prisoner. You shall give your heart to Me. Make haste and come down
   and receive Me into your heart, for there I must dwell forever"--

   "Thus the eternal counsel ran-- 'Almighty Grace, arrest that man!'"--

   And when the eternal counsel so runs and the Divine decree so
   determines, so shall it be, for the Lord God is mighty to save and none
   shall be able to withstand the power of His Omnipotent Grace!

   III. Now, thirdly, I am going to keep to the same theme, yet to touch
   another string while I reply to this question-- IN WHAT POSITION DOES
   THE GOSPEL PLACE A MAN WHEN IT COMES TO HIM?

   The word of this salvation has been sent to many of you. In what
   position does it put you? Well, first, in a position of great
   indebtedness, for you owe--I dare not try to calculate how much--God
   for sending the Gospel to you. That there should be a Gospel to send to
   you--that Christ should be given for you--that His precious blood
   should be shed for you--that there should be full and free forgiveness
   for you, though you feel that you are altogether undeserving of it--
   all this makes up a stupendous favor from God. May you never dare to
   thrust it from you!

   Then think of what you owe to the Providence that has sent the Gospel
   to you. For you, dear Friends, Apostles lived, labored, suffered and
   journeyed so that even to these distant isles of Britain the Gospel of
   Jesus might be brought. For you Reformers battled, bled and died that
   they might dispel the darkness of error and falsehood and bring out the
   Light of the Truth of God. For you, martyrs suffered by the thousands!
   Go to Smithfield and recall what your brave sires endured in order that
   their sons might have the Gospel freely preached to them--that very
   Gospel which many of them despise! Wonderful have been the arrangements
   of Divine Providence to keep the Light of Truth burning in these lands!

   The fact that at this moment you are hearing the Gospel preached
   imposes a great obligation upon you. Who built this place, but for the
   most part generous Christian people--who are even now praying for your
   conversion--God's servants who love you and desire your eternal
   welfare? And, though I ask no thanks of you, yet does my soul yearn
   over

   you, poor Soul, longing that you may find the Savior as I have found
   Him and be as happy in Him as I am. Well, you cannot be thought of and
   loved by others thus, you cannot have the great wheels of Divine
   Providence continually revolving to bring the Gospel to you and, above
   all--transcendently above all--you cannot have the Lord Jesus Christ
   bleeding on Calvary's Cross that there may be a Gospel to preach to you
   without your being put under very solemn obligations!

   Further, the fact that you have the Gospel sent to you puts you into a
   very hopeful position. I like to think about how many people are going
   to be saved every time the Gospel is faithfully preached. It is not
   preached in vain--we deliver a message from God that never misses the
   mark at which He aimed! We are sure that it is so, for we preach it in
   faith. We always expect to hear of sinners being saved and we are never
   disappointed, nor shall we ever be while we can preach the Truth of God
   with the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven. It is in His power that we
   preach, far we have sought the aid of the Holy Spirit! And thousands of
   you have sought His aid, too, and we have not sought in vain as we look
   for conversions and we, therefore, feel, dear Friends, that you are in
   a hopeful condition--and we believe that many of you will be brought to
   trust in the Lord Jesus Christ!

   But remember--and here let me throw the whole emphasis of my soul into
   my message--you are put into a very responsible position, for if the
   Gospel is thus brought to you and you reject it, it will be a savor of
   death unto death to you! To every person to whom the word of this
   salvation comes, I have to say, in my Master's name--If you are not
   saved by it, you will have the blood of your soul on your own skirts.
   Woe unto you if you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life and
   declare that you will not have Christ to reign over you! Woe unto you
   if you are disobedient and stumble at this stumbling-stone! Ah, my dear
   Hearers, it may seem but a trifling thing to you to hear the Gospel,
   but this makes your position very different from what it would
   otherwise have been! The Last Great Day will call me to account for
   every word I utter in delivering my Master's message--and it will also
   call each one of you to account for the reception or rejection of that
   message! You young men and young women, and you graybeards will have to
   answer in that day for the way you deal with tonight's message! You
   will not be able to excuse yourselves by saying, "We never heard of
   pardon through the blood of Jesus." You will not be able to say, "The
   preacher did not proclaim the Gospel to us. He gave us some fine
   language and tried to play the orator--and finished off with a grand
   display of fireworks." You will never be able to truthfully say that!
   You know that there is nothing that I desire but to set Christ plainly
   before you and to beseech, entreat and implore you to put your trust in
   Him, for He is worthy of all the trust of your heart!

   So, have done with all other confidences and with the love of sin--and
   lay hold on eternal life! But, whether you will do so or not, you can
   be sure of this--to you is the word of this salvation sent and the
   Kingdom of God has come near to you!

   IV. My last question is this. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO TREAT THE WORD OF
   THIS SALVATION, NOW

   THAT IT IS SENT TO YOU?

   First, are any ofyougoing to contradict it and blaspheme it? I trust
   not, although that sin is not an uncommon one nowadays. Yet I most
   sincerely hope that I am not addressing one who blasphemes the Christ
   who died for sinners--such love as His ought to be free from blasphemy!

   If you do not commit that sin, I fear that you may say, as so many
   others have said before you, "I will think of it tomorrow." You do not
   really mean to think of it if you talk like that. When Felix said to
   Paul, "Go your way for this time: when I have a convenient season, I
   will call for you," what he meant was, "I do not want to listen to you
   any longer; you are a nuisance to me." Let me put the matter to you
   very plainly. You either love Christ or do not love Him-- which is it?
   That "tomorrow" plea is a lie! Satan has invented it in order that he
   may enable men to reject Christ and yet flatter their souls with the
   notion that they are not doing so. Come, then, it may be that this is
   the last time the question will ever be put to you in this fashion. I
   have you, as it were, by the button-hole now and, as the "Ancient
   Mariner" detained the wedding guest with his weird story, so would I
   hold you with this earnest personal pressure upon your heart and
   conscience! Do you mean to give Christ the go-by, or not? Remember that
   the bell shall toll before long for you-- and six feet of earth shall
   hold down each one who comes to this Tabernacle and who now sits and
   listens to the word of this salvation!

   Oh, whatever you do, do not procrastinate! Say, "No," if you mean,
   "No." Say "Yes," if God the Holy Spirit enables you to say it, but do
   not say it as some have too readily done in certain revival services,
   without fully considering

   the matter! They have jumped into religion and jumped out again just as
   quickly. Like the rocky-ground hearers, the seed quickly sprang up and
   there was the green blade, but there was no depth of earth, so it soon
   withered away. Ask the Lord to plow your soul and to break up the soil
   of your heart that there may be roothold for the good Seed of the
   Kingdom!

   And, in order to attain to this end, look right away from yourself to
   Jesus--away from your repenting, pleading and chapel attendance and
   anything else--to Jesus only, with that true faith which has nothing to
   do with anything but the finished work of the Christ who says, "Look
   unto Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." Do not trust to
   going into enquiry-rooms and talking with earnest evangelists and other
   Christian workers. If you would be saved, your soul must come to
   grappling terms with Christ--and Christ must come to close terms with
   you--otherwise you will be none the better for having heard the Gospel!
   Indeed, the very fact that you have heard it will only increase your
   condemnation!

   I think I hear someone say, "Gladly would I have Him now! I would give
   my eyes to have Him." Well, you need not give your eyes, or anything
   else--you may have Him for nothing! I have told you the story of the
   vessel that was out at sea, as the captain thought, but he was out of
   his reckoning. They ran short of water, they had not a drop to drink.
   So at last they hailed a vessel and, speaking through the trumpet the
   captain cried, "We need water! We are perishing for lack of water."
   Imagine his surprise when there came across the wave this reply, "Dip
   it up! You are in the river Amazon! It is fresh water all round you.
   Dip it up!" You perhaps think that you are out on the salt sea, but you
   are not--God's mercy is all around you! Throw your bucket overboard;
   dip it up! Trust in Jesus--

   "Only trust Him! Only trust Him!

   He will save you now!

   Only trust Him, Only trust Him!

   He will save you now!"

   Do you ask, "What shall I do to be saved?" "Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and you shall be saved." That was Paul's answer to the question
   and I cannot give you a better one. Believing does not take a week, or
   even a minute. Your heart rests and relies on Christ and Christ saves
   your heart. See me leaning here, with all my weight, upon this platform
   rail? Lean so upon Christ, with all your weight. Have done with
   everything but Jesus--and when you have believed on Him, then obey Him
   by being baptized in His name, for He put belief and Baptism together
   when He said, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."

   So, accept the whole of the Gospel and keep to the command of Christ in
   every point--and then you may look to the faithful God to fulfill His
   promise that you shall be saved! The Lord bless you and save every one
   of you, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ACTS 13:13-49.

   Verse 13. Now when Paul and his company set sail from Paphos, they came
   to Perga in Pamphylia: and John, departing from them, returned to
   Jerusalem. ' 'John"--that is, John Mark, as we see by chapter 15:37.

   14, 15. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in
   Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and sat down.
   And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the
   synagogue went unto them, saying, You men and brethren, if you have any
   word of exhortation for the people, say so. The rulers of the synagogue
   had noticed them as strangers coming in and perceived that they were
   Jews, probably by their wearing the same kind of garments as other Jews
   did.

   16. Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men ofIsrael,
   and you that fear God, give audience. Or, rather, "and you Gentile
   proselytes, give audience."

   17. The God of this people ofIsrael choose our fathers and exalted the
   people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an
   high arm He brought them out of there. I t is always well to begin with
   our hearers upon some common ground. So, wishing to persuade these
   people to receive the Lord Jesus as the promised Messiah, Paul begins
   with that which was always attractive to their ears--the history of
   their nation--with a special mention of the peculiar

   favor which God had shown to His chosen people, Israel, in bringing
   them up out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.

   18-21. And about the time of forty years He put up with their manners
   in the wilderness. And when He had destroyed seven nations in the land
   of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot And after that He gave
   unto them Judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until
   Samuel the Prophet And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto
   them Saul, the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space
   of forty years. Do you not sometimes hear people speak disparagingly
   about certain parts of Scripture and say, "Oh, that is the historical
   part"? Dear Friends, never fall into the error of thinking less of one
   part of Scripture than of another, but remember that "all Scripture is
   given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine, for
   reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the men
   of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." This
   sermon by Paul is a rehearsal of Old Testament history--and he would
   not have spoken unprofitably--you may depend upon that! I would urge
   you to bear a protest against the method which seems to be springing
   up, nowadays, of saying, "That part of the Bible is for the Jews." Or,
   "That particular Epistle"--for they speak thus even of the New
   Testament--"is not for us." It is allfor us and we are to seek to
   profit by every word of it, praying the Holy Spirit to apply it to our
   hearts!

   22-25. And when He had removed him, He raised up unto them David to be
   their king; to whom also He gave testimony, and said, I have found
   David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, which shall fulfill
   all My will Of this man's seed has God, according to His promise,
   raised unto Israel a Savior--Jesus--after John had first preached
   before His coming, the Baptism of repentance to all the people ofIsrael
   And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Who do you think I am? I am
   not He. But, behold, there comes One after me, whose shoes of His feet
   I am not worthy to loosen. Paul went on with his narrative as far as
   the history of Saul and David--and so he came to great David's greater
   Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He had come by way of Old Testament history
   to Christ and by way of John the Baptist to Christ-- and that is how
   the preacher of the Gospel should travel. On whatever road he journeys,
   his terminus must be Christ. The motto of all true servants of God must
   be, "we preach Christ and him crucified." A sermon without Christ in it
   is like a loaf of bread without flour in it! No Christ in your sermon,
   Sir? Then go home and never preach again until you have something worth
   preaching!

   26. Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whoever
   among you fears God. Or, "is a proselyte to

   God."

   26, 27. To you is the word of this salvation sent For they that dwell
   at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the
   voices of the Prophet which are read every Sabbath day, they have
   fulfiled them in condemning Him. See how easy it is for people to hear
   the Bible read and yet to know very little about what it contains? They
   may have the lessons read every Sabbath in their hearing and yet they
   may not understand anything that is in them. They may even become great
   readers of the Scriptures, yet not come to Christ as it was with those
   to whom the Lord Jesus said-- "You search the Scriptures, for in them
   you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.
   But you will not come to Me, that you might have life." If you are
   content with merely reading or hearing the Scriptures and do not come
   to Christ, Himself, you stop short of salvation! Yes, you stay in a
   position where you may be capable of the grossest sin--as were these
   people at Antioch in Pisidia.

   28-37. And though they foundno cause of death in Him, yet desired they
   Pilate that He should be slain. And when they had fulfiled all that was
   written of Him, they took Him down from the tree, and laid Him in a
   sepulcher. But God raised Him from the dead: and He was seen many days
   of them which came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His
   witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how
   that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God has fulfilled the
   same unto us, their children, in that He has raised up Jesus again; as
   it is also written in the Second Psalm, You are My Son, this day have I
   begotten You. And as concerning that He raised Him up from the dead,
   nowno more to return to corruption, He said on this wise, I will give
   You the sure mercies ofDavid. Why He says also in another Psalm, You
   shallnot allow Your Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he
   hadservedhis own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was
   laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: but He, whom God raised
   again, saw no corruption. Note how Paul keeps to Scripture! An Inspired
   Apostle, himself, yet He appealed to the Old Testament to support his
   case. That was the best argument he could possibly use with Jews--and
   often it will be the best that we can use with Gentiles.

   38-42. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through
   this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all
   that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be
   justified by the Law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest that come upon
   you which is spoken of in the proverb; Behold, you despisers, and
   wonder, andperish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you
   shallin no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. And when the
   Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these
   words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. They did not mind
   hearing sermons twice in those days! We are not often asked to preach
   the same sermon over again. But these people wanted to know the Truth
   of God and, therefore, they asked to have it repeated. If our people
   will not receive the Gospel the first time we preach it, we must tell
   it to them over and over again. With the hammer of the Word of God, we
   must strike the same nail on the head again and again. Even if we do
   not utter the same words there must always be the same Subject, Sabbath
   by Sabbath and week by week.

   43-46. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and
   religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who speaking to them,
   persuaded them to continue in the Grace of God. And the next Sabbath
   day came almost the whole city together to hear the Word ofGod. But
   when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spoke
   against these things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and
   blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold. Though Jews themselves,
   they could not bear to see the bigotry of their nation.

   46. Andsaid, It was necessary that the Word ofGod should first have
   been spoken to you: but seeingyouput it from you, and judge yourselves
   unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. And a
   blessed turning it has been for you, dear Friends, and for me!

   47-49. For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a
   light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation unto the ends
   of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and
   glorified the Word of the Lord: andas many as were ordained to
   eternallife believed. And the Word ofthe Lord waspublished throughout
   all the region.
     __________________________________________________________________

How God Comes to Man

   (No. 2900)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY
   13, 1876.

   "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the
   cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the Presence
   ofthe LORD God among the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called
   unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you?" Genesis 3:8,9.

   "How will God come to us now that we have rebelled against Him?" That
   is a question which must have greatly perplexed our first parents. They
   may have said to one another, "Perhaps God will not come to us at all
   and then we shall be orphans, indeed. If spared to live on, we must
   continue to live without God and without hope in the world." It would
   have been the worst thing that could have happened to our race if God
   had left this planet to take its own course and had said, concerning
   the people upon it, "I will leave them to their own way, for they are
   given over to idols."

   But if He came to our first parents, in what way would He come? Surely
   Adam and Eve must have feared that He would be accompanied by the
   angels of vengeance to destroy them straight away, or, at any rate, to
   bind them in chains and fetters forever. So they questioned among
   themselves, "Will He come and if He does, will His coming involve the
   total destruction of the human race?" Their hearts must have been
   sorely perplexed within them while they were waiting to see what God
   would do to them as a punishment for the great sin they had committed.
   I believe they thought that He would come to them. From their past
   experience they knew so much of His graciousness that they felt sure
   that He would come. Yet they also understood so much of His holy anger
   against sin that they must have been afraid of His coming--so they went
   and hid themselves among the trees of the garden although every tree
   must have upbraided them for their disobedience, for everyone of the
   trees would seem to say, "Why do you come here? You have eaten of the
   fruit of the tree of which you were forbidden to partake. You have
   broken your Maker's command and His sentence of death has already gone
   out against you. When He comes, He will certainly come to deal with you
   in judgment according to His faithful word--and when He does, what will
   become of you?" Every leaf, as it rustled, must have startled and
   alarmed them. The breath of the evening breeze, as it passed through
   the garden, must have filled them with fear and dread as to the doom
   awaiting them.

   Now, "in the cool of the day," or, as the Hebrew has it, "in the wind
   of the evening," when the evening breeze was blowing through the
   garden, God came. It is difficult for us to even imagine how He
   revealed Himself to our first parents. I suppose He condescended to
   take upon Himself some visible form. It was "the voice of the Lord God"
   they heard in the garden and you know that it is the Word of God who
   has been pleased to make Himself visible to us in human flesh. He may
   have assumed some form in which they could see Him, otherwise, as a
   pure Spirit, God could not have been recognized either by their ears or
   their eyes.

   They heard His voice speaking as He walked in the garden in the cool of
   the day. And when He called to Adam, albeit that there was righteous
   anger in the tone of His voice, yet His words were very calm and
   dignified and, as far as they could be, even tender, for, while you may
   read the words thus, "Adam, where are you?" You may also read them
   thus, "Where are you, poor Adam, where are you?" You may put a tone of
   pity into the words and yet not misread them. So the Lord comes thus in
   gentleness in the cool of the day and calls them to account. He
   patiently listens to their wicked excuses and then pronounces upon them
   a sentence, which, heavy though it is towards the serpent and heavy
   though it is

   towards all who are not saved by the woman's wondrous Seed, yet has
   much mercy mingled with it in the promise that the Seed of the woman
   shall bruise the head of the serpent--a promise which must have shone
   in their sad and sinful souls as some bright particular star shines in
   the darkness of the night!

   I learn from this incident that God will come to sinful men, sooner or
   later, and we may also learn from the way in which He came to our first
   parents, how He is likely to come to us. His coming will be different
   to different men, but we gather, from this incident, that God will
   certainly come to guilty men even if He waits till the cool of the day.
   And we are also able to understand a little about the way in which He
   will ultimately come to all men.

   Remember this, Sinner, however far you may get away from God, you will
   have to come close to Him one of these days! You may go and pluck the
   fruit that He forbids you to touch and then you may go and hide
   yourself among the thick trees in the forest and think that you have
   concealed yourself--but you will have to come face to face with your
   Maker at some time or other! It may not be today, or tomorrow. It may
   not be until "the cool of the day" of time. No, it may not be till
   time, itself, shall be no more--but, at last, you will have to confront
   your Maker! Like the comet that flies far off from the sun, wandering
   into space for an altogether inconceivable distance and yet has to come
   back again, however long the time its circuit takes--so you will have
   to come back to God, either willingly, repentantly, believingly, or
   else unwillingly and in chains to receive your sentence of doom from
   the lips of the Almighty whom you have provoked to anger by your sin!
   God and you have to meet as surely as you are now living--at some time
   or other, each one of you must hear the voice of the Lord God saying to
   you, as He said to Adam, "Where are you?"

   Now, from this meeting between God and fallen man, I learn a few
   lessons which I will pass on to you as the Holy Spirit shall enable me.

   I. The first is this. When God did meet with fallen man, it was not
   until the cool of the day. This suggests to me GOD'S GREAT PATIENCE
   WITH THE GUILTY.

   Whether Adam and Eve sinned in the early morning, or in the middle of
   the day, or toward evening, we do not know. It is not necessary that we
   should know this, but it is probable that the Lord God allowed an
   interval to intervene between the sin and the sentence. He was not in a
   hurry to come because He could not come except in anger to bring their
   sins home to them. You know how quick the tempers of some men are. If
   they are provoked, it is a word and a blow with them, for they have no
   patience. It is our littleness that makes us impatient. God is so great
   that He can endure far more than we can. And though our first parents'
   sin greatly provoked Him--and it is to His Glory that He is so holy
   that He cannot look upon iniquity without indignation--yet He seemed to
   say to Himself, "I must go and call these two creatures of Mine to
   account for their sin. Yet judgment is My strange work--it is mercy in
   which I delight. This morning I drew back the curtains that had
   shielded them during the night and poured the sunlight in upon them,
   not a second beyond the appointed time, and I was glad to do it. And
   all day long I have been showering mercies upon them and the refreshing
   night-dews are already beginning to fall upon them. I will not go down
   to them till the latest possible moment. I will put it off till the
   cool of the day." God will do nothing in the heat of
   passion--everything shall be deliberate, calm, majestic and Divine!

   The fact that God did not come to question His sinful creatures till
   the cool of the day ought to teach us the greatness of His patience and
   it should also teach us to be patient with others. How wondrously
   patient God has been with some of you who are here! You have lived many
   years and enjoyed His mercies, yet you have scarcely thought about Him.
   Certainly, you have not yielded your hearts to Him. But He has not yet
   come to deal with you in judgment. He has waited 20 years for you young
   people--30 years, 40 years, for you middle-aged folk--50 years, 60
   years for you who are getting past that period and perhaps 70 years, or
   even 80 years He has been known to tarry for, "He delights in mercy,"
   but He does not delight in judgment! Seventy years form a long life,
   yet many persons spend all that time in perpetrating fresh sin. Called
   to repentance over and over again, they only become the more impenitent
   through resisting the call of mercy. Favored with blessings as many as
   the sands of the seashore, they only prove themselves the more
   ungrateful by failing to appreciate all those blessings.

   It is amazing that God is willing to wait till the cool of such a long,
   long day of life as 70 or 80 years make up! How patient, then, we ought
   to be with one another! Yet are you, parents, always patient with your
   children--your young children who may not have willingly or consciously
   offended you? What patience you ought always to exercise towards them!
   And have you a like patience towards a friend or a brother who may use
   rough speech and provoke you? Yet such

   your patience ought to be. Never should we take our brother by the
   throat and say to him, "Pay me what you owe," so long as we find God
   deliberately waiting till the cool of the day before He comes to those
   who have offended Him--and even then uttering no more words of anger
   than should be uttered and mingling even those words with mercy that
   has no boundaries!

   II. The second thing that I gather from the Lord's coming to Adam and
   Eve in the cool of the day is HIS DIVINE CARE FOR THE GUILTY.

   Though He did not come till the cool of the day, thus manifesting His
   patience, He did come then, thus manifesting His care for those who had
   sinned against Him. He might have left them all night long--all night
   long without their God--all night long without Him after they had done
   just what He had forbidden them to do. All night long--a sleepless
   night, a fearful night, a night that would have been haunted with a
   thousand fears--all night long with this great battle trembling in the
   balance, with the great question of their punishment unsolved and an
   indefinable dread of the future hanging over them! Many of you know
   that the trial of being kept in suspense is almost worse than any other
   trouble in the world. If a man knew that he had to be beheaded, it
   would be easier for him to die at once than to have to kneel with his
   neck on the block and the gleaming axe lifted up above him, not knowing
   when it might fall. Suspense is worse than death! We seem to feel a
   thousand deaths while we are kept in suspense of one. So God would not
   leave Adam and Eve in suspense through the whole night after they had
   sinned against Him, but He came to them in the cool of the day.

   There was this further reason why He came to them--notwithstanding the
   fact that they had disobeyed Him and that He would have to punish them,
   He remembered that they were still His creatures. He seemed to be
   saying within Himself, "What shall I do to them? I must not utterly
   destroy them, but how can I save them? I must carry out My threat, for
   My word is true, yet I must also see how I can spare them, for I am
   gracious and My Glory is to be increased by the display of My Grace
   towards them." The Lord looked upon them as the appointed progenitors
   of His elect and regarded Adam and Eve, also, let us hope, as His elect
   whom He loved notwithstanding their sin So He seemed to say, "I will
   not leave them all night without the promise which will brighten their
   gloom." It was only one promise and, perhaps, it was not clearly
   understood by them--still, it was a promise of God, even though it was
   spoken to the serpent--"I will put enmity between you and the woman,
   and between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you
   shall bruise His heel." So, not one night were God's poor fallen
   creatures left without at least one star to gleam in the darkness for
   them and thus He showed His care for them.

   And still, dear Friends, though God is slow to anger, yet He is always
   ready to pardon and very tender and compassionate even when He has to
   pass sentence upon the guilty. "He will not always chide; neither will
   He keep His anger forever." You can see His care and consideration even
   for the most unworthy of us because He has not cut us off in our sin!
   We are--

   "Not in torment, not in Hell."

   We can see the marks of His goodness in the very garments on our backs
   and the food of which we partake by His bounty. Many of His gifts come
   not merely to those who do not deserve them, but to those who deserve
   to be filled with the gall and wormwood of Almighty Wrath!

   III. Now, thirdly, I want to show you that WHEN THE LORD DID COME, HE
   AFFORDED US A PATTERN OF HOW THE SPIRIT OF GOD COMES TO AWAKEN THE
   CONSCIENCES OF MEN.

   I have already said that sooner or later God will come to confront each
   one of us. I pray that if He has never come to you, dear Friend, in the
   way of awakening your conscience and making you feel yourself a sinner,
   He may come to you very speedily. And when He does come to awaken
   you--it is somewhat in this way.

   First, He comes seasonably--"in the cool of the day." Adam's work was
   done and Eve had no more to do until the next day. At that hour they
   had been accustomed, in happier times, to sit down and rest. Now God
   comes to them and the Spirit of God, when He comes to awaken men,
   generally visits them when they have a little time for quiet thought.
   You dropped in and heard a sermon--the most of it slipped from your
   memory, but there were some few words that struck you so that you could
   not get rid of them. Perhaps, though, you thought no more about the
   message to which you had listened. Something else came in and took your
   attention. But a little while later you had to watch all night by the
   bedside of a sick friend--and then God came to you and brought to your
   remembrance the words that you had forgot-

   ten. Or it may be that some texts of Scripture which you learned when
   you were a child began to speak to you throughout the watches of the
   night. Or perhaps you were going along a country road or, it may be
   that you were out at sea on a dark night and the billows rolled heavily
   so that you could not sleep--and you even feared that you would be
   swallowed up by the raging sea--then--then came the Voice of the Lord
   God speaking personally to you! When other voices were silenced, there
   was an opportunity for His voice to be heard!

   Not only did the Lord come to Adam and Eve seasonably, but He spoke to
   Adam personally and said, "Where are you?" One of the great mistakes in
   connection with all preaching is that so many hearers will persist in
   lending other people their ears. They hear a faithful Gospel sermon and
   they say, "That message would fit neighbor So-and-So admirably! What a
   pity Mrs. So-and-So did not hear it! That would have been the very word
   for her." Yes, but when God comes to you, as He came to Adam and
   Eve--and if you are not converted I pray that He may--the sermon He
   will deliver to you will be, every word of it, for you! He will say,
   "Adam," or, "John," or, "Mary," or whatever your name is, "where are
   you?" The question will be addressed to you, alone! It will have no
   relation to any of your neighbors, but to you, alone. The question may
   take some such form as this--"Where are you? What have you been doing?
   What is your condition now? Will you now repent, or will you still go
   on in your sins?" Have not you, young man, had some such experience as
   this? You went to the theater, but when you came home you said that you
   had not enjoyed it and that you wished you had not gone. You went to
   bed, but you could not sleep. It seemed as if God had come to wrestle
   with you and to reason with you about your past life, bringing up one
   thing after another in which you have sinned against Him. At all
   events, this is the way He deals with many--and if He deals thus with
   you, be thankful for it and yield yourself up to Him--do not struggle
   against Him!

   I am always glad when men cannot be happy in the world, for, as long as
   they can be, they will be. It is always a great mercy when they begin
   to be sick of the dainties of Egypt, for then we may lead them, by
   God's guidance, to seek after the milk and honey of the land of
   Canaan--but not till then. It is a great blessing when the Lord puts
   before you, personally, a true view of your own condition in His
   sight--and makes you look at it earnestly, concentrating your whole
   thought upon it--so that you cannot even begin to think about others
   because you are compelled to examine yourself, to see what your real
   condition is in relation to God!

   When the Lord thus comes to men and speaks personally with them, He
   makes them realize their lost condition. Do you not see that this is
   implied in the question, "Where are you?" Adam was lost--lost to God,
   lost to holiness, lost to happiness. God, Himself, says, "Where are
   you?"That was to let Adam know this, "I have lost you, Adam. At one
   time I could speak with you as with a friend, but I cannot do so any
   longer. You were once My obedient child, but you are not so now. I have
   lost you. Where are you?" May God the Holy Spirit convince every
   unconverted person here that he or she is lost--not only lost to
   themselves, to Heaven, to holiness and to happiness--but lost to God!
   It was God's lost ones of whom Christ so often spoke. He was, Himself,
   the Good Shepherd who called together His friends and neighbors, saying
   to them, "Rejoice with Me, for I have found My sheep which was lost."
   And He represents His Father saying of His son when He has come back to
   Him, "'This, My son was dead'--dead to Me--'and is alive again. He was
   lost'--lost to Me, 'and is found.'" The value of a soul to God and
   God's sense of loss in the case of each individual soul is something
   worth thinking over and worth calculating, if it can be calculated. God
   makes man realize that he is lost by His own moans and pleas, even as
   He said to Adam, "Where are you?"

   You will observe, too, that the Lord not only came to Adam and
   questioned him personally, but He also made Adam answer Him. And if the
   Lord has, in this way, laid hold of any of you, talking with you in the
   cool of the day and questioning you about your lost condition, He will
   make you confess your sin and bring you to acknowledge that it was
   really your own. He will not leave you as Adam wanted to be
   left--namely, laying the blame for the disobedience upon Eve. And He
   will not leave you as Eve tried to be left--namely, passing the blame
   on to the devil! Before the Lord has done with you, He will bring you
   to the point that you shall feel, confess and acknowledge that you are
   really guilty of your own sin and that you must be punished for it.
   When He brings you down to that point and you have nothing at all to
   say for yourself, then He will pardon you!

   I remember well when the Lord brought me to my knees in this way and
   emptied out all my self-righteousness and self-trust until I felt that
   the hottest place in Hell was my due desert--and that if He saved
   everybody else, but did not save me--yet He would still be just and
   righteous, for I had no right to be saved! Then, when I was obliged to
   feel that it

   must be all of Grace, or else there could be no salvation for me--then
   He spoke tenderly and kindly to me. But at first, there did not seem to
   be any tenderness or pity to my soul. There was the Lord coming to me,
   laying bare my sin, revealing to me my lost condition and making me
   shiver and tremble while I feared that the next thing He would say to
   me would be, "Depart from Me, accursed one, into everlasting fire in
   Hell!" Instead, He said to me in tones of wondrous love and
   graciousness, "I have put you among My children. 'I have loved you with
   an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you.'"
   Blessed be the name of the Lord, forever and ever, for such amazing
   treatment as this meted out to the guilty and the lost!

   IV. Now, fourthly, and very solemnly, I want to show you that THIS
   COMING OF THE LORD TO ADAM AND EVE IS ALSO PROPHETICAL OF THE WAY IN
   WHICH HE WILL COME AS A JUDGING SPIRIT TO THOSE

   WHO REJECT HIM AS AN AWAKENING SPIRIT.

   I have already reminded you unconverted ones that as surely as you
   live, you will have to come to close terms with God like the rest of
   us. Sooner or later you will have to know Him--and to know that He
   knows you. There will be no way of escaping from an interview which
   will be most serious and most terrible for you. It will happen "in the
   cool of the day." I do not know when that may be. On my way to this
   service I called to see a young lady to whom, "the cool of the day" has
   come at twenty-five, or thirty years of age. Consumption has made her
   life a comparatively short one, but, blessed be God, His Grace has made
   it a very happy one and she is not afraid, "in the cool of the day," to
   hear the voice of the Lord God calling her Home! It is well that she is
   not afraid, but you who have not believed in Jesus will have to hear
   that same Divine Voice in the cool of your life's day! You may be
   spared to grow old--the strength of youth and of manhood will have gone
   and you will begin to lean on your staff and to feel that you have not
   the vigor you used to have-- and that you cannot do such a hard day's
   work as you used to do and you must not attempt to run up the hills as
   you once did. That will be "the cool of the day" to you--and then the
   Lord God will come in to you and say, "Set your house in order, for you
   shall die, and not live."

   Sometimes that cool of the day comes to a man just when he would have
   liked it to be the heat of the day. He is making money and his children
   are multiplying around him, so he wants to stay in this world a little
   longer. But that cannot be--he must go up to his bed and he must lie
   there for so many days and nights--and then he must hear the voice of
   the Lord God as He begins to question him and say, "Where are you in
   relation to Me? Have you loved Me with all your heart, and mind, and
   soul, and strength? Have you served Me? Are you reconciled to Me
   through the death of My Son?" Such questions as these will come to us
   as surely as God made us! And we shall have to give an account of the
   deeds done in the body, whether they have been good or whether they
   have been evil. I pray you to think of these things and not to say,
   "Ah, that will not happen just yet." That is more than any of us can
   tell--and let me remind you that life is very short even at the
   longest. I am especially appealing to those who are of my own age. Do
   not you, dear Friends, find that when you are between 40 and 50 years
   of age the weeks seem to be much shorter than they used to be when you
   were young? I therefore gather that when our friends are 70 or 80 years
   of age--time must seem far shorter to them than it ever was before! I
   think that one reason why Jacob, when he was a 130 years old, said to
   Pharaoh, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life," was
   simply this--that he was really such an old man, though not as old as
   his ancestors, that time seemed even shorter to him than it did to
   younger men. If that was so, then I suppose that the longer a man
   lives, the shorter time would appear to be. But, short or long, your
   share of it will soon be over and you will be called upon to gather up
   your feet in bed and meet your fathers' God.

   When that solemn and decisive hour comes, your interview with God will
   have to be a personal one. Sponsors will be of no use to anyone upon a
   dying bed! It will be of no use, then, to call upon Christian friends
   to take a share of your burden. They will not be able to give you of
   their oil, for they have not enough Divine Grace for themselves and
   you. If you live and die without accepting the aid of the one Mediator
   between God and man, all these questions will have to be settled
   between your soul and God without anyone else coming between yourself
   and your Maker! And all this may happen at any moment. This personal
   talk between God and your soul at the end of your life may be ordained
   to take place this very night--and I am sent, as a forerunner, to give
   you this warning so that you may not meet your God altogether by
   surprise, but may, at any rate, be invited and exhorted to be prepared
   for that great interview!

   Whenever that interview takes place, God will deal with you in solemn
   earnestness--personally bringing home your sin to you. You will be
   unable to deny it, for there will be One present at that interview who
   has seen it all--and the en-

   quiries which He will make about the state of your soul will be very
   searching ones. He will not merely ask about one sin, but about allyour
   sins. He will not only ask about your public life, but also about your
   private life--nor yet merely enquire about your doings, but about your
   sayings, your willings and your thinking--and about your whole position
   in relation to Himself, even as He asked Adam, "Where are you?"

   In imagination--I pray that it may be only in imagination--I see some
   of you die unsaved. And I see you as you pass into the next world
   unpardoned and your soul realizes, for the first time, what was the
   experience of the rich man, of whom our Savior said, "In Hell he lifted
   up his eyes"--as though he had been asleep and had only just awakened
   to his true condition! "He lifted up his eyes" and gazed all around,
   but he could see nothing except that which caused him dismay and
   horror! There was no trace ofjoy or hope, no trace of ease or peace.
   Then, through the awful gloom, there came the sound of such questions
   as these, "Where are you, Sinner? You were in a House of Prayer a few
   weeks ago and the preacher urged you to seek the Lord, but you
   procrastinated! Where are you now? You said that there was no such
   place as Hell, but what do you say about it now? Where are you? You
   despised Heaven and refused Christ--where are you now?" What horror
   will seize the disembodied spirit as it reflects that it has brought
   itself into the condition of which it was warned--and from which it was
   invited to escape--but which it willfully chose for itself, thus
   committing eternal suicide! The Lord in mercy preserve all of you from
   doing that! But if you willdo it, then shall come forth from the lips
   of the justly offended God the irrevocable sentence, "Depart from Me,
   you cursed."

   One of the most dreadful things in connection with this meeting of God
   with Adam was that Adam had to answer the Lord's questions. The Lord
   said to Him, "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that
   you should not eat?" In our courts of law we do not require men to
   answer questions which would incriminate them, but God does. And at the
   Last Great Day the ungodly will be condemned on their own confession of
   guilt! While they are in this world they put on a bronze face and
   declare that they have done no wrong to anybody--not even to God. They
   say they pay their way and they are as good as their neighbors--better
   than the most of them! But all their brag and bravado will be gone at
   the Day of Judgment and they will either stand speechless before
   God--and by their speechlessness acknowledge their guiltiness in His
   sight--or if they do speak, their vain excuses and apologies will but
   convict them! They will, out of their own mouths, condemn themselves
   like that wicked and slothful servant who was cast into the outer
   darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth! God grant that
   we may never know, from sad personal experience, what that expression
   means!

   V. Now, lastly, this meeting of God with Adam should lead us who
   believe in Christ to EXPECT TO MEET HIM ON THE MOST LOVING TERMS, for
   if even when He came to question guilty Adam and to pass sentence upon
   him, He did it so gently and mingled with the thunder of His wrath the
   soft shower of His Grace when He gave the promise that "the Seed of the
   woman" should bruise the serpent's head, may we not expect Him to meet
   us, by-and-by, on the most loving terms if we are in that woman's Seed
   and have been saved by Jesus Christ, His Son?

   He will come in the evening, Brothers and Sisters, when the day's work
   is done, so do not fret about the burden and heat of the day. The
   longest and hottest day will come to an end--you will not live here
   forever. You will not always have to wear your fingers to the bone in
   trying to earn a scanty livelihood! You will not always have to look
   round upon your children and wonder where the bread will be found with
   which to feed them! No, the days on earth cannot last forever and, with
   many of you the sun has already climbed the hill and begun to go down
   the other side--"the cool of the day" will soon come! I can look upon a
   good many of you who have already reached that period. You have retired
   from active service, you have shaken off a good deal of business care
   and now you are waiting for your Master to come to you. Rest assured
   that He will not forget you, for He has promised to come to you. You
   will hear His voice before long, telling you that He is walking in the
   garden and coming to you. Good old Rowland Hill, when he found himself
   getting very feeble, said, "I hope they have not forgotten poor old
   Rowley up there." But he knew that he was not forgotten! Nor will you
   be, Beloved.

   You will hear your Lord's voice before long and the mercy is that you
   will know it when you do hear it! Have you not often heard it before
   now? Many a time, in this house, you have heard His voice and you have
   been glad. In the cool of many an evening you have sat still and
   communed with God. I like to see an old Christian woman with her big
   Bible open, sitting by the hour together and tracing with her finger
   the precious Words of the Lord--eating them, digesting them, living on
   them and finding them sweeter to her soul than honey or the droppings
   of the honeycomb to her taste!

   Well, then, as you have heard your Lord's voice and know its tones so
   well. As you have been so long accustomed to hear it, you will not be
   astonished when you hear it in those last moments of your life's day!
   You will not run to hide yourself as Adam and Eve did! You are covered
   with the robe of Christ's righteousness, so you have no nakedness to
   fear and you may respond, "Did You ask, my Lord, 'Where are you?' I
   answer, 'Here I am, for You did call me.' Did You ask where I am? I am
   hidden in Your Son! I am 'accepted in the Beloved.' Did You say, 'Where
   are you?' Here I stand, ready and waiting to be taken up by Him,
   according to His promise that where He is, there I shall be, also, that
   I may behold His Glory."

   Why, surely, Beloved, as this is the case, you may even long for the
   evening to come when you shall hear His voice and shall go up and away
   from this land of shadows and chilly nights, into that blest place
   where the Glory burns on forever and ever, the Lamb is the Light
   thereof and the days of your mourning shall be ended forever! God grant
   that you may all have a part and a lot in that Glory, for His dear
   Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS3.

   Verses 1-9. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
   which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yes, has God
   said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said
   unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
   but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
   has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you
   die. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die: for
   God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
   opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil And when the
   woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
   the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
   fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;
   and he did eat And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
   that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made
   themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in
   the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves
   from the Presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. And
   the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you? In
   tones of mingled pity and rebuke He asked, "Where are you?"

   10, 11. And he said, I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid
   because I was naked, and I hid myself. And He said. Note the calm
   majesty of every word. Here is no human passion, but Divine dignity.
   "And He said"--

   11, 12. Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of
   which I commanded you that you should not eat? And the man said, The
   woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did
   eat There is no sign of true confession here. Adam had been an unfallen
   creature a few hours before, but now he had broken the commandment of
   the Lord--and you can see how completely death was brought into his
   moral nature, for if it had not been so, he would have said "My God, I
   have sinned, can You and will You forgive me?" But instead of doing so,
   he laid the blame for his sin upon his wife which was an utterly evil
   action. "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the
   tree, and I did eat." He almost seemed to lay the blame upon God
   because He had given him the woman to be with him! He was guilty of
   unkindness to his wife and of blasphemy against his Maker in seeking to
   escape from confessing the sin which he had committed! It is an ill
   sign with men when they cannot be brought frankly to acknowledge their
   wrongdoing.

   13. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that you have
   done?Oh, that question! How far reaching it is! By her action and her
   husband's, the floodgates had been pulled up and the flood of sin had
   been let loose upon the world! They had struck a match and set the
   world on fire with sin! And everyone of our sins is essentially of the
   same nature and has in it, substantially, the same mischief. Oh, that
   at any time when we have sinned, God would ask each one of us the
   question, "What is it that you have done?"

   13. And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat Still,
   you see, there is no confession of guilt, but only the attempt to push
   the blame off upon somebody else. The Lord God did not ask the serpent
   anything, for He knew that he was a liar. But He at once pronounced
   sentence upon him--

   14, 15. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because you have done
   this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
   field. Upon your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat all the days
   of your life: and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
   between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you
   shall bruise His heel And now there is no creature so degraded as that
   once bright angel who is now the devil! He is always going about with
   serpentine wriggling, seeking to do more mischief. On his belly does he
   go and still is dust his food. That which is foul, material, carnal, he
   delights in. And his head is bruised, blessed be the name of the
   woman's promised Seed! The old serpent's head is bruised with a fatal
   bruising, while the wounded heel of our Savior is the joy and delight
   of our hearts!

   16, 17. Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and
   your conception; in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your
   desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you. And unto
   Adam He said, Because you have hearkened unto the voice of your wife,
   and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall
   not eat of it; cursed is the ground for your sake. In sorrow shall you
   eat of it all the days of your life. How obliquely fell the curse! Not,
   "Cursed are you," as the Lord said to the serpent, but, "Cursed is the
   ground for your sake."

   18-21. Thorns, also, and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you
   shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of your face shall you
   eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it were you
   taken: for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return. And Adam
   called his wife's name, Eve: because she was the mother of all living.
   Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins,
   and clothed them. Some creature had to die in order to provide them
   with garments and you know Who it is that died in order that we might
   be robed in His spotless righteousness. The Lamb of God has made for us
   a garment which covers our nakedness so that we are not afraid to stand
   even before the bar ofGod!

   22-24. And the LORD Godsaid, Behold the man is become as one ofUS, to
   knowgood and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also
   of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the LORD God
   sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from which
   he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the
   Garden of Eden, Cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way,
   to keep the way of the Tree of Life.
     __________________________________________________________________

Mourning at the Cross

   (No. 2901)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   23, 1876.

   "AndI will pour upon the house ofDavid, and upon the inhabitants of
   Jerusalem this Spirit of Grace and of supplications: and they shall
   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." Zechariah 12:10.

   NOTICE in this verse the very remarkable change of persons which you
   find in it, for you have, first, the first person, and then, the
   third--"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall
   mourn for Him.''" It is the same Person who speaks in each case and He
   is speaking concerning Himself in both instances, so it is very
   remarkable that He should first say, "Me," and then say, "Him." What is
   this but another illustration of the Unity of the Godhead and yet the
   Trinity of the adorable Persons in it? Notice that the One who, in this
   chapter, speaks of Himself as, "Me" and "Him," is none other than
   Jehovah who made the heavens and the earth. Read the first verse--"The
   burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, says the Lord, which
   stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth, and
   forms the spirit of man within him." The Creator of the heavens and the
   Creator of our spirit is the same Person who was pierced, and who says,
   "They shall look upon Me." Yet there is a distinction, for we next
   read, "They shall mourn for Hm" Jesus Christ is God and, therefore, so
   speaks of Himself. Yet He is also Man and, therefore, He is spoken of
   in the third person.

   There are other instances in which the Divine and Human in Christ Jesus
   are spoken of in a very remarkable manner. Turn, for instance, to the
   50th Chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah at the 3rd verse--"I clothe the
   heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering." No one
   but God could truly say that. Now turn to the 6th verse. I need not
   read the two intervening verses, but I will put the 3rd and the 6th
   together--"I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth
   their covering...I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them
   that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting."
   Can you realize the tremendous descent from the Godhead of Him who
   clothes the heavens with blackness and covers them with sackcloth, to
   the Manhood of Him who gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks to
   them that plucked off the hair? That is another illustration of the
   Truth of God which is so singularly implied in our text where we read
   that "Jehovah, which stretches forth the heavens, and lays the
   foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him," also
   says, "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced."

   The next point I want you to notice is the remarkable fact that Jesus
   Christ was crucified and pierced. Did it ever strike you as being very
   singular that He should have been pierced? When the Jews brought Jesus
   to Pilate, he said to them, "Take Him, and judge Him according to your
   law." Would you not have supposed that the Jews, on hearing that, would
   at once have seized the opportunity of putting Christ to death
   according to their law? They accused Jesus of blasphemy, saying, "We
   have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the
   Son of God." You know that the death ordained by the Law of Moses for a
   blasphemer was by stoning. And if I had not read any of the Old
   Testament prophecies, or the New Testament narrative, I would have felt
   morally certain that when Pilate said, "Take Him, and judge Him
   according to your law," they would have taken Him away and stoned Him
   to death! And I would have felt all the more certain that this would be
   the case because such was the animosity and hatred of the high priests
   against Him that I would have thought that each one of them would have
   wanted to cast the first stone at Him.

   But when He was sentenced to be crucified, the act of putting Him to
   death was left to the Roman soldiers! And it is, to me, very surprising
   that as the Jews had an opportunity of stoning Him, themselves, they
   did not avail themselves of it. Why was this? Why, because this ancient
   prophecy had said, "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced."
   And because another still more ancient prophecy had said, "They pierced
   My hands and My feet." Therefore Jesus Christ must die by
   crucifixion--not by stoning!

   There is another very notable thing in connection with this prophecy.
   The piercing of the hands and feet of Christ by the nails, might,
   perhaps, not seem sufficient to carry out the idea of the
   prophecy--"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced." So, when
   our Lord hung upon the Cross--when "He was dead already"--as the Roman
   soldiers said when they came around to break the legs of the criminals
   to put an end to their sufferings, one of the soldiers who had never
   read the Old Testament and knew nothing about what was written
   there--probably just to gratify his heart's cruel instinct--takes his
   spear and thrusts it into the heart of Christ! "And forthwith came
   there out blood and water." Now, if that had been done by someone who
   knew about the prophecy, it might have been said that there was some
   collusion to fulfill the prophetic Scriptures. But, as this Roman
   soldier was a barbarian who did not believe at all in the Jewish
   Scriptures, is it not a remarkable thing that this prophecy was
   fulfilled through his spear being thrust into the heart of Jesus Christ
   as He hung upon the Cross? So now, as you read these words, "They shall
   look upon Me whom they have pierced," adore the Infinite Wisdom of God
   who was able to fulfill the prophecy made hundreds of years before in
   the most singular and literal manner!

   Our text is a prophecy of the conversion of the Jews. They practically
   pierced the Savior when they clamored for His Crucifixion although
   Pilate tried to make a way for His escape--and the whole Jewish race
   has continued to endorse their dreadful deed. Most of the Jews who are
   now living still reject Christ with the utmost scorn and contempt. The
   very mention of His name often produces a manifestation of the greatest
   fury. They call Him, "the Nazarene." I would not like to mention the
   various opprobrious epithets by which our Lord is called by the Jews. I
   marvel not that they speak of Him as they do, for, as they reckon Him
   to be an impostor, it is but natural that they should heap scorn upon
   Him. But in doing so they show that they accept the act and deed of
   their forefathers--and so His blood is upon them and upon their
   children according to the terrible imprecation uttered to Pilate. But
   the day is coming when all this will be changed. Israel, still beloved
   of the Lord, the first-born of all the nations, shall yet recognize
   Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, as being the true Messiah--and
   then there will come over Israel such a sorrow for having rejected the
   Messiah as no nation ever knew before! They will look back on all the
   hundreds or thousands of years during which they have been a people
   scattered and exiled from their own land which was the glory of all
   lands--and they will then realize that what Isaiah and the other
   Prophets wrote was plain and clear and that they ought to have seen it
   before.

   Judicial blindness has happened unto them even until the present day
   but they will then see and there will never be any other Christians in
   the world such as they will make, so devout and earnest and so anxious
   to do the will of God in all things. Then will the Gentiles also be
   gathered in when Israel shall at last receive her king. The first
   Christian missionaries were of the seed of Abraham and so shall the
   last and most successful ones be! God will graft in again the natural
   branches of the good olive tree together with us who were, by nature,
   only wild olive trees, but who have, by Grace, been grafted into the
   good olive tree! O glorious day when that comes to pass! May God send
   it soon and may some of us, if not all, live to see it! Yet remember
   that though it will be a day of great joy to the repentant Jews, it
   will also be to them a day of deep sorrow as they recall their long
   rejection of their dear Lord and Savior.

   I want to remind you that the way in which the Jews will come to Christ
   is just the way in which you and I also must come to Him if we ever
   come to Him at all. They are to come mourning for Him and sorrowing
   especially because they crucified Him. But you and I also crucified Him
   as much as the Jews did--at least in a certain sense of which I am
   going to speak to you and, consequently, when we come to Christ, we
   must come in just the same way that the Jews are to come to Him. In
   fact, there is no difference in this matter between the Jews and the
   Gentiles. There is similar sin in each case and the same Savior--and
   when we come to Christ, it must be with the same kind of mourning and
   the same kind of faith with which Israel shall come in the days when
   God, in His mercy, shall gather her to Himself.

   I. My subject is to be Evangelical sorrow--godly sorrow for sin--and my
   first remark concerning it is that WHEREVER IT EXISTS, IT IS ALWAYS A
   CREATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. "I will pour upon the house of David, and
   upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of Grace and of
   supplications:..and they shall mourn." There was never any

   real godly sorrow which worked repentance acceptable to God except that
   which was the result of the Holy Spirit's own work within the soul.

   True evangelical repentance is not produced by mere conscience. However
   much the conscience may be awakened and instructed, the Spirit of God
   must operate upon the heart--otherwise the natural conscience cannot
   rise to the heights of true repentance.

   It is not the product of mere terror I believe that men can be driven
   into a sort of repentance by preaching to them the wrath of God, or by
   a sense of that wrath overtaking them in times of sickness or of the
   approach of death. But terror alone is hardening, rather than softening
   in its influence! It produces a repentance that needs to be repented
   of--it cannot produce evangelical sorrow for sin.

   And, certainly, true repentance can never be produced in the soul by
   any outward machinery. Attempts have been made to produce it by
   covering the so-called "altar" with drapery of a certain color--violet,
   is, I think, the proper color to represent repentance--and by darkening
   the "church," as it is called--by tolling a bell at a certain time
   during the service, by a sort of spiritual charade, acting the tragedy
   of the Cross with mimic blasphemy, or, rather, with real blasphemy and
   a shameful mimicry of the Crucifixion of our Lord. Surely, no true
   repentance will ever be worked in that way! People may be made to weep
   and to feel by such travesties, but no spiritual result comes of it any
   more than of the weeping which may be produced at the theater by some
   pathetic scene that is acted there. No, no--the preaching of the Gospel
   is the ordained means of getting at men's hearts--and only the Holy
   Spirit's power can lead men to repent of their sins and trust in the
   Lord Jesus Christ for salvation!

   Therefore it follows that genuine mourning for sin comes as a gift of
   Divine Grace: "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the
   inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of Grace." Grace comes into the
   heart and enlightens the understanding so that a man understands what
   his criminality is in the sight of God. Then the Grace of God operates
   upon the conscience so that the man sees the evil and the bitterness of
   the sin which he has committed against the thrice-holy Jehovah. Then
   the same Grace affects the heart so that the man beholds the Infinite
   graciousness and eternal love of Christ and then begins to loathe
   himself to think that he should ever have treated Christ so ill. So, by
   a work of Grace upon the soul--and not by any other process--does the
   Spirit of God make men weep for sin so that they hate it and turn away
   from it.

   This work of Grace is always attended by prayer. Notice the promise in
   the text--"I will pour...the Spirit of Grace and ofsupplications."
   Despairing repentance dares not pray, so that is not the kind of
   repentance that God accepts. Remorse for sin has often been worked in
   men's minds and it has driven them to despair--and that despair has
   prevented them from praying. But the godly repentance which the Holy
   Spirit gives always sets the sinner praying. Judas Iscariot repented,
   after a fashion, but he could not pray, so he went out and hanged
   himself. God save all of you from a prayer-less, tearless repentance!
   But if you repent of sin and at the same time really pray, then I
   believe we have the right to say that God has poured upon you the
   Spirit of Grace and of supplications--and that your mourning for sin
   will prove to be a godly sorrow that will work in you every blessed
   thing. God grant to you more and more of this Grace as long as you
   live!

   This leads me to make a further remark which is that true repentance is
   continuous in a Christian. When a man mourns for sin as he ought to do,
   he does not leave off mourning as long as he is in this world. I am
   sure of this because we are told that it is "the spirit of Grace and of
   supplications" that God pours upon His people. Now, Grace lives in the
   Christian all his life and supplication also abides in the Christian
   all his life--so that we may infer that the third gift of the Spirit,
   namely, mourning for sin, will also abide in the Christian as long as
   he lives. I have frequently quoted to you the saying of good old
   Rowland Hill, that the only thing he regretted about going to Heaven
   was that he supposed he should have to say, "Goodbye," to repentance
   when he entered the pearly gates. "But," he said, "she has been my
   sweet companion, together with faith, all my pilgrim journey and I
   expect to have these two Graces with me as long as I am in this world."
   Oh, yes, Beloved, we are not finished with repenting and we never shall
   be as long as we are here! The more we rejoice in God, the more we
   repent to think that we should ever have sinned and that we still sin
   against Him. The more we see of the loveliness of Christ, the more we
   repent that we ever were once blind to it! The more we taste of His
   amazing love, the more we smite upon our breasts and grieve to think
   that we should ever have refused Him and should

   have felt no love in our hearts in return for His great love to us. If
   you are through repenting, Brothers and Sisters, the Holy Spirit has
   finished working in you, for as long as He works, Grace, supplications
   and repenting all go together!

   II. Now, having shown you that wherever there is true evangelical
   mourning for sin, it is the work of the Spirit of God, I pass on to
   remark, in the second place, that wherever there is this acceptable
   mourning for sin, IT IS CAUSED BY LOOKING TO CHRIST.

   "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced." What is the inference
   from that fact? Why, that repentance is not a preparation for looking
   to Christ! Do you not see that? The looking is put first and the
   mourning afterwards. Yet I know what many of you have thought. You have
   said to yourselves, "We must mourn for sin and then look to Christ to
   pardon it." That is not God's order and we must always be careful to
   keep all the Truths of God in the order in which He has put them.
   Remember, Sinner, that there will never be a tear of acceptable
   repentance in your eyes till you have first looked to Jesus Christ!
   "Oh, but," someone says, "I have had many terrors and horrors
   concerning sin, yet I have never looked to Christ." Then, all those
   terrors and horrors are unacceptable! They may be the work of
   conscience, or, perhaps, partly even the work of the devil,
   himself--but evangelical repentance begins with a believing look at
   Christ! You must first fix your eyes upon Christ before you can truly
   repent! And I tell you that all your repenting apart from believing in
   Jesus are of no value, of no use--therefore, away with them! If you
   weep for sin without fixing your gaze upon Christ, you will have to
   weep again over your repentance, for it is, itself, another sin! Look
   away from everything else to Jesus, for He can melt that hard heart of
   yours and enable you to repent. Do not, as our proverbs say, put the
   cart before the horse, or put the fruit into the ground instead of the
   root--but begin with looking unto Jesus and then true repentance will
   surely follow!

   But what is there in looking to Christ to make a man hate sin and
   repent of it? I answer--Looking to Him we see how sin hates purity.
   There was an eloquent, flowery preacher who, as he delivered his
   discourse one Sunday morning, exclaimed, "O Virtue, fair and beauteous
   maid, if you should once descend from Heaven to earth, and stand among
   the sons of men, they would be all charmed by your beauties and would
   fall down and worship you!" It so happened that there was a certain
   plain, blunt preacher who was not at all an eloquent orator who had to
   preach in the afternoon in the same building. And having heard the
   morning discourse, he ventured to repeat the apostrophe to Virtue which
   I quoted just now and when he had finished the quotation, he said,
   "But, O Virtue, you did descend from Heaven to earth in the form of
   Jesus Christ, the Son of God--and did all men worship You? No, they
   vilified You, they abhorred You, they said, 'let Him be crucified,' and
   they took You and nailed You to the accursed tree and put You to a
   shameful death!" The death of Jesus Christ upon the Cross was an
   impeachment of the whole world! It showed how bitterly fallen man hates
   perfection--and if Christ were to come again to the earth as He came
   before, men would again crucify Him! And if Christ's disciples were
   more like their Lord, I doubt not that they would be far more
   persecuted than they now are--even as they were in the ages that are
   past!

   Further, when we look on Jesus Christ upon the Cross, we see sin's
   ingratitude to love. Christ was not merely pure and perfect, but He
   came to earth upon no errand but that of love and mercy. There were no
   thunderbolts in His hands with which to smite the guilty, but even His
   enemies said, "This Man receives sinners, and eats with them." He
   Himself said, "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the
   world, but that the world through Him might be saved." Love and pity to
   men were in His bosom, yet see how the world treated Him! It would not
   have pure Benevolence in its midst! He was the Friend of men, the
   greatest philanthropist who ever lived, loving the most degraded and
   seeking to lift them up--yet they took Him and nailed Him to the Cross
   of wood. O Sin, what an accursed thing you are, that you did not only
   hate Purity, itself, but also perfect Purity combined with Infinite
   Love and that you did shoot your sharpest arrows into the heart of the
   best Friend that man has ever had!

   Yet even that is not all that a sight of Christ upon the Cross shows to
   us, for it also shows us man's abhorrence of God, for, after all, that
   which excited the bitterest enmity of the world was the Godhead of
   Christ--His Divine attributes! Jesus Christ was God and He came to this
   earth--and wicked men, though they could not kill God, went as near to
   it as they could by killing Christ who was God as well as Man! We use
   the word, "regicide," when we speak of a man who kills a king and we
   rightly use the word, "Decide," in speaking of the crime of which the
   world made itself guilty when it put Christ to death! It was the
   ever-blessed Son of God whom wicked men nailed to the tree. And the
   wicked world would commit the same crime again if it could! If all men
   were gathered together, taking the human race as

   it now is, and it were put to the vote, "Shall there be any God?" every
   fool would hold up his hand for, "No God." "The fool has said in his
   heart, "No God." And as the mass of mankind belong to that category in
   spiritual'things, they say,

   "No God!"

   It is quite possible that I am addressing some people who would be
   delighted if it could be said to them, "Now, if you hold up your hand,
   there will be no more religion to bother you, no Judgment Day for you
   to dread, no Resurrection, no Hell, no Heaven--in fact, God Himself
   will be put away--as far as you are concerned there will be no God."
   What good news it would be to you if it were really so, for the thing
   which troubles you now is that there is a God. Well, that only shows
   that you, also, are among those who are guilty of the death of Christ,
   for, if you could do it, you would extinguish God Himself! And this is
   what they did, as far as they could, when they nailed the Son of God to
   the Cross of Calvary.

   But, dear Friends, when we rightly look to Christ, we see that our
   guilt was so great that only an Infinite Sacrifice could atone for it
   Our sin comes home to us. At least mine comes home to me. I look upon
   the Cross and my self-righteousness says, "I did not crucify Him." But
   my conscience replies, "No, but you heard, for many years, about Christ
   being put to death without being at all affected by that fact. And,
   therefore, you virtually sanctioned the dreadful death by not
   condemning it! And you were not moved to any feeling of shame even
   though Jesus died in your place." That is all true, my Lord. For many a
   day I thought nothing of You. Then my conscience added, "You know that
   when Christ came to you, in the preaching of the Gospel, for a long
   while you refused Him. Many a time your conscience was awakened and you
   were urged to accept Christ as your Savior! But you said, 'I will not
   have this Man to reign over me.'" Yes, Lord, that also is true. I, who
   now love You with all my heart, once refused You--no, not merely once,
   but a thousand times I refused You and so I did what the Jews of old
   did--rejected You! Ah, Beloved, we chose the pleasures of the world
   instead of the love of Christ so that we were as bad as they were who
   said, "Not this Man, but Barabbas!" We chose the poor, paltry, trivial
   joys of time and sense--and let the Savior go! Must not all of you
   confess that you were guilty in this respect?

   Possibly I am addressing some who in the days of their ignorance even
   cursed the name of Jesus and persecuted or ridiculed His people. You
   have a loving sister of whom you used to make what you called, "rare
   fun," because of her love to Christ--and you knew that you were
   wounding Christ, Himself, through one of His followers. Perhaps there
   was someone whom you used to persecute very violently for being a lover
   of the Lord. If you did, you were persecuting Jesus, even as Saul of
   Tarsus did. Do not say that you never spit in His dear face! Do not say
   that you never scourged His blessed shoulders! You have done so as far
   as you could do it--in spirit you have done it, though not in very
   deed. Look to Him now! Look to Him now and, as you see Him on the Cross
   and see what wicked men did to Him there, say, "They were only doing it
   in my place--doing what I would have done if I had been there--doing
   what I have, in effect, done for a great part of my life."

   Even we who have believed in Jesus must accuse ourselves of guilt
   concerning our treatment of our dear Lord as we look into His face. He
   has forgiven us, blessed be His dear name! He has not a word to say
   against us. There is nothing but love in His heart toward us, but we
   cannot forgive ourselves for all the wrong we have done to Him.
   Oftentimes we have plaited a crown of thorns and put it on His head as
   the soldiers did. That silly talk when we ought to have been
   proclaiming His Gospel--those doubts and fears, that wicked unbelief
   when we ought to have been fully trusting Him-- that love of the world,
   that greed of gain when we ought to have been honoring Him with our
   substance--all this was the plaiting of thorny crowns to put upon His
   blessed brow! Ah, yes, we may well look at Him and mourn! Who among us
   can look at Him and notmourn? God forgive us if we can!

   III. My time is almost spent, but I was going to show you, in the third
   place, that EVANGELICAL SORROW FOR SIN IS THE CHIEF OF SORROWS.
   Whenever it comes into the heart, it is not a sham sorrow, but a very
   real one. Our text says, "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."

   The grief of one who has lost his only child is very acute. There is
   hardly a more painful errand on which a minister of the Gospel, or any
   other Christian has to go, than to visit a family in which the only
   child lies dead. There is real sorrow there for they are thinking that
   their name will not be continued and their dear child was one in whom
   they took great delight. An only child is usually very much loved, so,
   for that child to die causes special sorrow. And it is a great grief
   for a man to lose his first-born--the beginning of his strength in whom
   he had taken such pride. Well now, such is

   the kind of grief that a true Christian feels concerning his sin. May
   we have it more and more, O Lord! It were better that I lost every
   child--better that I lost life, itself--than that I should sin against
   You! That is a cruel crime which may well make me mourn.

   The Prophet then goes on to compare the mourning for sin to the
   mourning of the whole nation when Josiah died and the land rang with
   bitter lamentations for the loved monarch who had been slain in battle.
   The weeping men and wailing women went through every street and
   Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet, was the chief mourner among them all.
   Now, such is the sorrow of a soul when it realizes that it crucified
   Christ. It is a sweet and blessed sorrow, but still, it is a very deep
   and real one. I ask that I may be made to feel more and more of it--

   "Lord, let me weep for nothing but sin,

   And after none but Thee!

   And then I would--oh, that I might!--

   A constant weeper be."

   IV. I must not dwell upon this sacred topic, but close with what would
   have been my fourth division if there had been time for it. That is
   that EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE DOES NOT ITSELF CLEANSE US FROM SIN.

   Are you startled by that statement? Then, read the 1st verse of the
   13th Chapter--"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." Now, dear Friends, if mourning for sin took the sin away,
   there would not be any need of the cleansing fountain! But, although
   the mourning was so real and so bitter, it did not take away the
   mourner's sin. Toplady was right when he sang--

   "Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow, All for
   sin could not atone-- You must save, and You alone."

   But while evangelical repentance does not take away sin, wherever it is
   present it is a proof that sin istaken away. If you have repented of
   your sin and have believed in Jesus, then you have been cleansed in the
   open fountain--and that same blood which has cleansed you from guilt
   will yet prove that it can also cleanse you from the power of sin. Am I
   addressing any who are now mourning on account of sin? "Blessed are
   they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." That blessedness awaits
   you, for, "blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered." Go and confess your transgression unto the Lord--say to Him
   with David, "Against You, You only, have I sinned." Go and stand at the
   foot of the Cross and view the flowing of your Savior's precious
   blood--and while you stand there and mourn for Him, the Holy Spirit
   will be pleased to bear witness with your spirit and you shall have the
   blessed assurance which will enable you to know that the blood of Jesus
   has washed all your sin away--and you shall go on your way
   rejoicing--hating the sin that made Him suffer and praising the Grace
   that has forgiven it!

   Before I close I would that some poor sinner, instead of trying to
   mourn for sin, would first look to Jesus Christ upon the Cross, for
   that is the way to be made to mourn for sin! Instead of thinking that
   repentance can cleanse you, look to the finished work of Jesus and
   believe in Him, for that is the only way by which pardon can come to
   you. May God bless us all and keep us always repenting and always
   believing, and He shall have the praise and the glory forever and ever!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ZECHARIAH12; 13:1.

   Zechariah 12:1. The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel Thus says
   the LORD, which stretches forth the Heavens and lays the foundation of
   the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him. Note how this
   chapter begins-- "The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel"--not
   againstIsrael. The Gospel is always, to the true preacher of it, the
   burden of the Lord, but, to those who receive it, it is a burden of
   blessing, a load of mercy. To those who reject it, it will become a
   burdensome stone, crushing them to their eternal ruin. God grant, in
   His Infinite Mercy, that none of us may belong to the last class!

   2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people
   round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and
   against Jerusalem. This is a promise of God's abounding mercy to His
   chosen people Israel. When

   He comes to their aid, they shall be a cup of trembling to their
   enemies. Those enemies will try to swallow them, but they will find
   that they are drinking a cup of poison which will cause their own
   death. Oh that the day might soon come when God would remember His
   ancient people, the Jews, and bring them back to their own land as He
   certainly will do in the fullness of time! And when He has done it,
   then it shall come to pass that all who fight against them shall find
   His people to be as a cup of trembling to them. This promise which is
   to be literally fulfilled to God's chosen people, the seed of Abraham,
   is also spiritually true to all Believers. Christian, your enemies
   cannot really hurt you! If they could drink you up as men drink a cup
   of wine, you would be a cup of trembling to them--they would find that
   they had taken in more than they wanted! All the persecutors of the
   Church of God, in smiting this Stone, have themselves been broken on
   it. They have found that they have undertaken a task which has ended in
   their own destruction. Woe unto the man who fights against the Church
   of the living God! Victory must always come to the Lord's people, for
   greater is He who is with them than all that can be against them!

   3. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all
   people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces,
   though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it This
   is literally true, but it is also spiritually true. As the Church of
   God is to be a cup of trembling to its enemies, so is it also to be a
   burdensome stone. They do not like it, they cannot bear it. They would,
   if they could, get rid of the spiritual Church of God, but they cannot
   get rid of it. There it is--a Stone cut out of the mountain, without
   hands, which will grow until it fills the whole earth and breaks in
   pieces everything that opposes it! Those who set themselves against God
   and against His Christ, shall find themselves crushed to atoms by this
   mighty Stone.

   4. In that day, says the LORD, I willsmite every horse with confusion
   andhis rider with madness. The chief strength of Jerusalem's enemies
   lay in horses and chariots, but God bids His people not to fear them,
   for He knows how to overcome all power, whether it is the power of
   cavalry or the power of infantry. He knows how to smite every horse
   with confusion and every rider with madness, for, "as the mountains are
   round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people, from
   henceforth even forever." And He can protect them against the most
   powerful foes that may assail them.

   4. And I will open My eyes upon the house of Judah. It looked as if the
   Lord had been asleep, but now He says, "'I will open My eyes upon the
   house of Judah'--I will look at them and note their sufferings, pity
   their griefs, plan for their good and come forth for their defense."

   4. And will smite every horse of the people with blindness. Their
   enemies shall not be able to see them, but God will see them and He
   will deliver His people and overthrow all their adversaries.

   5, 6. And the governors of Judah shall say in their hearts, The
   inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD ofHosts their
   God. In that day will Imake the governors of Judah like an hearth of
   fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf and they shall
   devour all the people round about on the right hand and on the left:
   and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in
   Jerusalem. The literal prophecy is that the seed of Israel shall go
   back to their own land and shall prevail over their adversaries--but
   the spiritual meaning is that the Church of God shall have great power
   among the people of the earth. They shall have fire put into them--the
   fire of the Holy Spirit-- and they shall be like a lighted firebrand
   among the wood, or as a flaming torch in a sheaf of corn--and you know
   how soon the sheaf would be burnt up. If God has put within you fire
   from Heaven, you will be sure to burn and those with whom you live will
   soon feel the flame. Place one really gracious man in any district and
   if he is thoroughly on fire with the Holy Spirit, it will be like
   throwing a blazing firebrand into a field of dry corn! What a
   conflagration will there be! The Lord send us many such blessed
   burnings!

   7. The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of
   the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not
   magnify themselves against Judah. God will begin by saving the most
   defenseless. The tents of the people were easily swept away by their
   powerful foes. "Therefore," says the Prophet, "the Lord shall save the
   tents of Judah first." As for the people in the strongly defended city
   of Jerusalem, He would protect them, but He would do it in such a way
   that they would not take the glory to themselves. God is always very
   jealous of His own honor. He will save us, but it will be in a way that
   shall prevent our pride from glorying in it. He will never allow one
   saved soul to be able to say, "I saved myself," or, "I contributed to
   the merit which has brought me to Heaven." No--God must have all the
   glory--every jot and tittle of it! And all His people are glad that He
   should have it.

   8. In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
   andhe that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the
   house of David shall be as God, as the Angel of the LORD before them.
   What a blessed thing it is when the Lord strengthens all His people so
   that the weakest among them are as strong as that ruddy-faced youth who
   smote Goliath--and the strongest of them are like the swift-winged
   angels of God, ready to do His bidding! Oh, that this Church might be
   in that blessed state! You remember how it is written that when Israel
   came up out of Egypt, "there was not one feeble person among their
   tribes." When will the whole Church of Christ get to be in that
   condition? O you feeble ones, lay hold upon the promise now before us
   and do not rest till it is fulfilled in you! "He that is feeble among
   them at that day shall be as David, and the house of David shall be as
   God, as the Angel of the Lord before them."

   9-11. And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy
   all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the
   house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of
   Grace and of supplications: and they shall 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 Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. No
   doubt these verses refer, primarily, to the great mourning when King
   Josiah fell in battle when all the people wept and mourned for many
   days because their king had been slain by the archers' arrows. But this
   is also typical of the lamentation of a heart when it is broken on
   account of the death of Christ. Sorrow for sin is to be after the
   fashion of that great national mourning of which Jeremiah sang so
   plaintively in the Book of Lamentations.

   12. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the
   house of David apart, and their wives apart. For this was to be a
   personal sorrow in which both husbands and wives must weep on their own
   account.

   12. The family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart.
   Perhaps these names are mentioned to indicate different classes and
   orders of persons--the family of the house of David the king shall
   mourn and the family of the house of Nathan the Prophet shall mourn.
   Both David and Nathan had long since gone, but their descendants were
   still called by their names.

   13. The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart. The
   priests, as well as the kings and the Prophets, were to be represented
   in this universal mourning.

   13. The family of Shimeiapart, and their wives apart. Shimei, or
   Simeon, as the Septuagint gives it--which may either represent the
   scribes, or else may refer to the people in general. These shall all
   mourn, personally and separately, for Him whom they have pierced.

   14. All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives
   apart. Why these chapters were divided here, I cannot imagine, for it
   is clear that the passage should run right on.

   Zechariah 13:1. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the
   house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for
   uncleanliness.
     __________________________________________________________________

Holiness Demanded

   (No. 2902)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN
   1862.

   "Holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord." Hebrews 12:14.

   ONE feels most happy when blowing the trumpet of jubilee, proclaiming
   peace to broken hearts, freedom to the captives and the opening of the
   prison to them that are bound. But God's watchman has another trumpet
   which he must sometimes blow, for thus says the Lord to him, "Blow the
   trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in My holy mountain." There are
   times when we must sound the alarm--men must be startled from their
   sleep, they must be awakened to enquire, "What are we? Where are we?
   Where are we going?" Nor is it altogether amiss for the wisest virgins
   to look to the oil in their vessels and for the most sound Christians
   to sometimes be constrained to examine the foundations of their hope,
   to trace back their evidences to the beginning and make an impartial
   survey of their state before God. Partly for this reason, but with a
   further view to the awakening and stirring up of those who are
   destitute of all holiness, I have selected for our topic, "Holiness,
   without which no one shall see the Lord."

   There has been a desperate attempt made by certain Antinomians to get
   rid of the injunction which the Holy Spirit here means to enforce. They
   have said that this is the imputed holiness of Christ. Do they not know
   when they so speak, that by an open perversion they utter that which is
   false? I do not suppose that any man in his senses can apply that
   interpretation to the context--"Follow peace with all people, and
   holiness." Now the holiness meant is evidently one that can be followed
   like peace-- and it must be transparent to any ingenuous man that it is
   something which is the act and duty of the person who follows it. We
   are to follow peace! That is practical peace, not the peace made for
   us, but "the fruit of righteousness which is sown in peace of them that
   make peace." We are to follow holiness--that must be practical
   holiness, the opposite of impurity, as it is written, "God has not
   called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." The holiness of Christ
   is not a thing to follow. I mean if we look at it imputatively--that we
   have at once--it is given to us the moment we believe. The
   righteousness of Christ is not to be followed--it is bestowed upon the
   soul in the instant when it lays hold of Christ Jesus!

   Our text speaks of another kind of holiness. It is, in fact, as
   everyone can see who chooses to read the connection, practical, vital
   holiness which is the purport of this admonition. It is conformity to
   the will of God and obedience to the Lord's command. It is, in fine,
   the Spirit's work in the soul by which a man is made like God and
   becomes a partaker of the Divine Nature, being delivered from the
   corruption which is in the world through lust. No straining, no hacking
   at the text can alter it! There it stands, whether men like it or not!
   There are some who for special reasons best known to themselves, do not
   like it, just as no thieves ever like policemen or jails--yet there it
   stands and it means no other than what it says! "Without
   holiness"--practical, personal, active, vital holiness--"no one shall
   see the Lord." Dealing with this solemn assertion, fearfully exclusive
   as it is, shutting out as it does so many professors from all communion
   with God on earth and all enjoyment of Christ in Heaven, I shall
   endeavor, first, to give some marks and signs whereby a man may know
   whether he has this holiness or not Secondly, to give sundry reasons by
   way of improvement of the solemn fact, "Without holiness, no one shall
   see the Lord." And then, thirdly, to plead hard, in Christ's place,
   with those who are lovers of gain that they may consider this before
   time is over and opportunity past.

   I. First, then, Brothers and Sisters, you are anxious to know whether
   you have holiness or not. Now, if our text said that without perfection
   of holiness, no one could have any communion with Christ, it would shut
   every one of us out, for no one who knows his own heart ever pretends
   to be perfectly conformed to God's will! It does not say, "Perfection
   of holiness," but, "holiness." This holiness is a thing ofgrowth. It
   may be in the soul as small as a grain of mustard seed and yet not
   developed. It may be in the heart as a wish and a desire, rather than
   anything that has been fully realized--a groan, a pant, a longing, a
   striving. As the Spirit of God waters it, it will grow till the mustard
   seed shall become a tree. Holiness in a regenerate heart, is but an
   infant. It is not matured--it is perfect in all its parts, but not
   perfect in its development. Hence when we find many imperfections and
   many failings in ourselves, we are not to conclude that, therefore, we
   have no interest in the Grace of God. This would be altogether contrary
   to the meaning of the text. As it is not so much my present purpose to
   show what this holiness is as, what it is not, I think while I am
   endeavoring to undeceive those who have not this holiness, those who
   are not condemned may reasonably draw some comfortable inferences as to
   their own pursuit of this inestimable Grace.

   Well, now, let us note four sorts of people who try to get on without
   holiness. First, there is the Pharisee. The Pharisee goes to work with
   outward ceremonies. He pays tithes of all that he possesses--his anise,
   his mint, his cummin-- everything, even to the tithe of his
   parsley-bed! He gives alms to the poor, he wears his phylacteries and
   makes broad the borders of his garment--in fact, anything and
   everything that is commanded ceremonially, he most punctiliously
   attends to! But all the while he is devouring widows' houses, he is
   living in the practice of secret sin and he thinks that by ceremonies
   he shall be able to propitiate God and be accepted. Sinner, pharisaic
   Sinner, hear the death-knell of your hopes tolled out by this verse!
   "Without holiness"--and that is a thing you know nothing of--"no man
   shall see the Lord." Your ceremonies are vain and frivolous! Even if
   God ordained them, seeing you put your trust in them, they shall
   utterly deceive and fail you, for they do not constitute even a partof
   holiness. You cannot see God till your heart is changed, till your
   nature is renewed, till your actions, in the tenor of them, shall
   become such as God would have them to be. Mere ceremonialists think
   they can get on without holiness. Fell delusion! Do I speak to any
   Ritualist who finds himself awkwardly situated here? Do I speak to any
   Romanist who has entered into a place where not the works of the Law,
   but the righteousness of Christ is preached? Let me remind you again,
   very solemnly, my Hearer, that those fine hopes of yours built upon the
   maneuvers of the priests and upon your own performances shall utterly
   fail you in that day when most you shall need them! Your soul shall
   then stand in shivering nakedness when you most need to be well
   equipped before the eyes of God. These men know not true holiness!

   Then there is the moralist. He has never done anything wrong in his
   life. He is not very observant of ceremonies, it is true--perhaps he
   even despises them--he treats his neighbor with integrity, he believes
   that as far as he knows, if his ledger is examined, it bears no
   evidence of a single dishonest deed. As touching the Law of God, he is
   blameless! No one ever doubted the purity of his manner--from his youth
   up his carriage has been amiable, his temperament what everyone could
   desire and the whole tenor of his life is such that we may hold him up
   as an example of moral propriety! Ah, but this is not holiness before
   God! Holiness excludes immorality, but morality does not amount to
   holiness, for morality may be but the cleaning of the outside of the
   cup and the platter, while the heart may be full of wickedness.
   Holiness deals with the thoughts and intents, the purposes, the aims,
   the objectives, the motives of men. Morality does but skim the surface,
   holiness goes into the very caverns of the great deep--holiness
   requires that the heart shall be set on God and that it shall beat with
   love to Him. The moral man may be complete in his morality without
   that.

   I think I might draw such a parallel as this. Morality is a sweet, fair
   corpse--well washed, robed and even embalmed with spices--but holiness
   is the living man, as fair and as lovely as the other, but having life!
   Morality lies there, of the earth, earthy, soon to be food for
   corruption and worms--holiness waits and pants with heavenly
   aspirations, prepared to mount and dwell in immortality beyond the
   stars! These two are of opposite natures--the one belongs to this
   world, the other belongs to that world beyond the skies. It is not said
   in Heaven, "Moral, moral, moral are You, O God!" But, "Holy, holy, holy
   are You, O Lord!" You note the difference between the two words at
   once. The one, icy cold. The other, oh, how animated! Such is mere
   morality and such is holiness! Moralist--I know I speak to many
   such--remember that your best morality will not save you! You must have
   more than this, for without holiness--and that not of yourself, it must
   be given you of the Spirit of God--without holiness, no one shall see
   the Lord.

   Another individual who thinks to get on without holiness and who does
   win a fair reputation in certain circles is the experimentalist. You
   must be aware that there are some professed followers of Christ whose
   whole religious life is inward. To tell you the truth, there is no life
   at all, but their own profession is that it is all inward. I have had
   the misery to be acquainted with one or two such. They are voluble
   talkers, discoursing with much satisfaction of themselves, but bitter
   critics of all who differ from them in the slightest degree. Having an
   ordained standard as to the proper length to which Christian experience
   should go, they cut off everybody's head who is taller than they are
   and stretching every man out by the neck who happens to be a little too
   short! I have known some of these persons. If a minister should say
   "duty" in the sermon, they would look as if they would never hear him
   again. He must be a dead legalist--a "letter man," I think they call
   him. Or, if they are exhorted to holiness, why, they tell you they are
   perfect in Christ Jesus and therefore there is no reason why they
   should have any thought of perfection in the work of the Spirit within.
   Groaning, grunting, quarrelling, denouncing--not following peace with
   all people, but stirring up strife against all--this is the practice of
   their religion! This is the summit to which they climb and from which
   they look down with undisguised contempt upon all those worms beneath
   who are starving to serve God and to do good in their day and
   generation.

   Now I pray you to remember that against such men as these there are
   many passages of Scripture most distinctly leveled. I think this is one
   among many others. Sirs, you may say what you will about what you dream
   you have felt. You may write what you please about what you fancy you
   have experienced. But if your own outward life is unjust, unholy,
   ungenerous and unloving, you shall find no credit among us as to your
   being in Christ! "Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord." The
   moment you know a man who is drunk on a Saturday night and then enjoys
   So-and-So's preaching on Sunday. The moment you know a man who can tell
   you what a child of God should be and then appears himself exactly what
   he should notbe--just quit his company and let him go to his own place!
   And where is that? Judas can tell you! Oh, beware of such highfliers
   with their waxen wings mounting up to the very sun--how great shall be
   their fall when He that searches all hearts shall open the book and
   say, "I was hungry, and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty, and you
   gave Me no drink. . . Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of
   these, My brethren, you did it not to Me."

   There is another class of persons, happily fewer than they once were,
   but there are some among us still--opinionists who think they can do
   without holiness. These, too, it has sometimes been my misfortune to
   know. They have learned a sound creed, or perhaps an unsound one, for
   there are as many Arminians as Calvinists in this line--they think they
   have got hold of the Truth of God, that they are themen and that when
   they die, the faithful will fail from among men. They understand
   theology very accurately. They are wiser than their teachers. They
   can--

   "A hair divide

   Betwixt the west and north-west side."

   There is no question about their being masters in divinity. If degrees
   went according to merit, they would have been dubbed "D. D." years ago,
   for they know everything and are not a little proud that they do! And
   yet these men live a life that is a stench even in the nostrils of men
   who make no profession of religion! We have some of this kind in all
   congregations. I wish you would not come here. If we could do you good,
   we might be glad to see you, but you do so much harm to the rest and
   bring so much discredit upon the cause at large that your absence would
   be better than your company. You listen to the sermon and sometimes,
   perhaps, have the condescension to speak well of the preacher who
   wishes you would not. Yet, after the sermon is done, on the road home,
   there may be a bar just opened at one o'clock and the brother refreshes
   himself and perhaps does so many times! Even if it is the Lord's Day,
   it is all the same and yet he is a dear and precious child of God? No
   doubt he is in his own estimation! And then, during the week, he lives
   as others live and acts as others act--and yet congratulates himself
   that he knows the Truth of God and understands the Doctrines of the
   Gospel and, therefore, he will surely be saved! Out with you, man! Out
   with you! Down with your hopes! "Without holiness, no one shall see the
   Lord"--

   "No big words of ready talkers, No mere Doctrines will suffice-- Broken
   hearts and humble walkers-- These are dear in Jesus' eyes."

   Heart-work, carried out afterwards into life-work--this is what the
   Lord wants! You may perish as well with true Doctrines as with false if
   you pervert the true Doctrine into licentiousness! You may go to Hell
   by the Cross as surely as you may by the theater, or by the vilest of
   sin. You may perish with the name of Jesus on your lips and with a
   sound creed

   sealed on your very bosom for, "except a man is born-again, he cannot
   see the Kingdom of God." "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for
   whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Now, if any of you
   belong to either of these four classes, I think you cannot help knowing
   it and, being destitute of Gospel holiness, you have good cause to
   bewail your character and tremble for your destiny!

   But to help you still further, Brothers and Sisters, that man is
   destitute of true holiness who can look back upon his own past sin
   without sorrow. Oh, to think of our past lives! There were some of us
   who knew the Lord at 15 years of age, but those 15 years of
   unregeneracy--we can never forget them! Others may say, "We did not
   know Him till we were 50 or sixty." Ah, my dear Brothers and Sisters,
   you have much to weep over, but so have those of us who knew the Lord
   in early life! I can look back upon God's mercy with delight, but I
   hope I shall never be able to look back upon my sins with complacency.
   Whenever a man looks to any of his past faults and shortcomings, it
   ought to be through his tears. Some recall their past lives, talk of
   their old sins and seem to roll them under their tongues as a sweet
   morsel. They live their sins over again. As it was said of Alexander--

   "He fought his battles over again, And twice he slew the slain."

   There are those who revel in the memory of their iniquities. They live
   their life in imagination all over again. They recollect some deed of
   lewdness, or some act of infamy and, as they think it over, they dare
   not repeat it, for their profession would be spoiled--but they love the
   thought and cultivate it with a vicious zest! You are no friend to true
   holiness, but an utter stranger to it unless the past causes you
   profound sorrow and sends you to your knees to weep and hope that God,
   for Christ's sake, has blotted it out!

   And I am quite sure that you know nothing of true holiness if you can
   look forward to any future indulgence of sensual appetites with a
   certain degree of delightful anticipation. Have I someone here, a
   professed Christian, who has formed some design in his mind to indulge
   the flesh and to enjoy forbidden dainties when an opportunity occurs?
   Ah, Sir, if you can think of those things that may come in your way
   without tremor, I suspect you! I would you would suspect yourself.
   Since the day that some of us knew Christ we have always woke up in the
   morning with a fear lest we should that day disown our Master. And
   there is one fear which sometimes haunts me--and I must confess it--and
   were it not for faith in God, it would be too much for me. I cannot
   read the life of David without some painful emotions. All the time he
   was a young man, his life was pure before God and in the light of the
   living it shone with a glorious luster. But when gray hairs began to be
   scattered on his head, the man after God's heart sinned. I have
   sometimes felt inclined to pray that my life may come to a speedy end
   lest haply, in some evil hour, some temptation should come upon me and
   I should fall. And do you not feel the same? Can you look forward to
   the future without any fear? Does not the thought ever cross your
   mind--"He that thinks he stands may yet fall"? And the very possibility
   of such a thing--does it not drive you to God's Mercy Seat and do you
   not cry, "Hold me up my God and I shall be safe"! There is no doxology
   in Scripture which I enjoy more than that one at the end of the Epistle
   of Jude--"Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to
   present you faultless before the Presence of His Glory with exceeding
   joy, to Him be glory." I say you are a stranger to holiness of heart if
   you can look forward to a future fall without great alarm.

   Again, I think you have great cause for questioning unless your
   holiness is uniform. I mean if your life is angelic abroad and devilish
   at home--you must suspect that it is at homethat you are what you
   really are. I question whether any man is much better than he is
   thought to be by his wife and family for they, after all, see the most
   of us and know the truth about us. And if, Sir, though you seem in the
   pulpit, or on the platform, or in the shop to be amiable, Christian and
   God-like to the passer-by--if your children should have to mark your
   unkindness, your lack of fatherly affection for their souls and your
   wife to complain of your domineering, of the absence of everything that
   is Christ-like--you may shrewdly suspect that there is something wrong
   in the state of your heart! O Sirs, true holiness is a thing that will
   keep by night and by day, at home and abroad, on the land and on the
   sea! That man is not right with God who would not do the same in the
   dark that he would do in the light! That man is not right with God who
   does not feel, "If every eye should look upon me I would not be
   different from what I am when no eye gazes upon me. That which keeps me
   right is not the judgment and opinions of men, but the eyes of the
   Omnipresent and the heart of the Lord who loves me."

   Is your obedience uniform? Some farmers I know in the country maintain
   a credible profession in the village where they live. They go to a
   place of worship and seem to be very good people--but there is a
   farmer's dinner once a year--it

   is only once a year and we will not say anything about how they get
   home. The less of that is said, the better for their reputation. "It,
   is only once a year," they tell us, but holiness does not allow
   dissipation even "once a year." And we know some who when they go on
   the Continent, for instance, say, "Well, we need not be quite so exact
   there." And therefore the Sabbath is utterly disregarded and the
   sanctities of daily life are neglected, so reckless are they in their
   recreations. Well, Sirs, if your religion is not warranted to keep in
   any climate, it is good for nothing! I like the remark which I heard
   from one of the sailors on board ship in crossing the Irish Channel. A
   passenger said, to try him, "Wouldn't you like to attend a certain
   place of amusement?" which he mentioned. "Well, Sir," said the sailor,
   "I go there as often as I like. I have a religion that lets me go as
   often as I think proper." "Oh, how is that?" he enquired. "Because I
   never like to go at all," was the reply. "I do not stay away because of
   any law, for it is no trial to me, but I should be unhappy to go
   there." Surely the fish, were it asked if it did not wish to fly, would
   reply, "I am not unhappy because I am not allowed to fly--it is not my
   element." So the Christian can say, "I am not unhappy because I do not
   spend my nights in worldly society, because I do not join in their
   revelry and wantonness--it is not my element and I could not enjoy it.
   Should you drag me into it, it would be a martyrdom which to my spirit
   would be repulsive and painful!" You are a stranger to holiness if your
   heart does not feel that it revolts at the thought of sin.

   Then, let me further remark that those who can look with delight or any
   degree of pleasure upon the sins of others are not holy. We know of
   some who will not, themselves, perpetrate an unseemly jest, yet if
   another does so and there is a laugh excited upon some not
   overly-decent remark, they laugh and thus give sanction to the
   impropriety. If there is a low song sung in their hearing which others
   applaud, though they cannot quite go the length ofjoining in the
   plaudits, still they secretly enjoy it--they betray a sort of
   gratification that they cannot disguise--they confess to a gusto that
   admires the wit while it cannot endorse the sentiment. They are glad
   the minister was not there! They are glad to think the deacon did not
   happen to see them just at that moment yet still, if there could be a
   law established to make the thing pretty respectable, they would not
   mind. Some of you know people who fall into this snare. There are
   professing Christians who go where you at one time could not go but,
   seeing that they do it, you go too--and there you see others engaged in
   sin and it becomes respectable because you give it countenance.

   There are many things, in this world that would be execrated if it were
   not that Christian men go to them and the ungodly men say, "Well, if it
   is not righteous, there is not much harm in it, after all. It is
   innocent enough if we keep within bounds." Mind! Mind! Mind, professor!
   If your heart begins to suck in the sweets of another man's sin, it is
   unsound in the sight of God! If you can even wink at another man's
   lust, depend upon it that you will soon shut your eyes on your own, for
   we are always more severe with other men than we are with ourselves!
   There must be an absence of the vital principle of godliness when we
   can become partakers of other men's sins by applauding or joining with
   them in the approval of them! Let us examine ourselves scrupulously,
   then, whether we are among those who have no evidences of that holiness
   without which no one can see God!

   But, Beloved, we hope better things of you and things which accompany
   salvation. If you and I, as in the sight of God feel that we would be
   holy if we could, that there is not a sin we wish to spare, that we
   would be like Jesus--O that we could!--that we would sooner suffer
   affliction than ever run into sin and displease our God. If our heart
   is really right in God's statutes then, despite all the imperfections
   we bemoan, we have holiness wherein we may rejoice! And we pray to our
   gracious God--

   "Finish, then, Your new creation, Pure and spotless let us be."

   II. Now then, for the second point very briefly, indeed--"Without
   holiness, no one shall see the Lord." That is to say no one can have
   communion with God in this life and no one can have enjoyment with God
   in the life to come without holiness. "Can two walk together except
   they are agreed?" If you go with Belial, do you think that Christ will
   go with you? Will Christ be a pot companion for you? Do you expect to
   take the Lord of Love and Mercy with you to the haunts of sin?
   Professor, do you think the Just and Holy One will stand at your
   counter to be co-trader with you in your tricks? What do you think, O
   man! Would you make Christ a sharer of your guilt? And yet He would be
   so if He had fellowship with you in it! No, if you will go on in acts
   of unrighteousness and unholiness, Christ parts company with you or,
   rather, you never did have any fellowship with Him at all! You have
   gone out from us because you were not of us, for, if you had been of
   us, doubtless you would have continued with us.

   And as to Heaven, do you think to go there with your unholiness? God
   smote an angel down from Heaven for sin-- and will He let man in with
   sin in his right hand? God would sooner extinguish Heaven than see sin
   spoil it! It is enough for Him to bear with your hypocrisies on
   earth--shall He have them flung in His face in Heaven? What? Shall an
   unholy life utter its licentiousness in the golden streets? Shall there
   be sin in that higher and better Paradise? No, no! God has sworn by His
   holiness--and He will not, He cannot lie--that those who are not holy,
   whom His Spirit has not renewed, who have not been, by the regenerating
   power of the Holy Spirit, made to love that which is good and hate that
   which is evil shall never stand in the congregation of the righteous!
   Sinner, it is a settled matter with God that no one shall see Him
   without holiness!

   III. I come to my last point which is to plead with you. Doubtless,
   there are some in this vast crowd who have some sort of longings after
   salvation and after Heaven. My eye looks around. Yes, sometimes it has
   been my habit to gaze with sorrow upon some few here whose cases I
   know. Do I not remember one? He has been very often impressed and so
   impressed that he has not been able to sleep. Night after night he has
   prayed, he has wrestled with God--and there is only one thing in his
   way--strong drink! By the time Wednesday or Thursday comes around he
   begins to forget what he heard on Sunday. Sometimes he has taken the
   pledge and kept it three months--but the craving has been too strong
   for him and then he has given all resolutions and vows up and has
   plunged into his besetting sin worse than before!

   I know others in whom it is another sin. You are here now, are you? You
   do not come in the morning and yet, when you come at night you feel it
   very severely. But why not come in the morning? Because your shop is
   open and that shop seems to stand between you and any hope of
   salvation. There are others who say, "Well, now, if I go to hear that
   man, I must give up the vice that disquiets my conscience--but I cannot
   yet, I cannot yet." And you are willing to be damned for the sake of
   some paltry joy? Well, if you will be damned, it shall not be for lack
   of reasoning with you and weeping over you! Let me put it to you--do
   you say that you cannot give up the sin because of the profit? Profit?
   Profit? Forget it! "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the
   whole world and lose his own soul?" What profit have you obtained to
   now? You have put it all into a bag full of holes! What you have earned
   one way, you have spent in another and you know that if this life were
   all, you surely have not been any the better for it! Besides, what is
   profit when compared with your immortal soul? Oh, I plead with you,
   lose not gold for dross! Lose not substance for shadows! Lose not your
   immortal soul for the sake of some temporary gain!

   But it is not profit with some of you, it is pleasure--it is a morbid
   passion. You feel, perhaps, for some particular sin which happens to
   beset you, such an intense longing and, in looking back upon it
   afterwards, you think you could give up everything but that. Young man,
   is it some secret sin which we must not mention, or is it some private
   guilt which is hidden from all hearts but your own? O Soul, what is
   this pleasure, after all? Weigh it, weigh it! What does it come to? Is
   it equal to the pain it costs you now--to the pangs of conscience, to
   the agonies of remorse? When an American doctor, who had led a loose
   life, came to die, he seemed to wake up from a sort of stupor and he
   said, "Find that word, find that word!" "What word?" they asked. "Why,"
   he said, "that awful word--remorse!" He said it again--"Remorse!" And
   then gathering up his full strength, he fairly seemed to shriek it
   out--"REMORSE!" "Write it," he said, "write it." It was written. "Write
   it with larger letters and let me gaze at it. Underline it. And now,"
   he said, "none of you know the meaning of that word and may you never
   know it! It has an awful meaning in it and I feel it now--Remorse!
   Remorse!! Remorse!!!"

   What, I ask, is the pleasure of sin contrasted with the results it
   brings in this life? And what, I ask, is this pleasure compared with
   the joys of godliness? Little as you may think I know of the joys of
   the world, yet so far as I can form a judgment, I can say that I would
   not take all the joys that earth can ever afford in a hundred years for
   one half-hour of what my soul has known in fellowship with Christ! We
   who believe in Him have our sorrows, but, blessed be God, we have our
   joys and they are such joys--oh, such joys with such substance in them
   and such reality and certainty--that we could not and would not
   exchange them for anything except Heaven in its fruition!

   And then, think, Sinner, what are all these pleasures when compared
   with the loss of your soul? There is a gentleman, high in position in
   this world with fair lands and a large estate who, when he took me by
   the button-hole after a sermon--and he never hears me preach without
   weeping--said to me, "O Sir, it does seem such an awful thing that I
   should be such a fool!" "And what for?" I asked. "Why," he said, "for
   the sake of that court, of those gaieties of life, of mere honor and
   dress and fashion I am squandering away my soul! I know," he said, "I
   know the Truth of God, but I do

   not follow it. I have been stirred in my heart to do what is right, but
   I go on just as I have done before. I fear I shall sink back into the
   same state as before. Oh, what a fool I am," he said, "to choose
   pleasures that only last a little while and then to be lost forever and
   forever!" I pleaded hard with him, but I pleaded in vain. There was
   such intoxication in the gaiety of life that he could not leave it.
   Alas! Alas! If we had to deal with sane men, our preaching would be
   easy--but sin is a madness--such a madness that when men are bitten by
   it, they cannot be persuaded even though one should rise from the dead.
   "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord."

   "But," I hear someone say, "it is impossible! I have tried it and I
   have broken down. I did try to get better, but I did not succeed. It is
   of no use, it cannot be done!" You are right, my dear Friend, and you
   are wrong. You are right--it is of no use going about it as you did. If
   you went in your own strength, holiness is a thing you cannot get--it
   is beyond you. The depth says, "It is not in me." And the height says,
   "It is not in me." You can no more make yourself holy than you could
   create a world! But you are wrong to despair, for Christ can do it! He
   can do it for you and He can do it now! Believe on Him and that
   believing will be the proof that He is working in you. Trust Him and He
   that has suffered for your sins, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, shall
   come in and put to rout the lion of the Pit! He will bruise Satan under
   your feet shortly. There is no corruption too strong for Him to
   overcome, there is no habit too firm for Him to break. He can turn a
   lion to a lamb and a raven to a dove. Trust Him to save you and He will
   do it, whoever you may be, and whatever your past life may have been!

   "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved"--that is, he shall be
   saved from his sins and delivered from his evil practices. He shall be
   made a new man in Christ Jesus by the power of the Spirit, received
   through the medium of his faith. Believe, poor Soul, that Christ is
   able to save you and He will do it! He will be as good as your faith
   and as good as His own word. May He now add His own blessing to the
   word I have spoken and to the people who have heard it for His own
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM32.

   Verse 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
   covered. The Lord can bless the man who is full of sin only when his
   sin is covered by the Atonement--the Propitiation--which hides his sin
   even from the sight of God! And he is a truly blessed who, although he
   knows himself to be a sinner, also knows that his sin is forgiven and
   covered.

   2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in
   whose spirit there is no guile. He is an honest, truthful, guileless
   man. A man cannot be a blessed man while he is double-minded, while he
   has graft or, what is here called, guile, within him. A sincere and
   guileless heart is an evidence of Grace so, "blessed is the man unto
   whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no
   guile." But, David, how did you obtain this forgiveness? Let us hear
   the story of your experience.

   3, 4. When Ikept silent, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the
   day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is
   turned into the drought of summer Selah. He tells us that he had such a
   sense of guilt that he could not rest. And until he made confession of
   his sin to God, he became sick in body as well as in soul. It seemed as
   if his very bones, the most solid part of his frame, were beginning to
   decay under the influence of his grief and he was getting worse and
   worse in the brokenness of his spirit till he seemed like a dried-up
   country in which there is no dew. His moisture was turned into the
   drought of summer. Yes, David, but how did you get rid of your sin? We
   see how deeply you felt it--how did you get clear of it?

   5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I
   said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and You forgave
   the iniquity of my sin. Selah. You see, as long as he covered his sin,
   God did not cover it. But when he no longer tried to hide it, but made
   an open confession of it, then God blotted it out and covered it up
   forever! There was but a believing confession of sin and David's heart
   was at once at rest! Shall we not try the same remedy? Will we not go
   to God and say, "Father, I have sinned"? Is there any better course
   than that? Is it not right to acknowledge a wrong? Is it not the
   simplest and safest way to go at once to Him who blots out sin and ask
   for mercy?

   6, 7. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto You in a time
   when You may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall
   not come near unto him. You are my hiding place: You shall preserve me
   from trouble; You shall

   compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. Surely if God has
   given us the pardon of our sin, He will give us everything else that we
   need! If He has delivered us from Hell, He will certainly deliver us
   from trouble!

   8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I
   will guide you with My eyes. The forgiven man is afraid of going wrong
   again. He is as anxious about his future life as he was about his past
   sin. So the Lord meets him and gives him the gracious promise contained
   in this verse.

   9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
   understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
   they come near unto you. Do not be hard-mouthed. Be obedient to God's
   will. Be tender of heart and willing of spirit. The Lord will make His
   children go in the right way, somehow or other. He will put a bit into
   their mouths if nothing else will do it, but it would be much better
   for them if they would be of tender and gentle spirit and would yield
   at once to His gracious and holy will.

   10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. Godly men also have many
   sorrows, but then they always have sweets with their bitters, but,
   "many sorrows shall be to the wicked," and there will be no sweets to
   go with them.

   10. But he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about He
   shall have mercy all round him. He who trusts his God shall find that
   the golden compasses of Divine Mercy shall strike a circle of gracious
   protection all round him--"mercy shall compass him about."

   11. Be gladin the LORD, andrejoice, you righteous: and shout for joy,
   allyou that are upright in heart. Godly men ought to be glad men. They
   have a right to be happy. They recommend the Gospel when they are so
   and they are the true sons of the King of kings when they do not go
   mourning all their days.
     __________________________________________________________________

Sleepers Awakened

   (No. 2903)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY
   27, 1876.

   "But Jonah was gone down into the lowest part of the ship; and he lay
   there and was fast asleep." Jonah 1:5.

   WE are told before this fact is mentioned that the Lord sent out a
   great wind into the sea to overtake the ship in which Jonah was sailing
   for Tarshish. The great wheels of Providence are continually revolving
   in fulfillment of God's purposes concerning His own people. For them
   winds blow and tempests rise. It is a wonderful thing that the whole
   machinery of Nature should be made subservient to the Divine Purpose of
   the salvation of His redeemed! I was in a diamond-cutting factory at
   Amsterdam and I noticed that were huge wheels revolving and a great
   deal of power being developed and expended. But when I came to look at
   the little diamond--in some cases a very small one, indeed--upon which
   that power was being brought to bear, it seemed very remarkable that
   all that power should be concentrated upon such a little, yet very
   precious object! In a similar style, all the wheels of Providence and
   Nature, great as they are, are brought to bear by Divine skill and love
   upon a thing which appears to many people to be of trifling value, but
   which is to Christ of priceless worth--namely, a human soul!

   Here is this common-looking Jew, Jonah, named according to the general
   rule that names go by contraries, "a dove," for, at any rate on this
   occasion, he looked more like the raven that would not come back to the
   ark! And for this one man--this altogether unfriendly Prophet--the sea
   must be tossed in tempest and a whole ship full of people must have
   their lives put in jeopardy! This Truth of God is a very far-reaching
   one. You cannot well exaggerate it. The vast universe is but a platform
   for the display of God's Grace and all material things that now exist
   will be set aside when the great drama of Grace is completed. The
   material universe is but scaffolding for the Church of Christ. It is
   but the temporary structure upon which the amazing mystery of redeeming
   love is being carried on to perfection. See, then, that as the great
   wind was raised to follow Jonah and to lead to his return to the path
   of duty, so all things work together for the good of God's people and
   all things that exist are being bowed and bent towards God's one solemn
   eternal purpose--the salvation of His own!

   But note also, that while God was awake, Jonah was asleep. While storms
   were blowing, Jonah was slumbering. It is a strange sight, O Christian,
   that you should be an important item in the universe and yet that you
   should not know it or care about it--that all things are keeping their
   proper place and time for you and yet that you are the only one who
   does not seem to perceive it and, therefore, you fall into a dull,
   lethargic, sleepy state. Everything around you is awake for your good,
   yet you are slumbering even as the fugitive Prophet was while the storm
   was raging!

   I am going to speak upon the case of Jonah, first, as we may regard it
   as a useful lesson to the people of God. And, secondly, as it may be
   considered as an equally valuable warning to the unconverted.

   I. First, then, I shall use the case of Jonah as A USEFUL LESSON TO THE
   PEOPLE OF GOD--and I may very fairly do so when we remember who Jonah
   was.

   First, Jonah was a believer in God. He worshipped no false god--he
   worshipped only the living and true God. He was a professed and avowed
   believer in Jehovah. He was not ashamed to say--even when his conduct
   had laid him open to blame and when there was nobody to support him--"I
   am a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, which has made the
   sea and the dry land." Yet, though he was a believer in God, he was in
   the lowest part of the ship fast asleep!

   O Christian--a real Christian, too--if you are in a similar condition,
   how is it that you can be slumbering under such circumstances? Should
   not the privileges and the honor which your being a believer has
   brought to you by Divine Grace forbid that you should be inactive,
   careless, indifferent? I may be addressing dozens of Jonahs--those who
   are really God's people, but who are not acting as if they were--chosen
   of the Most High but are forgetful of their election, their redemption,
   their sanctification, the life they have begun to live here below and
   the eternal glory that awaits them hereafter!

   Besides being a believer or as a natural consequence of being a
   believer, Jonah was a man of prayer. Out of the whole company on board
   that ship, he was the only man who knew how to pray to the one living
   and true God. All the mariners "cried every man unto his god." But
   those were idle prayers because they were offered to idols--they could
   not prevail because they were presented to dumb, dead idols! But here
   was a man who couldpray--and who could pray aright, too--yet he was
   asleep! Praying men and women--you who have the keys of the Kingdom of
   Heaven swinging at your belt--you who can ask what you will, and it
   shall be done for you--you who have many times in the past prevailed
   with God in wrestling prayer--you who have received countless blessings
   in answer to your supplications--can you be, as Jonah was, sleeping in
   the time of storm? Can it be possible that he who knows the power of
   prayer is restraining it-- that he to whom God has given this choice
   privilege is not availing himself of it? I fear that this may be the
   case with some of you and looking at Jonah, a praying man sinfully
   asleep, I cannot help feeling that I may be speaking to many others who
   are in exactly the same condition!

   More than this, Jonah was not merely a believing man and a praying man,
   but he was also a Prophet of the Lord. He was one to whom God had
   spoken and by whom God had spoken. He was a minister--that is to say
   one of God's own sent servants though he was not in his proper place
   when he was in the ship sailing towards Tarshish. But can God's
   minister neglect their duty like this? If I had been asked at that
   time, "Where is the Prophet of the Lord?"--perhaps the only Prophet of
   his age--at any rate a man who was the very foremost in his time--if I
   had been asked, "Where is he?" I would have said that he must be looked
   for amidst the masses of the dense population of Nineveh, carrying out
   his Master's commission with unstaggering faith! Or else that he might
   be looked for amidst the thousands of Israel, denouncing their idol
   gods and their wicked ways. But who would have thought of finding Jonah
   asleep on board such a ship as that? He is a Seer, yet he sees not, for
   he is sound asleep! He is a watchman, but he is not watching, for he is
   slumbering and sleeping! Everything is in confusion, yet this man, upon
   whom rests the Divine anointing and into whose mouth God has put a
   message to multitudes of his fellow creatures is sleeping instead of
   witnessing!

   Come Mr. Preacher, see to yourself while I am talking about Jonah--and
   I will take the message to myself while I am talking to you--for this
   is a matter which ought to come home to all of us upon whom such great
   responsibilities are laid and to whom such high privileges are given.
   But all of you who love the Lord are witnesses for Christ in some
   capacity or other--and it would be a very sad thing if you who are
   called to speak in the name of the Lord, though it should only be in
   your Sunday school class, or in a little cottage meeting, or to your
   own children--should be asleep when you ought to be wide awake and
   active! May the Lord awaken you, for you are the wrong person to be
   asleep! You, above all others, are bound to have both your eyes open
   and to watch day and night to hear what God the Lord will speak to you
   and what He would have you say to the ungodly or to His own chosen
   people in His name.

   It is also worthy of notice that at the very time when Jonah was asleep
   in the ship, he was not only a Prophet, but he was a Prophet under a
   special commission. He was not on furlough. He was, on the contrary,
   empowered by special warrant, under the King's seal and sign manual, to
   go at once to a certain place and there to deliver the King's message.
   And yet there he is, asleep in this ship and going in the very opposite
   direction to the one given him! When Prophets sleep, it should be when
   their errand has been done and their message has been delivered, but
   Jonah had not been on his Lord's errand, nor had he delivered his
   Lord's message. No, he had refused to obey his Lord and had run away
   from the path of duty--and here he lies, fast asleep in the lowest part
   of the ship! O dear Brothers and Sisters, if we could truthfully say
   that our own work for the Lord was done, we might be somewhat excused
   if we took our rest. But is our life-work done? Mine is not, that I
   feel certain. In fact, it seems to be scarcely begun. Is yours
   finished, my Brother, my Sister? Have you so lived that you can be
   perfectly content with what you have done? Would it not be a cause of
   grief to you if you were assured that you would have no more
   opportunities of glorifying God upon the earth? I think you would feel
   that very

   much. Well, then, how can you be willing to be indifferent, cold and
   dead when so much of God's work lies before you scarcely touched as
   yet?

   All that you and I have done so far has been like apprentice work--we
   have just been getting our hands in--we have not become journeymen in
   God's great workshop yet--certainly we cannot claim to be wise
   master-builders! Few of us, if any, have attained to that degree, so
   let us not go to sleep. O Sir, shame on you! Asleep in the early
   morning? A man may take his rest when he gets weary after a long day's
   toil, but not yet--with all that work to be done--with the King's
   commission pressing upon us! With the call of the myriads of Nineveh
   sounding in his ears, Jonah, God's appointed Messenger, should not have
   been found asleep in the lowest part of the ship.

   This, then, is who the man was. He was a believing man and a praying
   man. He was a Prophet and a Prophet under a special commission. But
   where was he? Where had he gone?

   Well, he had gone down into the lowest part of the ship. That is to say
   he had gone where he hoped he would not be observed or disturbed. He
   had gone down into the lowest part of the ship--not among the
   cargo--the mariners threw that overboard, yet the noise did not wake
   the sleeping Prophet. He was not upon the deck ready to take a turn at
   keeping watch--no, he had got as much out of the way as he could! And I
   have known Christian people try, as far as they could, to get out of
   the way. Possibly they are not living inconsistently, or doing, as far
   as others can see, anything that is glaringly sinful--but they have
   retired from their Master's business. They have got into a little quiet
   place where nobody notices them. I wonder whether there is a Christian
   who has gone to live in a country village where he has not yet said
   anything for Christ, although, when he lived in London, he was a busy
   worker for God? He has, like Jonah, gone down into the lowest part of
   the ship, into a quiet place where nobody can see him. Around him there
   are very few Christian people--perhaps hardly any--and he does not want
   anybody to know that he is a Christian. He would like to live in a
   private way. If he were asked about himself, he would answer, as Jonah
   did, "I fear God." But he does not wish to be asked anything about
   himself. He does not want people to fix their eyes upon him. He is
   afraid of being too conspicuous. He says that he was always of a
   retiring disposition, like the soldier who ran away as soon as the
   first shot of the battle was fired and so was shot as a deserter. He
   says that he is like Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, or like
   Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple, but secretly, for fear of the Jews. He
   has gone down into the lowest part of the ship, though, at one time, he
   was one of the foremost workers for Christ!

   He has gone, too, where he will not lend a hand in any service that
   needs to be done. He was once in the Sunday school, but he says that he
   has had his turn at that and does not intend to do anything more. He
   used to be, perhaps, a deacon of a church, but now he does not wish for
   such a position as that. He says there is a great deal of trouble and
   toil in connection with such offices and he intends, for the future, to
   avoid everything that will give him trouble or cause him the slightest
   toil. Once he took delight in preaching the Word and in those days if
   anybody had said that he would live to be silent and not speak in
   Christ's name, he would have been very angry at the man who made such a
   statement! But it has now come true. Jonah is not up on deck helping to
   hold the rudder, or to set a sail, or to do anything--not even a hand's
   turn to help the poor laboring vessel! He has gone to sleep in the
   lowest part of the ship where nobody enquires about him, at least for
   the present, and where there is nothing for him to do!

   Observe, too, that Jonah was staying away from the Prayer Meeting. Do
   you ask, "What Prayer Meeting?" Why, every other man on board that ship
   was crying unto his god, but Jonah was asleep in the lowest part of the
   ship! He was not praying--he was sleeping and, perhaps, dreaming--but
   he was certainly not praying! And it is a very bad thing when a true
   servant of God, a praying man and one by whom God has spoken before,
   begins to get into such a spiritually sleepy state that he not only
   does nothing to help the Church, but he does not even join in prayer in
   the time of danger! Do you know anybody in such a state as that, my
   Brother? "Yes," you reply, "several." Are you in that state yourself,
   Brother? If so, let charity for people who are doing wrong begin at
   home--it may extend to others afterwards. But if this cap fits you,
   wear it and wear it till you wear it out and have improved yourself
   through wearing it!

   This man, asleep in the lowest part of the ship, represents one who
   cannot even take any notice of what was going on around him. At first
   he did not wish to be observed, but now he does not care to observe
   others. What is the condition of the millions of heathen in foreign
   lands? That is a subject that he avoids--he is of opinion that they
   will be converted in the millennium, or that even if they are not
   converted, their future lot may be a happy one. At any rate, it is a
   subject about which he does not concern himself. Jonah is asleep in the
   lowest part of the ship and he appears quite content to let

   the millions of heathen perish. Then, with regard to the Church of
   Christ at home, sometimes he is told that everything is prospering, but
   from other quarters he is informed that we are all going to the bad.
   Well, he does not know which report is the true one and he does not
   particularly care! And as for the Church of which he is a member, does
   he not care for that? Well, yes, in a certain fashion, but he does not
   care enough for the Sunday school, for instance, to lend a hand there,
   or for the preaching society to lend a hand there. He never encourages
   the minister's heart by saying that the love of Christ compels him to
   take his share of holy service. Jonah is asleep in the lowest part of
   the ship. He is not much noticed, if at all, for those around him have
   come to the conclusion that he is good for nothing and he, as I have
   shown you, does not take much notice of what is going on though all the
   while he is a man of God, a man of prayer and one whom God has used in
   times past! I wonder whether these descriptions are at all applicable
   to any of my hearers? At any rate, I know that they represent, as in a
   mirror, the lives of many professors of religion. We trust they are
   sincere in heart in the sight of God, but, to us their sleepiness is
   more apparent than their sincerity!

   Now, further, what was Jonah doing at that time? He was asleep--asleep
   amid all that confusion and noise! What a hurly-burly there was outside
   that vessel--storms raging, billows roaring--and Jonah was not a
   sailor, but a landsman and yet he was asleep. Certainly he must have
   been in a remarkable state to be able to sleep through such a storm as
   that! And what a noise there was inside the ship as well as outside!
   Everybody else was crying to his god and the mariners had been throwing
   the cargo out of the ship, so they must have stirred the whole place up
   from one end to the other. There seems to have been scarcely any
   opportunity for anybody to rest, yet Jonah could sleep right through it
   all, no matter what noise the men made as they pulled the ropes, or
   threw out their wares, or what outcries they made as they presented
   their prayers to their idol gods! Jonah was asleep amid all that
   confusion and noise and, O Christian, for you to be indifferent to all
   that is going on in such a world as this--for you to be negligent of
   God's work in such a time as this is just as strange!

   The devil alone is making noise enough to wake all the Jonahs if they
   only want to awake. Then there are the rampant errors of the times, the
   sins of the times, the confusions of the times, the controversies of
   the times--all these things ought to wake us. And then, beyond the
   times, there is eternity with all its terrors and its glories! There is
   the dread conflict that is going on between Christ and Belial--between
   the true and the false--between Jesus and antichrist. All around us
   there is tumult and storm, yet some professing Christians are able,
   like Jonah, to go to sleep in the lowest part of the ship. I think,
   Brothers and Sisters, if we are spiritually awake--if we only look at
   the condition of religion in our own country--we shall often be obliged
   at night to literally lie awake and toss to and fro, crying, "O God,
   have mercy upon this distracted kingdom and let Your Truth triumph over
   the Popery which many are endeavoring to bring back among us!"But,
   alas, the great multitude of Believers have little or no care about
   this matter--they do not even seem to notice it, for they are sound
   asleep in the midst of a storm!

   Notice, also, that Jonah was asleep when other people were awake.. All
   around us people seem to be wide awake, whether we are asleep or not.
   When I see what is being done by Romanists and observe the zeal and
   self-denial of many persons who have dedicated themselves to the
   propagation of their false faith, I am astonished that we are doing so
   little for the true faith! Is it really the case that God has the
   dullest set of servants in the whole world? It is certain that men are
   all alive in the service of Satan--then we should not be half-alive in
   the service of our God! Are the worshippers of Baal crying aloud, "O
   Baal, hear us," and the devotees of Ashtaroth shouting, "Hear us, O
   mighty Ashtaroth," and yet the Prophet of Jehovah is lying asleep in
   the lowest part of the ship? Is it so? Does everything else seem to
   awaken all of a man's energies--but does true religion paralyze them?

   I have really thought, when I have been reading some books written by
   very good men, that the best thing for sending a man to sleep was a
   book by an evangelical writer--but that the moment a man becomes
   unsound in the faith, it seems as if he woke up and had something to
   say which people were bound to hear! It is a great pity that it should
   be so, just as it was a great pity that everybody should have been
   awake on that vessel with the exception of Jonah, yet I fear that it is
   still only too true that those who serve the living God are not half
   filled with the awakening fervor which ought to possess them for the
   honor of the Lord Most High!

   Jonah was asleep, next, not only in a time of great confusion and when
   others were awake, but also in a time when he was in great danger, for
   the ship was likely to sink. The storm was raging furiously, yet Jonah
   was asleep. And, Believer, when you and those about you are in danger
   of falling into great sin through your careless living--when your
   family is

   in danger of being brought up without the fear of God--when your
   servants are in danger of concluding that religion is all a farce
   because you act as if it were--when those who watch you in business are
   apt to sneer at Christian profession because they say that your
   profession is of very little worth to you--when all this is taking
   place and there is imminent danger to your own soul and to the souls of
   others, can you still sleep in unconcern?

   And Jonah was asleep when he needed to be awake. He, above all other
   men, was the one who ought to be awake and to call upon his God. If
   anybody goes to sleep nowadays, it certainly ought not to be the
   believer in the Lord Jesus Christ! All things demand that Christians
   should be in real earnest. I know of no argument that I could gather
   from time or eternity, from Heaven or earth, or Hell to allow a
   Christian to be inactive and careless! But if I am asked for reasons
   why Christians are needed to be in downright earnest and full of
   consecrated vigor in the service of God, those arguments are so
   plentiful that I have no time to mention them all! The world needs you!
   Careless souls need to be awakened! Enquiring souls need to be
   directed! Mourning souls need to be comforted. Rejoicing souls need to
   be established! The ignorant need to be taught, the desponding need to
   be cheered! On all sides, for a Christian there is an earnest cry and,
   certainly in these days, God has made a truly godly man to be more
   precious than the gold of Ophir! And that man who keeps himself back
   from earnest service for God in such a time as this, surely cannot
   expect the Lord's blessing to rest upon him. Verily, the old curse of
   Meroz may well be pronounced upon the man who, in this age and under
   present circumstances, like Jonah, goes down into the lowest part of
   the ship, lies down and goes to sleep!

   Jonah was asleep with all the heathens around him upbraiding him by
   their actions. They were praying while he was sleeping and, at last it
   came to this--that the shipmaster sternly addressed the Prophet of God
   and said, "What are you doing, O sleeper?" It is sad, indeed, when
   things have come to such a pass that a heathen captain rebukes a
   servant of God! And yet I am afraid that the Church of God, if she does
   not mend her ways, will have a great many similar rebukes from heathen
   practices and heathen utterances! Look at the enormous sums that the
   heathen spend upon their idols and their idol temples and worship--and
   then think how little we spend upon the service of the living God! One
   is amazed to read of the lacs of rupees that are given by Indian
   princes for the worship of their dead deities--and yet our missionary
   societies languish and the work of God in a thousand ways is stopped
   because God's stewards are not using what He has entrusted to them as
   they should. Think, too, of the flaming zeal with which the votaries of
   false faiths compass sea and land to make one proselyte, while we do so
   little to bring souls to Jesus Christ!

   One of these days you will have Hindu and Brahmins talking to us in
   this fashion, "You profess that the love of Christ compels you, but to
   what does it compel you?" They even now ask us what kind of religion
   must ours be that forces opium upon the poor Chinese! They quote our
   great national sins against us and I do not wonder that they do. I only
   wish that they could be told that Christians reprobate those evils and
   that they are not Christians who practice them. But we must do more
   than even the best Christians are now doing or else we shall have the
   heathen saying, as the semi-heathen at home say, "If we believed in
   eternal punishment, we should be earnest day and night to rescue souls
   from it"--which is to me a strong corroboration of the truth of that
   Doctrine. We do not need any Doctrine that can make us less zealous
   than we are! We certainly do not need any Doctrine that can give us any
   excuse for lack of zeal. Still, there is great force in the remark I
   quoted just now. We are not as earnest to save men from going down to
   the Pit as we ought to be if we do, indeed, believe that they are
   hastening to that doom! The shipmasters are again rebuking the Jonahs!
   Those who believe in error and who worship false gods turn around upon
   us and ask us what we are doing. O Jonah, sleeping Jonah, is it not
   time that you were awake?

   But why was Jonah asleep? I suppose that it was partly the reaction
   after the excitement through which his mind had passed in rebelling
   against God. He had wearied himself with seeking his own evil way, so
   now, after the disobedience to God of which he had been guilty, his
   spirit sinks and he sleeps. Besides, it is according to the nature of
   sin to give--not physical sleep, I grant you--but to give spiritual
   slumber. There is no opiate like the commission of an evil deed. A man
   who has done wrong is so much less able to repent of the wrong and so
   much the less likely to do so. Jonah's conscience had become hardened
   by his willful rejection of his Lord's commands and, therefore, he
   could sleep when he ought to have been awakened and alarmed.

   Besides, he wished to get rid of the very thought of God. He was trying
   to flee from God's Presence. I suppose he could not bear his own
   thoughts--they must have been dreadful to him. So, being in a pet
   against his God and altogether in a wrong spirit, he hunts about for a
   snug corner of the ship, stretches himself out and there falls asleep
   and sleeps on

   right through the storm! O sleepy Christian, there is something wrong
   about you, too! Conscience has been stupefied. There is some darling
   sin, I fear, that you are harboring. Search it out and drive it out!
   Sin is the mother of this shameful indifference! God help you to get
   rid of it! Brothers and Sisters, I am speaking to you with as much
   directness as I possibly can, yet not with more than I use towards
   myself. Have I, in my preaching, been slumbering and sleeping? If you
   find that I am not in earnest, I charge you, my Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, tell me of it and wake me out of my sleep if you can, as I now
   tell you of it and say, by all that God has done to you in saving you
   by His Grace and in making you His servant, give not up your soul to
   slumber, but awake, awake--put on strength and awaken yourself, by the
   power of the Holy Spirit, to prayer and to the service of your God!

   Thus I have spoken, perhaps at too great a length, to Christians.

   II. Now, more briefly, I want to give A WARNING TO THE UNCONVERTED.

   Jonah, asleep on board that ship, is a type of a great number of
   unconverted people who come to our various places of worship. Jonah was
   in imminent danger, for God had sent a great storm after him and, my
   unconverted Hearer, your danger at this present moment is beyond
   description. There is nothing but a breath between you and Hell! One of
   our beloved Elders was with us here last Sabbath--he is now with the
   spirits of just men made perfect--but if it had been the lot of any
   unconverted person here to suffer and to expire in the same manner,
   alas, how sad it would have been for you, my Hearer! Driven from the
   Presence of God, you would be cast in the outer darkness where there is
   weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth! The sword of Divine Justice
   is already furbished, will you yet make mirth? Can you laugh and jest
   when there is but a step between you and death--but a step between you
   and Hell? An enemy to God, unforgiven, the Angel of Justice seeking you
   out as the storm sought out Jonah in that ship, "What are you doing, O
   sleeper," when the peril of everlasting wrath is so near you?

   You are asleep, too, when there are a great many things to awake you.
   As I have already said, there was a great noise in the vessel where
   Jonah was, a great noise inside and outside the ship, yet he did not
   awake. I do believe that many of you unconverted people find it hard to
   remain as you are. You get hard blows, sometimes, from the preacher. At
   family prayer, often, your conscience is touched. When you hear a
   passage from the Bible read, or when you hear of a friend who has died,
   you get somewhat aroused. Why, the very conversion of others should
   surely awaken you! If nothing else had awoke Jonah, the prayers of the
   mariners ought to have awakened him--and the earnestness of your mother
   and father, the pleading of your sister, the cries of new converts, the
   earnest anxieties of enquirers ought to have--and if you were not so
   deeply sunken in slumber, would havesome influence over you to arouse
   you.

   You are asleep while prayer could save you. If your prayers could not
   be heard, I think I would say, "Let him sleep on." If there were no
   possibility of your salvation, I do not see why you should be awakened
   from your slumber. Despair is an excellent excuse for sloth--but you
   have no reason to despair. "Arise, call upon your God," said the
   shipmaster to Jonah! And we say to you, "Friend, how is it that you are
   so indifferent and do not pray, when it is written, 'Ask, and it shall
   be given you; seek, and you shall find,' and when the facts prove the
   Truth of the words of Jesus, 'for he that asks receives, and he that
   seeks finds'?" Heaven is within your reach, yet you will not stretch
   out your hands! Eternal life is so near to you that Paul writes, "If
   you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in
   your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."
   Assuredly that man who has food heaped up before him, but who sits down
   and goes to sleep with his head in Benjamin's mess and yet will not eat
   of it deserves to be starved! He who can sleep when the river runs up
   to his very lips--he who is dying of thirst, yet will not drink
   deserves to die, does he not? With such wondrous blessings set before
   you in the Gospel--with Heaven itselfjust yonder and the pearly gates
   set wide open, yet you are so indifferent that you despise the good
   land and murmur and refuse to accept the Savior who would lead you to
   it--why, surely, you must be sleeping the sleep of death!

   You are sleeping while God's people are wondering at you, just as those
   mariners in the ship wondered at Jonah-- and while they are weeping
   over you and praying for you! There are some in this place who are the
   constant subjects of prayer. Some of you who are seated here do not
   know it, perhaps, but there are those who love you and who mention your
   name day and night before God. And yet, while they are concerned about
   you, you are not concerned about yourself! O God, if storms cannot
   awaken these sleeping Jonahs, awaken them by some other means, even
   though it is by one like themselves, or one even worse than themselves!
   Send a message that shall upbraid them. Set some blasphemer to ask them
   how they can attend the means of Grace and yet be undecided! I have
   known that to happen. I have known a coarse,

   vile-living man to accost a moral and excellent attendant on the means
   of Grace and say to him, "Why are you not either one thing or the
   other? If religion is all a lie, why don't you be as I am? But if it is
   true, why don't you become a Chris-tian?"And verily may they put such
   questions as those to some of you!

   O Friends, I pray you, if you are out of Christ, do not pretend to be
   happy! Do not accept any happiness till you find it in Him. To some of
   you I would speak very pointedly. Are you sick? Do you feel that your
   life is very precarious? O my dear Friend, you are like Jonah when the
   ship was likely to be wrecked. Do not delay! Are there the beginnings
   of consumption about you? Is it supposed to be so? Do not delay! Has
   some relative been taken away and does there seem some likelihood that
   you may have the same disease? Oh, do not sleep, but awake! Are you
   getting old, Friend? Are the gray hairs getting thick around your brow?
   Oh, do not delay! For unsaved young people it is wrong to sleep, for he
   that sleeps when he is young sleeps during a siege! But he that
   slumbers when he is old sleeps during the attack, when the enemy is
   actually at the breach and storming the walls! Do any of you work in
   dangerous trades? Do you have to eat your bread where an "accident"
   might easily happen as it has often happened to others? Oh, be prepared
   to meet your God!

   But, having begun this list, I might continue it almost indefinitely,
   but I will end it in a sentence or so. Are you a mortal man?. Can you
   die? Will you die? May you die now? May you drop dead in the street?
   May you go to sleep and never wake up again on earth? May your very
   food or drink become the vehicle of death to you? May there be death in
   the air you breathe? May it be so? Will you one day, at any rate, have
   to be carried to your long home, like others, and lie asleep in the
   grave? Will you give account to God for the things done in the body?
   Will you have to stand before the Great White Throne to make one of
   that innumerable throng and to be there put into the balance to be
   weighed for eternity? If so, sleep not, I beseech you, as do others,
   but bestir yourself!

   May God's Holy Spirit bestir you to make your calling and election
   sure! Lay hold on Jesus Christ with the grip of an earnest, humble
   faith and henceforth surrender yourself to the service of Him who has
   bought you with His precious blood! God grant to all of us the Grace to
   awake and arise that Christ may give us life and light for His dear
   name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM51.

   Verses 1-5. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your
   loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies
   blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and
   cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin
   is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this
   evil in Your sight: that You might be justified when You speak, and be
   clear when You judge. Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did
   my mother conceive me. ' 'It is not merely that I have sinned in
   practice, but I am a sinner by nature. Sin would not have come out of
   me if it had not first been in me. I am a mass of sin and must,
   therefore, be loathsome in Your sight."

   6, 7. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden
   part You shall make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop. Take the
   bunch of hyssop as the priests did, dip it into the basin filled with
   sacrificial blood-- "Purge me with hyssop." Apply the precious blood of
   Jesus to me--

   7, 8. And I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
   Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have broken
   may rejoice. He feels like a man whose bones are broken and he asks the
   Lord, by putting away his sin, to bind up those broken bones till every
   one of them should sing a song of gratitude to the Divine Healer.

   9-13. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out allmy iniquities.
   Create in me a clear heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
   Cast me not away from Your Presence; and take not Your Holy Spirit from
   me. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me with Your
   free Spirit Then will I teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners
   shall be converted unto You. "If You will only save me, I will tell
   everybody about it. I will be a preacher as well as a penitent. Rising
   from my knees where I have been confessing my sin, rejoicing that You
   have blotted it all out, I will hasten away and tell others what a good
   God You are, and they will believe my testimony, and sinners shall be
   converted unto

   You.

   14. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God. David had been guilty of
   the death of Uriah. It is a proof of his sincerity that he does not
   mince matters, but calls a spade a spade and prays, "Deliver me from
   blood-guiltiness, O God."

   14. The God of my Salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your
   righteousness. ' 'I will not only preach, but I will also sing. I will
   be preceptor as well a preacher. A Christian can never do too much for
   the Lord who has so graciously pardoned him. David feels that he cannot
   do anything right, either singing or preaching, by himself; so he
   adds--

   15. O Lord, open You my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Your
   praise. For You desire not sacrifice; otherwise I would give it: You
   delight not in burnt offering. God cares little for the mere outward
   forms of worship. Ritualistic observances are nothing to Him--"You
   desire not sacrifice, otherwise I would give it: You delight not in
   burnt offering." Though these were the fixed ordinances of the Lord
   under which David lived, yet he was enabled to look beyond them to
   something higher and better!

   17-19. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a
   contrite heart, O God, You wiil not despise. Do good in Your good
   pleasure unto Zion: build You the walls of Jerusalem. Then shall You be
   pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and
   whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon Your altar.
   When we come to God and are saved by Him, then ordinances take their
   proper place. You cannot teach a man how to live until he is born and
   you cannot teach him what his spiritual life is to be until he is
   born-again. All religious rites and ceremonies which precede the new
   birth go for nothing. First there must be the inward life--the broken
   heart, the contrite spirit-- and then everything else drops into proper
   order. Mind this--God help us all to mind it well!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Plumb Line

   (No. 2904)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 27, 1876.

   "Thus He showed me: and, behold, the Lordstood upon a wall made by a
   plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the LORD said unto me,
   Amos, what do you see? And I said, A plumb line. Then said the Lord,
   Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel: I
   will not again pass by them anymore." Amos 7:7, 8.

   GOD usually speaks by men according to their natural capacity. Amos was
   a herdsman. He was not a man of noble and priestly rank, like Ezekiel,
   nor a man of gigantic intellect and mighty eloquence, like Isaiah. He
   was a simple herdsman and, therefore, God did not cause him to see the
   visions of Isaiah, or dazzle his mind with the wondrous revelations
   that were given to Ezekiel. God's rule is, "Every man in his own order"
   and if we depart from that, we get out of place and we are apt to try
   to make others do that which they are not fit to do and then blame them
   when they fail to accomplish what they should never have attempted! God
   always uses His servants in the best possible way and as they ought to
   be used. And so, when the herdsman Amos had a vision, he simply saw a
   piece of string with a plumb of lead at the bottom of it--a plumb
   line--a thing which he could easily understand.

   There was a mystery about the vision, but the vision itself was not
   mysterious. It was a very simple emblem, indeed, exactly suited to the
   mind of Amos, just as the visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah were adapted to
   the more poetic minds of men of another class. You and I, dear Brothers
   and Sisters, may be very thankful if God should use us as he did Amos
   and, if He does, we must not be envying the Isaiahs and Ezekiels. If we
   see a plumb line, let us preach about a plumb line! And if God should
   ever enable us to understand the visions of Zechariah or Ezekiel, then
   let us preach about them. Let every preacher or teacher testify
   according to the measure of the Light of God and Grace that God has
   given him--then we shall do well. Amos can see a plumb line and he sees
   it well--and when he has seen it, he tells what he has seen--and leaves
   God to set His seal upon his testimony.

   Now, on this occasion we have nothing before us but this plumb line,
   but there is a great deal to be learned from it. The first thing is
   this--the plumb line is used in construction. Secondly, the plumb line
   is used for testing what is built And, thirdly, it appears from the
   text that the plumb line is used in the work of destruction, for the
   casting down of that which is found not to be straight.

   I. First, THE PLUMB LINE IS USED IN CONSTRUCTION. We are told in the
   text that "the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line," that is to
   say, a wall which had been constructed with the help of a plumb line
   and, therefore, He tested it with that which was supposed to have been
   used in its construction--which was a fair and proper thing to do. If
   the wall only professed to be run up without a plumb line, then it
   might be hard to try it with the plumb line. But as it was a wall which
   professed to have been constructed according to the rules of the
   builder's art, it was fair and reasonable that it should be tested by
   the plumb line.

   First, then, dear Friends, a plumb line is used in building when it is
   done as it ought to be. And I remind you that God always uses it in His
   building. Everything that God builds is built plumb, straight, square
   and fair. You see that rule at work in Nature--there is nothing out of
   proportion there. Those who understand these things and look deeply
   into them will tell you that the very form and size of the earth have a
   connection with the blooming of a flower, or the hanging of a dew-drop
   upon a blade of grass and that if the sun were larger or smaller than
   it is, or if the material of

   which the earth is formed were more dense, or different in any degree
   from what it is, then everything--the most magnificent and the most
   minute--would be thrown out of gear! Someone of old used to say that
   God is the great Arithmetician--the great Master of geometry--and so He
   is. He never makes any mistakes in His calculations. There is not
   anything in the world that He has made in a careless manner. The mixing
   of the component parts of the air we breathe is managed with consummate
   skill and if you could resolve a drop of water into its original
   elements, you would be struck by the wisdom with which God has adapted
   the proportions of each particle so as to make a liquid which man can
   drink! Everything is done by order and rule, as in the changes of the
   various seasons, the movements of the heavenly bodies and the
   arrangements of Divine Providence. God always has the plumb line in His
   hand. He never begins to build, as a careless workman would, that which
   might turn out to be right, or might turn out to be wrong--He makes
   sure work of all that He does.

   In spiritual matters it is very manifest that whenever God is dealing
   with souls, He always uses the plumb line. In beginning with us, He
   finds that the very foundation of our nature is out of the
   perpendicular and, therefore, He does not attempt to build upon it, but
   commences His operations by digging it out. The first work of Divine
   Grace in the soul is to pull down all that Nature has built up. God
   says, "I cannot use these stones in My building. This man has been
   behaving himself admirably in some respects and he thinks that he is
   building up a temple to My honor and glory with his own natural
   virtues, his own good works and other things of a like character. But
   all this must be dug out." The man has taken a great deal of pains in
   putting it together but it must all come out and there must be a great
   hole left--the man must feel himself emptied, abased and humbled in the
   sight of God, for if God is to be everything to the man, then He must
   be nothing! And if Christ is to be his Savior, He must be a complete
   Savior from beginning to end. So the foundation of human merit must be
   cleared right out and flung away, for God could not build squarely upon
   it. With such a foundation as that, the plumb line would never mark a
   perpendicular wall.

   After all human merit has been flung out, the Lord begins His gracious
   work by laying the foundation stone of a simple faith in Jesus
   Christ--and that faith, though simple, is very real. When a man
   professes to convert his fellow man, he only gives him a fictitious
   faith which is of no value to him. But when God saves a sinner, He
   gives him real faith. There may be little knowledge of the Truth of
   God, but the little that the man knows is truth--and faith, though it
   is but as a grain of mustard seed, if it is of the right sort, it is
   better than that faith which is as big as a mountain, yet all of the
   wrong sort, which will not stand in the time of testing! But the faith
   which the Holy Spirit gives is the faith of God's elect--the real faith
   which will endure even the tests which God applies to it.

   Side by side with that faith, God puts true repentance. When a man
   attempts to convert his fellow man, he gives him a sham repentance, or
   perhaps he tells him that there is no need of any repentance at all.
   Certain preachers have been telling us, lately, that it is a very easy
   matter to obtain salvation and that there is no need of repentance--or
   if repentance is needed it is merely a change of mind. That is not the
   Doctrine that our fathers used to preach, nor the Doctrine that we have
   believed! That faith which is not accompanied by repentance will have
   to be repented of! So, whenever God builds, He builds repentance fair
   and square with faith. These two things go together--the man just as
   much regrets and grieves over the past as he sees that past obliterated
   by the precious blood of Jesus. He just as much hates all his sin as he
   believes that his sin has been all put away.

   The Lord never builds anything falsely in any man, or teaches him to
   reckon that to be true which is not true. He builds with facts, with
   substantial verities, with true Grace and with a real and lasting work
   in the soul. When the Lord builds in a man, He builds with the plumb
   line in the sense of always building up that which is towards holiness.
   Have any of you fallen into sin? Rest assured that God did not build
   you in that way. Have sinful desires and lusts after evil been excited
   within you by any doctrine to which you have listened? Then you may be
   sure that it was not of God! "By their fruits shall you know them," is
   an Infallible test of doctrines as well as of disciples! And if any of
   you have embraced any form of doctrine which hinders you from being
   watchful, prayerful, careful and anxious to avoid sin, you have
   embraced error and not the Truth of God, for all God's building tends
   towards holiness, towards carefulness, towards a gracious walk to the
   praise and glory of God!

   When the Lord builds a man up, He makes him conscientious, makes him
   jealous of Himself, makes him detect the very shadow of sin so that
   before the sin, itself, comes upon him, he holds up his all-covering
   shield of faith that he may be preserved from its deadly assaults. You
   may always know God's building because it is pure building, clean
   building--

   but if anybody builds you up in such a style that you can talk of sin
   as a trifle and think that you may indulge in it even in the least
   measure with impunity--that is certainly not God's building!

   And, blessed be His name, when our souls are really given up into the
   Lord's hands, He will continue to build in us until He has built us up
   to perfection! There will come a day when sin which now makes its nest
   in this mortal body of ours shall find this body dissolving and
   crumbling back to the earth of which it was made--and then our
   emancipated spirits, delivered from the last taint and trace of
   sin--free from even the tendency to evil--shall soar away to be with
   Christ which is far better--and to wait for the trumpet of the
   Resurrection, when the body, itself, shall also be delivered from
   corruption, for the grave is a refining pot and, at the coming of
   Christ, our body shall be pure and white like the garments of a bride
   arrayed to meet her bridegroom! And the soul, re-united with the body,
   shall have triumphed over every sin! This is the way that God builds.
   He does not build us up so that we can go to Heaven with our sin still
   working in us. He does not build us up to be temples for Him to dwell
   in and let the devil also dwell in us. Antinomian building is not
   according to the fashion of God's building--God builds up surely,
   solidly, truthfully, sincerely and until we have reached that state of
   perfection which makes us fit for Heaven!

   Now, Beloved, as God thus uses the plumb line in His building, I gather
   that we also should use the plumb line in our building. First, with
   regard to the lifting up of our own soul, I would urge upon myself,
   first, and then upon you, next, the constant use of the plumb line. It
   is very easy to seek after speed and to neglect to ensure certainty.
   There is such a thing as being in a dreadful hurry to do what had
   better never be done, or else be done in a very different style. We see
   some people who become Christians in about two minutes--and I am
   devoutly thankful when that is really the case. We see some others
   become full-grown Christians in about two days and instructors of
   others in the course of a week--and, very speedily, they attain to such
   vast dimensions that there is no ordinary church that is big enough to
   hold them! That is very quick work--that is the way that mushrooms
   grow, but it is not the way that oaks grow! I urge you all to remember
   that often the proverb, "the more haste, the less speed," is true in
   spiritual things as well as in temporal. My dear Brothers and Sisters,
   if you only grow an inch in the course of ten laborious years, yet that
   growth is real--it is better than appearing to grow six feet in an hour
   when that would only be disease puffing you up and blowing you out.
   Often and often the soul needs to use the plumb line to see whether
   that which is built so very quickly is really built perpendicularly, or
   whether it does not lean this way or that. As the work goes on, we
   should frequently stop and say to ourselves, "Now, is this right? Is
   this real? Is this true?" Many a time, if we did that, we would have to
   fall on our knees and cry, "O Lord, deliver me from exalting myself
   above measure and counting myself to be rich and increased with goods
   when, all the while, I am wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."

   I would like you young men who are here to use the plumb line when you
   begin your spiritual life-building. I mean this--your father and mother
   are members of a certain church, but do not you, therefore, go and join
   that church without a thorough investigation of the principles on which
   it is founded. Use the plumb line to see whether it is all straight and
   square. Try all the doctrines that are taught and do not embrace that
   which is popular, but that which is Biblical! Then try with the plumb
   line the ordinances of the church--do not submit to them simply because
   other people do so, but use the plumb line of Scripture to test them
   all. You know that as a body we are not afraid that you will ever read
   your Bible too much. We, as Baptists, have no objection to your
   bringing everything that is taught to the test of the Bible, for we
   know that we would be the gainers if you were to do that. But instead
   of using the plumb line of the Bible, many people have a newly-invented
   test--the Book of Common Prayer, or Minutes of the Conference, or
   something else equally valueless! Now, whatever respect I have for
   books of that sort, I prize my Bible infinitely above them all and
   above all the volumes of decrees of popes, councils and conferences put
   together! I would not like to feel that I had been building, and
   building, and building, and building and yet that there had been a
   radical error in the whole structure, for I had commenced with a
   mistake and I had been building myself up not in the most holy faith of
   the Apostles, but in the most mischievous error of my own notions! I
   pray you, apply the Bible plumb line continually to all your beliefs,
   views and practices!

   But, even before you do that, use the Gospel plumb line to see whether
   you really were ever born-again, for our Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
   "except a man is born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." Test
   yourselves as to whether you have really believed in Jesus Christ for,
   "without faith it is impossible to please God." And if you have
   believed in Him, take care that while you think you are getting more
   faith, more love, more patience, more of every Grace--keep

   the plumb line going--otherwise you may get a great deal into the
   structure that you will have to take out, again, and you will get the
   building out of the perpendicular and the whole of it may come down
   with a crash!

   And this plumb line is also to be used upon all work that is done on
   behalf of other people. There is much teaching which has been given
   with a pure motive, but which, nevertheless, cannot endure this test.
   There are some little sects still existing upon the face of the earth
   that were formed with much labor by their originators, but they are
   evidently not gold, or silver, or precious stones, for they are passing
   away with the lapse of time. I would like, as a minister of the Gospel,
   to do for God that which will endure the supreme test of the Day of
   Judgment. I should not like to build up a great Church and then, when I
   was dead and gone, for it to be scattered to the four winds--and to
   learn in Heaven that I had been mistaken except as to the matter of my
   own salvation and that, consequently, while some good was done, there
   was evil done as well! No, we must constantly use the plumb line so
   that what we build may be perpendicular and may stand the test of the
   ages and the test of God's great Judgment Seat! Look to it, Sirs, you
   who are diligent, that you are diligent in spreading the Truth of God
   and not error! See to it, you who count up your many converts, that
   they are real converts and not the mere fruit of excitement! See to it,
   you who plod on from day to day so industriously seeking to save souls
   that they are really saved and truly brought to Christ, for, if not,
   your work will be in vain! Churches that are built in a hurry will come
   down in a hurry--wood, hay and stubble that look all right in the
   building will look terrible in the burning when the Day of the Trial by
   Fire comes!

   So that is our first point--that the plumb line is to be used in the
   construction of the building.

   II. Secondly, THE PLUMB LINE IS TO BE USED FOR TESTING THE BUILDING
   WHEN IT IS BUILT.

   Do not let us judge either ourselves or one another simply by the eyes.
   I have frequently thought that a building was out of the perpendicular
   when it was not and I have sometimes thought it perpendicular when it
   really was not so. The human eye is readily deceived, but the plumb
   line is not--it drops straight down and at once shows whether the wall
   is upright or not . We must continually use upon ourselves the plumb
   line of God's Word. Here is a wall that needs to be tested--the wall of
   self-righteousness. This man thinks he is all right. He never did
   anything very wrong. Moreover, he is religious in his way. He says that
   he has kept the Law of God from his youth up. That is a fine piece of
   wall, is it not?-- with some very handsome stones inlaid with fair
   colors. You are very proud of it, my dear Friend, but if I put the
   Bible plumb line to your life, you will be astonished to find how much
   out of the perpendicular it is. The plumb line is according to this
   standard, "If any man will be saved by his own works, he must keep the
   Law of the Lord perfectly, for he who is guilty of the breach of any
   one of God's commandments, has broken the whole Law. 'Therefore by the
   deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.'" That
   condemns your wall, does it not?--because you have not at all times
   kept the whole Law of God in the fullness of the meaning which Christ
   gave to it. If you are to be saved by works, there must not be a single
   flaw in the whole wall of your life! If there is, it is not in the
   perpendicular.

   Here is another wall, built by a man who says that he is doing his best
   and trusting to Christ to make up for his deficiencies. Well, my dear
   Friend, your wall is sadly out of the perpendicular because there is a
   text which says, "Christ is all"--and I know that the Lord Jesus Christ
   will never be willing to be put side by side with such a poor creature
   as you are--to be jointly used with yourself to your soul's salvation!
   Remember that in the Gospel plan it is not Christ and Co.--it must be
   all Christ, or no Christ at all! So, if you are depending partly upon
   self and partly upon Him, my plumb line shows that your wall is out of
   the perpendicular and that it will have to come down.

   Another man is depending upon rites and ceremonies. Now there are some
   very strong texts in Scripture concerning that matter. Here is one. "To
   obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
   Will you come before God bringing the blood of beasts or costly
   offerings? Has He not told you that to come before Him with a broken
   and a contrite heart and, especially to come to Him through the merit
   of the one great Sacrifice offered by His Son is the only acceptable
   way of approaching Him? The most gorgeous ceremonies in the whole world
   cannot save a single soul! That wall is out of the perpendicular and
   must come down!

   Here is another man who says, "I am, as often as I can be, a hearer of
   the Word." I am glad that you are, but if you are only a hearer and not
   a doer of the Word, your wall is out of the perpendicular, for, if it
   is good to hear what is right, it is still better to doit. And your
   condemnation will be all the more terrible if you have known what you
   ought to do and yet have not done it. There are many of you who come
   here and who have been coming for a long time who, I hope, will be led
   to do much more than simply come to hear, for I trust that you will be
   led by the Holy Spirit to lay hold on

   eternal life! If not, your wall will not endure the test of the Bible
   plumb line which plainly shows that you are quite out of the
   perpendicular!

   There are many other bowing walls, beside those I have mentioned, but I
   cannot stop to try them now. I would, however, most earnestly urge you
   all to remember that if you do not testyourselfby the plumb line of
   God's Word--if you are God's servant, you will be tried and tested.
   Have you ever known what it is to be laid aside, on a bed of sickness,
   and to have everything about you tried? In times of acute pain I have
   had every morsel of what I thought to be gold and silver put into the
   fire, piece by piece, by the Master, Himself, until He has put it all
   in. Thank God some of it has been proven to be gold and has come out
   all the brighter for the testing. But oh, how much of it has proved to
   be alloy, or even worthless dross! You can have a great deal of
   patience when you have not any pain. And you can have a great deal of
   joy in the Lord when you have got joy in your worldly prosperity--and
   you can have any quantity of it when you have no troubles to test its
   reality! But the real faith is that which will endure the trial by
   fire. The real patience is that which will bear intense agony without a
   murmur of complaint. The Lord will test and try you, my Brothers and
   Sisters, sooner or later, if you are His. He will be sure to use the
   plumb line so you had better use it yourself. It may save you much
   anxiety in the future if you stop now to question yourself and to
   enquire whether these things are real and true to you or not.

   And remember, once more, that God will use the plumb line at the Last
   Great Day to test everything. How many of us could hear, without a
   tremor, the intimation that God had summoned us to appear before His
   bar? O my Brothers and Sisters, if the great scales of Divine Justice
   were swinging from this ceiling right now and the Judge of All said to
   you, "Step in and let me see what is your weight," is there one of us
   who could solemnly and sincerely rise and say, "Lord, I am ready for
   the weighing"? Yes, I trust that many could say, each one for himself
   or herself, "There is not anything good in me, but my hope is fixed on
   Christ alone. And though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I want
   to be, nor what I shall be, yet 'by the Grace of God I am what I am.'
   My profession of being a Christian is not a lie. It is not a pretense,
   it is not a piece of religious masquerade--it is true, great God--it is
   true."

   My Brother, my Sister, if you can say that, you may step into the
   scales without any fear, for the contrite and believing heart can
   endure being weighed! But into the scales you will have to go whether
   you are ready or not. Your building will all have to be tested and
   tried. Some of you have built fine mansions, towers and palaces--but
   the plumb line will be applied to them all and it is God, Himself, who
   will use the plumb line in every case! No counterfeit will be allowed
   to pass the pearly gates, nor anything that defiles, or works
   abomination, or makes a lie. At the Last Great Day none shall pass from
   beneath the eye of the Judge of all without due examination. He will
   not suffer even one of the guilty to escape, nor condemn any of those
   who have been absolved for Christ's sake. It will be a right and just
   judgment that will be given in that day--but there will be judgment!

   III. My last point is this--THE PLUMB LINE IS USED IN THE WORK OF
   DESTRUCTION.

   When a city wall was to be battered down, the general would sometimes
   say, "This wall is to be taken down to this point." And then the plumb
   line was hung down to mark how far they were to go with the work of
   destruction. They thus marked out that part which might be spared and
   that which must be destroyed. Now, in the work of destruction, God
   always uses the plumb line and He goes about that work very slowly. He
   shows that He does not like it. When the Lord is going to save a
   sinner, He has wings on His feet--but when He is going to destroy a
   sinner, He goes with lead footsteps, waiting, warning many times and
   while He waits and warns, He sighs and cries, "How shall I give you
   up?" He even goes so far as to use an oath, saying, "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." God never brings men to
   judgment, as the infamous Judge Jeffreys did, in a great haste--he
   would hurry them off to the gallows with indecent speed. But, at the
   Last Great Day there will be a solemn and stately pomp about the whole
   dread assize--the sounding of the trumpet, the bursting of the graves,
   the setting up of the Great White Throne, the opening of the books and
   the majestic appearance of Him from whose face Heaven and earth will
   flee away! And when the Judgment begins, it will not be without due
   order, nor will it be without keen perception of all differences. There
   will hang the Infallible plumb line! That which is perpendicular will
   be declared to be perpendicular and that which bows will be shown
   tottering to its fall, for, before the Judge's eyes and before the eyes
   of the assembled universe shall hang a plumb line, with these words
   above it, "He who is filthy, let him be filthy still...and he who is
   holy, let him be holy still."

   The whole judgment shall be according to the plumb line. Not a soul, in
   that great day, will be sent to Hell who does not deserve to go
   there/If there is any man who can plead that it would be unjust to
   condemn him--if he can truthfully prove that he has been obedient up to
   the measure of his light--if he can prove that justice is on his
   side--God will not do an unjust turn to him or to any other man. Those
   awful gates that grind upon their iron hinges never yet opened to
   receive a soul damned unjustly! It would be impossible, in the very
   nature of things, for such a thing to happen. If any man could truly
   say, "This is unjust," he would have taken away the sting of Hell, for
   this is the essence and the soul of Hell--"I am wrong and can never get
   right. I am wrong and do not want to get right. I am so wrong that I
   love the wrong and make evil to be my good, and good to be my evil! I
   hate God, for it is impossible, while I am in such a state as this,
   that I can be otherwise than unhappy--and this is the greatest Hell
   that can happen to a man--not to love God and not to love right." That
   is the flame of Hell, the worm that gnaws forever--that being out of
   gear with God--that being out of harmony with the Most High forever! I
   think that there needs to be no fiercer Hell than that.

   So the final judgment will be according to the plumb line so that no
   one will be condemned unjustly. You talk to me about the fate of the
   heathen who have never heard the Gospel and I reply, "I know very
   little about them, but I know that God is just, so I leave them in His
   hands knowing that the Judge of all the earth will do right." There
   will not be one pang, to a soul in Hell, more than that soul
   deserves--not a single spasm of despair, or a sinking in hopelessness
   that is imposed by the arbitrary will of God. It will be a terrible
   reaping for them, when they reap sheaves of fire, but they will only
   reap what they have sown. There will be an awful pouring out of Divine
   Vengeance upon the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, but no one
   will be able to say that the judgment is unjust. The lost will feel
   that they only have to eat as they baked and to drink as they brewed.
   It will all be just to them and this is what will make the teeth of the
   serpent of Hell and the flame of its fire--that it is all just--that if
   I were, myself, judge, I must condemn myself to what I have to suffer.
   Think of that and escape from the wrath to come!

   And as that plumb line hangs there, in that Great Day of Account, there
   will be differences made between some lost men and other lost men. All
   Hell is not the same Hell any more than all flesh is the same flesh.
   That man knew His Lord's will and did it not--lay on the lashes to the
   fullest that the law allows! That other man did not obey His Lord's
   will, but then, he did not know it, so he shall be beaten with few
   stripes. Few will be too many for anyone to bear, so do not run the
   risk of them! But, oh, the many stripes--what will they be? There are
   the lost that perished in Sodom and Gomorrah--those filthy beings whose
   sins we dare not think upon. There they are and there is the Hell they
   suffer. There hangs the plumb line and, by His unerring justice, God
   awards their doom!

   But what will He award to you, and you, and you who have heard the
   Gospel simply and plainly preached, and yet have rejected Christ? You
   will have to go lower down in Hell than the inhabitants of Sodom and
   Gomorrah, for God's plumb line tells us that sin against the Light of
   God is the worst of sin and that the willful rejection of the atoning
   blood flowing from the loving Savior's wounds is the climax of all
   iniquity! That is how the plumb line will work. And when you come up,
   you rich man who has spent your money in sin--and when you come up, you
   poor man who works so hard--there shall be a difference between the one
   of you and the other--between the seducer whom the world allows to
   enter into her drawing room and the poor girl whom he led astray, for,
   though both are guilty--God will make a difference, not as men make it
   here, but quite the other way! The man of talent, of rank and of
   position who frittered away his whole existence in the life of a
   butterfly--there will be a difference between his sentence and that of
   the obscure, uneducated individual who did sin, but not as he did who
   had the greater gifts! To put one talent in a napkin brings its due
   punishment--but to bury or misuse 10 talents shall bring a tenfold
   doom--for there will hang that plumb line and by the rules of Infinite
   Justice everything shall be determined.

   "This is dreadful talk," some of you may be saying. It is. It is. And
   it is a dreadful business altogether for the lost-- that being driven
   from God's Presence when you die--hearing Him say, "Depart, you cursed,
   into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." You do
   not like to hear about this and I do not like to preach about it. Only
   I must do so lest you come unto that place of torment because I failed
   to warn you. Then might you say in your despair, "O cursed preacher! O
   unfaithful minister! You tried to tickle our ears with pleasant things
   but you left out all allusions to the wrath to come! You toned down the
   Truth of God, you softened it--and now we are ruined forever through
   your wicked desire to please our foolish ears!

   Sirs, you will never be able to truthfully say that, for I do pray you
   to escape from that awful future! Run no risk of it. I think every one
   of you would like to have his house insured against fire and to know
   that as far as proper title-deeds go, whatever you have is held on a
   good tenure. Then I implore you, make sure work for eternity by laying
   hold on Christ Jesus! Yield yourself up to Him that He may make you
   right where you are wrong, put you in gear with God and set you running
   parallel with the will of the Most High! That He, indeed, may build you
   up on the perpendicular, on the solid foundation of His eternal merits
   by faith through the power of the ever-blessed Spirit--that you may be
   so built that when God, Himself, holds the plumb line, it may hang
   straight down and He will be able to say, "It is all right." Happy will
   you be if you hear His verdict, "Well done, good and faithful servant;
   you have been faithful in a few things, I will make you ruler over many
   things. Enter into the joy of your Lord."

   May God grant this mercy to each one of you, for Jesus Christ's sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGE0N: 1 CORINTHIANS 3.

   Verse 1. AndI, brethren, coulddnot speak unto you as unto spiritual,
   but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. Their spiritual part
   had not grown strong. Their old carnal nature still had the
   preponderance as Paul was obliged to address that which was the bigger
   half of them.

   2. I have fed you with milk. That is a blessing.

   2. And not with meat That is not a blessing. It is a great privilege to
   be fed even with the simple Doctrines of Grace, with the milk of the
   Gospel. But it is a higher blessing to have such a spiritual
   constitution as to be able to eat the strong meat of the Word!

   2, 3. For hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are
   you able. For you are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you
   envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as
   men? As ordinary, unregenerate men.

   4. For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are
   you not carnal? Is not this just how common, ordinary men would do?
   Where is your spiritual-mindedness if you so act?

   5. Who then is Paul?Mark, it is Paul, himself, who asks this question!
   He puts his own name here in order to show that he does not despise
   Apollos any more than he despises himself.

   5-9. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you
   believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos
   watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants
   anything, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase. Now
   he that plants and he that waters are one: and every man shall receive
   his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together
   with God: you are God's husbandry. You are God's tilled ground. Then
   the Apostle works out the same thought under another image turning from
   agriculture to architecture.

   9, 10. You are God's building. According to the Grace of God which is
   given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and
   another builds thereon. Paul began the churches. He was the first
   preacher of the Gospel in Corinth and also in other places--and other
   preachers followed in his footsteps. When a man lays a good foundation,
   he always feels anxious that those who come after him should build in
   the same substantial manner as he has begun. It is a great grief to a
   man if he sees that after he has laid a foundation of the Truth of God,
   somebody else follows and builds up an error on the top of it. Alas,
   men still do that sometimes!

   10-15. But let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. For other
   foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now
   if any man builds upon this foundation with gold, silver, precious
   stones, wood, hay, rubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for
   the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the
   fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
   endures which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any
   man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall
   be saved; yet so as by fire. If he is a good man, he builds for God,
   though he may build mistakenly and say much that he ought not to have
   said. He shall escape, as a man flies out of a burning house, but all
   his work is gone. What a dreadful thing that would be, at the end of
   life, to get

   into Heaven, but to have seen that all your life's work had been a
   failure--to have been building a great deal, but to see it all
   burned--or to know, as you die, that because it was not God's Truth, it
   would all be burned!

   16, 17. Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the
   Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God--For
   so it should run--

   17. Him shall God destroy. If any man should pull down that which Paul
   built for God--if any man shall pull down that which any faithful
   minister of Christ has built before him--"him shall God destroy;"

   17, 18. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Let no man
   deceive himself If any man among you seems to be wise in this world,
   let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For that kind of folly is
   the doorstep of true wisdom.

   19. For the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. All that which
   calls itself philosophy and talks about its culture and so on, is
   foolishness with God--just as much today as it was among the Greeks.

   19, For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness. They
   call themselves wise, but they shall all be taken in their own
   craftiness.

   20, 21. And again, The lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they
   are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men. Men are poor things to
   glory in.

   21, 23. For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas,
   or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come,
   all are yours and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's. Glory be to
   His holy name!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Father and the Son

   (No. 2905)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1904,

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 3, 1876.

   "And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus
   Christ." 1 John 1:3.

   THE 12 Apostles were favored with the most intimate communion with our
   blessed Lord, but I can hardly say that they entered into fellowship
   with Him during His life on earth. Each of them might have been asked
   the question that our Savior put to one of them--"Have I been so long a
   time with you and yet have you not known Me, Philip?" But after Christ
   had ascended to Heaven and the Spirit of God had rested upon His
   disciples and in proportion as the Spirit did rest upon them, all that
   they had seen, heard and handled of their Lord became a means of
   communion between Himself and them. They were then able to realize what
   a very near, dear, deep and familiar communion had been possible to
   them through having spent some three years or so with Him in public and
   in private and having actually seen Him, heard His voice and felt the
   touch of His hands.

   Now, since their literal hearing, seeing and touching Christ did not
   create communion with Him apart from the work of the Spirit, we need
   not so much regret, as we might otherwise have done, that we never saw,
   or heard, or touched the Savior--because we, also, without seeing, or
   hearing, or touching Him, can believe in Him and rejoice that He said,
   "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." And,
   further, as it is through faith, rather than by sight, or hearing, or
   feeling that the Spirit of God operates upon us, when we believe the
   witness of the Apostles concerning Christ, the Spirit of God will bless
   their message to us and we shall enter into the Apostles' fellowship!
   What the Apostles learned, they learned in order that they might tell
   others. All that John saw, he was prepared to speak of according to his
   ability, that others might have fellowship with him and, dear Friends,
   remember that if you ever learn anything of Christ--if you have any
   enjoyment of His Presence at any time--it is not for you, alone, but
   for others to share with you! When fellowship is the sweetest, your
   desire is the strongest that others may have fellowship with you and
   when, truly, your fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus
   Christ, you earnestly wish that the whole Christian brotherhood may
   share the blessing with you. My great desire, just now, is not so much
   to preach to you as to lead you, by the Holy Spirit's gracious
   assistance, into the actual enjoyment of that which the Apostles
   possessed, that, believing, as we do, their testimony, we might thereby
   enter into their fellowship!

   First, I am going to try to answer this question, What is this
   fellowship with the Father and with His Son in general? Secondly, I
   want to show you how we can enjoy this fellowship in meeting, as we do,
   to celebrate the sacred Supper in memory of our ascended Lord.

   I. First, then, WHAT IS THIS FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND WITH HIS
   SON WHICH THE APOSTLES ENJOYED AND WHICH THEY WISHED US TO SHARE WITH
   THEM?

   Let me give you an illustration to show you what fellowship is. Yet,
   while I use it, I regret that it falls so far short of the Truth of God
   I wish to illustrate, yet I know not of a better one. Suppose that a
   great plague raged in London, like that which carried off so many of
   the population in years gone by? And suppose that there lived, in this
   city, a father and a son whose one care was for the healing of others.
   Suppose you lived in the same house as they lived in and that you saw
   the intimate affection existing between them? And suppose that you were
   in their council chamber when they consulted together as to what was to
   be done for the perishing citizens? You would mark the resolve of the
   son to make a sacrifice

   of himself from day to day by going into the homes of those who were
   dying with the plague. You would observe him as, with his father's
   smile resting upon him, he went forth to his work. You were privileged
   to live in the house while the work of rescue was going on and you saw
   how the sick ones were being plucked from the grip of the terrible
   disease, like brands from the burning. You watched the father's love
   and the son's self-sacrifice--and you were filled with admiration of
   them.

   Now, that being taken as a supposition, feeble as it is, I want to
   ground upon that my description of what is meant by fellowship with the
   Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. You must not, however, confuse
   fatherhood and sonship, as they exist among men, with these
   relationships as they stand towards God, for it is the eternal Father
   and the eternal Son with whom we are to be brought into fellowship and
   the terms that are used in speaking of them are accommodated to our
   poor understandings--but they are not to be literallyconstrued and,
   they are especially not to be understood in any carnalsense, nor to be
   applied to the unregenerate.

   Well, suppose we are living in such a house as I have tried to describe
   to you--the first thing necessary for fellowship with such a father and
   such a son would be mutual communication. To live in the house where
   they were, yet never to speak to them, or to be spoken to by them,
   would be no sort of fellowship! Merely to know that there were such
   persons in the house and to know that they were engaged in such blessed
   work as that would not make us partakers with them and would not give
   us communion with them. We must speak to them and they must speak to
   us. And the speaking, on both sides, must be of a kind, loving
   sort--not, on our part, that which would offend them, nor, on their
   part--that which would imply anger towards us. That is the very
   beginning of our fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
   Christ. There must be mutual communication between us. We must have
   heard the voice of God in our hearts and we must have spoken to God
   from our hearts. You cannot enjoy this fellowship, my Friend, whatever
   you say, unless your soul has learned to speak with God in prayer and
   praise--and unless your ears have learned to listen to whatever He says
   to you through His Book and by His Spirit, through His ministers and in
   Creation and Providence. His voice is sounding everywhere and, in order
   to fellowship with Him you must have the ears that hear and the heart
   that believes what He says to you. And you also must have a tongue that
   responds to His voice, for there can be no true communion without
   mutual communication. Do you not perceive the kinship of the two words,
   communion and communication, communion and conversation? This there
   must be or there will be no true fellowship.

   Now think of our illustration again, but transfer it to the higher
   sphere. You are living in the house and you are sick with the plague.
   Yet, suffering in that fashion in the house where the one business
   carried on is the healing of the sick, I will suppose that you refuse
   to put yourself under the care of the son, who is the great physician.
   If you despise his remedies, or delay receiving them, you cannot be
   said to have any true fellowship with him. Evidently you do not
   appreciate his efforts on behalf of others, or you would be willing to
   accept his services on your own account. It is his business to save,
   yet you are not saved. He is quite close to you and he is able, with a
   single touch of his hand, to heal you, yet you will not permit his
   skill to be exercised upon you. Then, clearly, you do not believe in
   him, for you do not desire to submit yourself to him! And it is equally
   clear that you have no fellowship with him and cannot have any. If we
   are to have any fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, we must, first
   of all surrender these poor sinful souls of ours into His dear
   hands--and we must go to the Father and say to Him, "Father, we have
   sinned." And as we gaze, by faith, upon the atoning Sacrifice, we must
   say, "But although we must confess that we have sinned, there is the
   blood that makes atonement for sin--therefore, Father, accept us
   because we put our trust in Your only-begotten Son."

   This is essential to true fellowship and, as you will see, it is a part
   of it. So here you are, first of all, in communication with the Father
   and the Son and, secondly, reconciled to God by the death of His
   Son--healed of the awful, soul-destroying plague of sin. And thus you
   have taken two steps upon the great highway of fellowship with the
   Father and with His Son Jesus Christ! And you can sing with Toplady--

   "For Your free electing favor, You, O Father, we adore! Jesus, our
   atoning Savior, You we worship evermore!"

   But it is necessary, further, supposing us to be living in the house
   with this father and son and desiring to have full fellowship with
   them, that we should have an intelligent apprehension of the work they
   are doing. Suppose we know as a matter of general knowledge that they
   are healing the sick, but we are not aware of the self-denials to which
   that well-

   beloved son has exposed himself, or of the bountiful heart of that
   generous father who was willing even to yield up his son to endure all
   the perils of the plague for the sake of those who were smitten by it?
   If we do not know as much as this, we cannot have anything like full
   fellowship with the father and the son, but in proportion as we study
   the details of their work--and perceive the adaptation of what they are
   doing to the great end they have in view--we shall be sure to have
   fellowship with them. So, Beloved, when you are yourselves saved, study
   to know more and more about both Christ and the Father! Dive deeply
   into the great mystery of the Divine Purposes of Love and Mercy. See
   how the Father ordained, before the foundation of the world, that in
   the race of mankind He would find exponents of His boundless love who
   will make known to principalities and powers, in the heavenly places,
   throughout eternity, the manifold riches of His Grace. See, too, how He
   laid upon His Son the work of healing this sin-smitten world. Study
   every detail that you can ascertain concerning the Father and the
   Son--the minutest touch upon the canvas is worthy of a century's study,
   so full is every point of deep mystery and rich instruction to the
   soul. And I am persuaded that as you increase in the knowledge of the
   Father and of His Son Jesus Christ through the Revelation of the Divine
   Spirit, you will also increase your fellowship with the Father and with
   His Son!

   We advance still further when this work, which is being done by those
   whom we are in such close contact, commands our intense approbation and
   admiration. Turning, for a minute, simply to our illustration, think of
   the heroic father and of his self-denying son and say to yourself, "How
   amazing it is that these plague-stricken people should be allowed to
   come and howl and rage against him under his very window! Yet all the
   while he is living for them--how strange it is that these very people
   who in the madness that follows from their disease, even seek the life
   of his son, the great physician! Nevertheless they are the objects of
   that great physician's sedulous care and he is ready to lay down his
   life for them if he may save them!" You would thus find your heart
   going out in admiration of that father and son and such undeserved and
   disinterested love as theirs would bring you into fellowship with them.
   Now lift the illustration again into the higher sphere, and see,
   through it, the grand design of God to make His foes His friends, to
   change rebels into loyal courtiers, to make ingrates into sons and
   daughters and to lift up the heirs of wrath and cause them to sit with
   Him as kings and priests upon His Throne! When you see how Christ comes
   down to raise this world up from the gulf into which it had fallen and,
   like another Atlas--only far greater--to bear upon His shoulders the
   weight of the world's sin, you cannot help admiring Him! And as you
   admire and approve, you enter into a still higher measure of fellowship
   with the Father and with His Son.

   You get on to a further stage when, at last you are able to enter into
   sympathy with the Divine Workers. Suppose (to go back to our
   illustration), you lived in the house with that father and son and saw
   this work of mercy going on day after day--poor starving and dying
   people being picked up, placed in the hospital and healed--and that
   great physician, the son, perpetually suffering in order that he might
   heal them, enduring all manner of insults and ignominy at their hands,
   yet always determining to save them? You would come, at last, to feel
   such sympathy with both father and son that the plague-stricken people
   would be almost as much the objective of your care as of theirs! You
   would be worked up into enthusiasm for the poor sufferers and you would
   feel that it was such a blessed work to help in caring for them that if
   it were possible, you would wish to be engaged in it. You begin to take
   an interest in all the details of the service and you rejoice as you
   hear of one and another of the sick ones being restored. You feel that
   you must love the self-denying physician who is giving up comfort,
   ease, honor--everything--to save the suffering and dying people. You
   feel such sympathy with him in the work that he is doing that you could
   kiss his feet. And when you hear of his being despised and rejected,
   you feel that you could wash his feet with your tears of regret that he
   should be treated in so shameful a fashion.

   You are getting into fellowship with him now! And when I look at my
   dear Lord and Master and think of the Father and the Son planning and
   working with heart and soul for the salvation of the chosen. And when I
   see sinners saved one by one, or even by hundreds delivered from sin
   and made fit for Heaven, my soul feels a deep sympathy with this
   glorious work! Do you not also feel it, dear Friends? Do you not wish
   that sinners may be saved? Do you not pray that they may be? Does not
   your heart feel intense sympathy with the eternal purpose of the Father
   and the gracious work of the Savior? If so, you are having fellowship
   with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ!

   I can suppose that living in the house with that father and son, you
   would want to go still further and share their work If you had been
   cured by the skill of the physician, you would feel so intensely
   sympathetic with him in the great

   work that he is carrying on that, somewhat timidly and humbly, you
   would venture to say, "Can I be of any use? Can I carry the medicine,
   or put on the bandages, or give a cup of cold water to fevered lips, or
   wipe a tear from a weeping eye, or sit up at night with the sick who
   need to be watched and tended? Or can I even clean the floor of the
   house, or unloose the laces of the physician's shoes?--

   "My God, I feel the mournful scene, My heart yearns over dying men And
   wishes my pity would reclaim And snatch the firebrands from the flame."

   And if, as will be sure to be the case when you are doing something for
   Christ, some of the patients begin to mock you, as they mocked Him,
   that will reveal to you another phase of fellowship with Him. Then you
   will understand why He was so patient, for you will need to ask Him to
   make you patient. And when your words of warning, or instruction, or
   comfort are rejected, as His were, you will go to Him and say, "O
   Savior, I understand now a little of what Your griefs were when You
   were despised and rejected of men, for they have rejected Your Word
   which You did put in my mouth." In struggling to do good to others, you
   will meet with such rebuffs, misrepresentations, difficulties and
   direct oppositions that you will go to the Savior and say to Him, "O my
   Lord, I can now understand You better--not that I am anything like what
   I ought to be, but even my failures help me to see more of Your
   Sovereign patience and Your mighty love. O Divine Self-Denier--wondrous
   Self-Sacrificer--I would never have had such fellowship with You as I
   now have if You had not permitted me to take some humble part in this,
   Your great and glorious work!"

   So now you see. You have reached a point a long way ahead of where we
   started. You are now enjoying fellowship with the Father and with the
   Son because you have become a co-worker with God! We put our puny hands
   to the great work which He has undertaken and He strengthens our weak
   hands to do marvels for His name's sake. He works mightily within us
   and so we are able to work for Him and to have fellowship with Him. To
   come to the climax of all, I will suppose that you are living in that
   house of mercy which has been my figure all along and that you throw
   your whole soul so completely into the work that is carried on there
   that you say to the father and son, "This work so fully commands my
   sympathy and so delights my heart that I am quite carried away with
   enthusiasm for it. I admire the characters and I love the persons of
   those with whom I dwell--and now I ask that all I am and all I have may
   be used for the furtherance of this work--that I may not be reckoned
   merely as a lodger in this house, but be regarded as one of the family
   and that from henceforth, I, in my poor, humble capacity--for I am less
   than nothing--may never be personally mentioned again, but may be
   considered as part and parcel of this great mysterious firm whose
   existence means nothing but good to the city, and whose influence is
   all being employed for the health of the inhabitants."

   You know what I mean--lifting the illustration to the higher
   sphere--and it is well if you can say to the Lord, at last, "My Lord,
   henceforth for me to live shall be to do what You will and to give
   myself wholly up to seek those for whom Christ lived here below and
   upon which the Father's heart has always been set. Father, You will
   that Your Truth should be known wherever lies have, at present, the
   dominion--then give me Grace, I pray You, to will it, too, and to
   publish Your Truth everywhere according to the measure of my ability.
   You will that the nations of the earth should be subdued unto your Son
   and become His loyal subjects--then, I pray You to put me into the
   ranks of the legions by whom You will achieve this glorious victory."

   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you will indeed have fellowship with
   the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ when you are nothing and
   Christ is everything! When you do not live to make money, or to attain
   to earthly honor, or to gain comfort, or anything else for yourselves,
   but when each of you can say, "This one thing will I do, for Christ
   will I live, and for Christ will I be content even to die so that to
   the utmost ends of the earth His name and fame may be made known."--

   "I want to live as one who knows Your fellowship of love. As one whose
   eyes can pierce beyond The pearl-built gates above. As one who daily
   speaks to You, And hears Your voice Divine, With depths of tenderness
   declare,

   'BBeloved, you are Mine!'"

   II. Now, in the second place, I have to briefly answer the second
   question--HOW MAY FELLOWSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND WITH THE SON BE
   ENJOYED IN THE CELEBRATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER?

   As you all know, the Lord's Supper is the memorial feast in which we
   are to show, or proclaim, the Lord's death "till He comes." Come He
   will and our hearts cry to Him, "Even so, come quickly, good Master!"
   This Supper sets forth His death and the way in which we derive benefit
   from it, namely, by receiving Him spiritually into our souls even as we
   take the bread and wine literally into our bodies and assimilate them
   so that they become part of ourselves. Well, then, how can we have
   fellowship with God in showing forth the death of Christ by means of
   this memorial supper?

   I think we can do so, first, by coming to the conclusion that the
   Sacrifice of Christ was an absolute necessity. We are fully persuaded
   that God the Father would never have given up His only-begotten Son to
   die for human guilt if there had been any other way of saving lost
   sinners--and also that Jesus Christ would never have taken upon Himself
   the awful burden of human guilt and agreed to be bruised of the Father
   if it had not been absolutely essential that He should die, or that man
   should, or that justice should--it had to be one of the three! God the
   Father agreed with God the Son that this colossal Sacrifice was
   necessary. My Soul, do you also agree that it was necessary? Do you see
   that there was no loophole for your escape except through the bleeding
   Savior's wounds? Will you now admit with all your heart that the
   Father's wisdom was right and that the Son's wisdom was right? Has the
   Spirit of God taught you that this was the best plan of salvation that
   could possibly have been devised? Looking all around, have you come to
   the conclusion that there is no salvation by works, no salvation by
   tears and no salvation anywhere but by the blood of God's only-begotten
   and well-beloved Son? If any of you have come to that conclusion, you
   have thereby entered into fellowship with the Father and with the Son,
   for they have long ago come to the same conclusion!

   Then, next, dear Friends, while you are sitting around the Communion
   Table, endeavor to think of the sufferings of Christ so that you will,
   in your measure, enter into the moods of His mind while He was
   suffering for you. As He felt a great horror of sin, pray the Lord to
   make you feel intense horror of it--and let the very thought of it
   wound you as it wounded Him. He felt the shame of sin--then ask the
   Holy Spirit to teach you how shameful it is. In your mind and heart,
   crown sin with a crown of thorns like that with which it crowned your
   Lord. And spit at sin, and scoff at sin, even as sin did scoff and spit
   at your Lord! Yet further, our Lord Jesus felt that justice must be
   honored--so feel in your soul, as you come to the Table, that the
   Justice of God must be honored, magnified and glorified. Have
   fellowship with Christ in feeling that, cost what it may, God is never
   unjust. Agree to that in your heart of hearts and you will be having
   fellowship with the Father and with the Son while you are so agreeing!

   Go over in your mind all the griefs and woes that your dear Lord
   endured and remember how He resolved that for the joy that was set
   before Him, they were all things to be despised. Do you feel that any
   losses and cross which you may have to bear for His sake, or any scorn
   or persecution that may ever come upon you because you belong to Christ
   are things that are only to be reckoned as the small dust of the
   balance in comparison with the glory of God? Then you are drinking of
   Christ's cup and being baptized with His Baptism--and having fellowship
   with Him in His sufferings. Let your thoughts travel along the road to
   Gethsemane and from Gethsemane to the accursed gallows on the hill of
   Calvary. In your meditation follow your Lord and ask Him to let you
   drink of the brook by the way, as He did, that you also may lift up
   your head--and in that way you will have fellowship with the Father and
   with His Son Jesus Christ. You may even adopt the rapturous language of
   Faber and sing--

   "I love to kiss each print where Christ did set His pilgrim feet, Nor
   can I fear that blessed path Whose traces are so sweet."

   Then, again, Beloved, I pray the Holy Spirit to help you and to help me
   to glorify God concerning the death of Christ while we are at His
   Table. As you eat the bread and drink the wine, think of what Christ
   suffered and of the mysterious way in which His sufferings have brought
   Glory to the Father's name. I do verily believe that when Christ bore
   the sins of His people up to the tree--and away from the tree--the
   Justice of God was more honored than it would have been if all the
   elect had been sent to Hell forever! If our sins had been punished upon
   ourselves with the utmost rigor of the Divine Law, that Law would not
   have been as honored throughout the entire universe of intelligent
   beings as it now must be when they hear that God, Himself, would sooner
   pay the penalty of sin than allow His Law to be broken with

   impunity! O august death of Christ in which God, Himself, becomes the
   sacrificial Victim and bleeds and dies rather than that on the spotless
   tablets of His Law, any stain should be made, even though it should be
   by the finger of His mercy! Glorify God, then! Praise Him and let your
   whole soul extol Him for this wondrous arrangement of Grace--

   "So just to God, so safe for man"-- for so you will be having
   fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. You probably
   remember that the line I just quoted was written by Dr. Watts in praise
   of the Gospel. And I hope that you can say with him--

   "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!

   How well Your blessed Truths agree!

   How wise and holy Your commands!

   Your promises, how firm they be!

   How firm our hope and comfort stands!

   Should all the forms that men devise

   Assault my faith with treacherous art,

   I'd call them vanity and lies,

   And bind the Gospel to my heart." Next, you can enter into fellowship
   at the Communion Table by loving Christ, your Mediator, as well as by
   glorifying God the Father. You know that God loves Jesus Christ. I
   mean, the Man Christ Jesus, God and Man in one Person. He loves Him not
   only in His essential Godhead, as He must always love Him, but He also
   loves Him for His work's sake. With what delight do the Father's eyes
   rest on His Son! How sweetly does He say to Him, "Well done!" How does
   He delight to honor and glorify Him! Do you not also feel something of
   the same sort of love to Christ as you gather around His Table? Ask the
   Spirit of God to cause you to be enamored of Christ and to make Him to
   be "altogether lovely" in your eyes. Pray for such a view of Him that
   your inmost heart shall melt under the Divine passion of love to your
   dear Lord. Let His wounds be the charm to win you. Let His spotless
   Character be the beauty to enthrall you. And when you thus love Christ,
   you will perceive that as God the Father loves Christ even more than
   that, you will have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
   Christ!

   We do not invite you to come and kneelaround the Communion Table, for
   there is nothing upon it to be worshipped. But when the breaking of
   bread is being celebrated, we ask you to sit as much at your ease as
   you can, just as the Last Supper was instituted by our Lord. Those who
   gathered round that table reclined in the Oriental posture of repose.
   We cannot do that, nor would it be in harmony with our usual idea of
   what is reverent and seemly. At the paschal feast they stood with their
   loins girded and their staves in their hands, for they were about to
   depart in haste into the wilderness. You have no need to do that, but
   you may sit at this Table as one who is at rest--and so you may have
   fellowship with God--for do you not know that this feast celebrates
   Christ's rest? His blood has been shed, His body broken--He has become
   food for our souls! His Redemption work is finished! He has gone His
   way until He shall come, the second time, to drink the new wine in the
   Kingdom of His Father. Christ rests, so if you also rest you will be in
   sympathy with His finished work.

   Remember also that God rests. When Noah offered a sacrifice to God,
   Jehovah smelled a sweet savor of rest--not in Noah's sacrifice, but in
   what Noah's sacrifice typified and symbolized--that is, in the
   Sacrifice of Christ. If I may use such an expression concerning You, O
   blessed God, Your Sabbath was broken by man's sin. It grieved God that
   He had made man because he so rebelled against Him and dishonored Him.
   And, therefore, the Lord had no rest. But when He saw Christ on the
   Cross--a Man who had done all His will, suffering all His will--God, as
   well as Man, bearing human sin in His own Person--it pleased the Lord
   to bruise Him and to put Him to grief. But when He had done it and the
   Son had finished His Sacrifice and come home, then the Father rested!
   He could rest in His love and rejoice over His Church with singing, for
   the ransom price for her Redemption was paid, the battle was fought and
   the victory won forever! Sin was overcome, the old serpent's head was
   broken, Hell was vanquished and death was doomed to die! And it is now
   only a matter of time when the gleaming banners of Christ, lit with the
   light of victory, shall be borne aloft after the final fight of
   Armageddon--and when that is over there shall go up this mighty shout
   which every star shall hear--while

   Heaven's heights shall echo and re-echo the strain and the deeps of
   Hell are stirred with the wondrous chorus of the redeemed, "Hallelujah,
   Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns"--reigns because of the
   Cross--reigns because Christ was there able to say, "It is finished!"

   Come then, Beloved, and rest, for so you will have fellowship with God,
   Himself! Let no sense of sin disturb you-- no distracting thoughts
   annoy you. Say to yourself, "God is satisfied with Christ's work and so
   am I. God has said, 'It is enough' and what is enough for the Infinite
   God is surely enough for me." The Lord bless you, as you come to His
   Table, for His Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 JOHN 1; 2:1-6.

   May that Divine Spirit who inspired every Word of this wonderful
   letter, bless it to all our hearts as we read it!

   1 John 1:1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard,
   which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our
   hands have handled, of the Word of life. You remember how John begins
   his Gospel--"In the beginning was the Word," and how, a little later,
   he says, "In Him was life." The Holy Spirit seems to have recalled
   those expressions to his mind, for He moves him to use them again. Note
   how clearly, how explicitly John writes concerning the Logos, the
   eternal Word. He says, "That which we have heard, that which we have
   seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have
   handled of the Word of life...that declare we unto you." The facts of
   Christ's history on earth are recorded by eyewitnesses who could not be
   deceived concerning them. They exercised their various senses with
   regard to Christ--hearing, seeing and touching Him again and again.
   They were veracious witnesses and they died in testimony of their faith
   in what they asserted. And when anything has been heard, seen,
   inspected and even touched and handled by a company of reliable
   witnesses, the testimony of such witnesses concerning it must be
   accepted as true.

   2. (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness,
   and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was
   manifested unto us). John and his fellow Apostles were eyewitnesses of
   the coming to earth of God in human flesh--the indwelling of the Word
   of Life in a body like our own.

   3, 4. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you
   also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the
   Father and with His Son Jesus Christ And these things write we unto
   you, that your joy may be full Hear this, you people of God! The
   objective of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is that you may have
   joy--yes, that you may have a heart full of joy and that you may know
   what full joy means, for here below we get but drops and dashes of joy
   unless we are brought into fellowship with God through Jesus Christ!
   But then, we have the very joy of God in our souls! Oh, the delight of
   it! Oh, that you could all know it to the fullest!

   5. This, then, is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare
   unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all That is
   to say, God is knowledge, God is truth, God is purity. "God is light,
   and in Him is no darkness at all." There is no darkness of sin, or
   ignorance, or error about God.

   6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we
   lie, and do not tell the truth. He who walks in ignorance and sin is in
   fellowship with the powers of darkness--he is certainly not in
   fellowship with God who is light!

   7. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
   fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin. So that in the very highest state to which we
   can attain in this world, namely, walking in the light, as God is in
   the light and having fellowship with Him, even then we shall sin and
   shall still need the blood of Christ to cleanse us from its stain. So
   those exceedingly err who say that the Christian can or does live
   utterly free from sin! Either they have lowered the standard by which
   they judge the actions of men, or they excuse themselves on some
   Antinomian principle--or else they must be altogether ignorant of the
   Truth of God about the matter--for "if we walk in the light, as God is
   in the light" and have fellowship with Him, still, "the blood of Jesus
   Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." And, therefore, there is sin
   needing to be cleansed, for Christ does no work as a superfluity! But
   what a mercy it is for us to feel the continual cleansing of the
   precious blood of Jesus so that if we sin through ignorance, or if we
   sin by omission or by commission, that precious blood constantly keeps
   us so pure that we can still walk with God!

   8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is
   not in us. It does not matter, either, in what sense we say it! We may
   try to beguile ourselves with the idea that we say it in some peculiar
   Gospel sense, but, "we deceive ourselves" if we say it in any sense
   whatever, for we have sin and we do sin!

   9. If we confess our sins. That is the point! And he who says that he
   has no sins will not confess them! He who believes himself to be
   perfect cannot enjoy the blessing described in this 9th verse. To deny
   that we have any sin is to walk in darkness and to show we are without
   the light which would reveal our sin to us! And if we are walking in
   darkness we cannot be in fellowship with God. But to see sin in
   ourselves from day to day--humbly to confess it and mourn over it--is
   to walk in the light. And walking in the light we shall have fellowship
   with God who is light. "If we confess our sins"--

   9, 10. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
   us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make
   Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.

   1 John 2:1. My little children, these things I write unto you, that you
   sin not. That you may abstain from it, abhor it and not indulge in
   anything that would lead you towards it.

   1. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
   Christ the Righteous. We are to seek to live a perfectly holy life, but
   inasmuch as we constantly fall short of that ideal, here is our
   comfort--we still have an Advocate-- we still have One who undertakes
   our cause and pleads for us before His Father's Throne!

   2. And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but
   also for the sins of the whole world. Whoever comes to Him shall
   receive deliverance from sin. Neither Jew nor Gentile is exclusively
   considered in the offering of the Atonement of Christ--those for whom
   He died are of every race, color, class and kin.

   3-6. And hereby we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
   He that says, Iknow Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and
   the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him verily is
   the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He that
   says he abides in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked.
   May the Holy Spirit graciously lead us all to this extraordinary walk
   of Grace, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Honor for Honor

   (No. 2906)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 7, 1876.

   "Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be
   lightly esteemed." 1 Samuel 2:30.

   GOD is certain, sooner or later, to recompense men according to the
   rule of Infallible Justice and if it is so among saints, it is equally
   so among sinners. If we could really know the secret history of any
   man's life, we would be able to understand his career better than we
   now do. There is many a life of which we have had to say to the Lord,
   "Your way is in the sea, and Your path in the great waters, and your
   footsteps are not known." Yet if we had known more about the man, it
   would have been all plain enough. If we had seen the sin that was
   hidden from human eyes, we would have understood the sorrow that was
   evident to all.

   That will suffice with regard to the general principle that is
   enunciated in our text. If we honor God, He will honor us. And if we
   despise Him, we shall be lightly esteemed. Now, taking only the first
   clause of the text, there are two things upon which I wish to speak
   with great earnestness. The first is, here is a plain duty, namely, to
   honor God and, secondly, here is a very generous reward--"Those who
   honor Me I will honor."

   I. First, then, HERE IS A PLAIN DUTY--to honor God.

   It is the natural duty of every creature to honor its Creator and with
   such a glorious and blessed God as Jehovah is, it certainly must be
   incumbent upon all who have any understanding of His existence, to
   render honor and homage to Him. Such is His personal grandeur, such is
   the perfection of His Character, such is His almighty power and such
   are the obligations under which we are placed to Him as our Creator,
   that altogether apart from spiritual things, it is, undoubtedly, the
   duty of every creature to honor God!

   But what shall I say, Beloved, of those of us who are the Lord's chosen
   people? Do I need to prove that we should honor our God? He is our
   Father and He said long ago, "If then, I am a Father, where is My
   honor?" Ordinary children are told to honor their father and
   mother--then how much more should the children of God honor their
   Father who is in Heaven? He has done so much for us above and beyond
   our creation--in our election, in our effectual calling, in our
   regeneration, in the blood-washing, in the daily supply of our needs,
   in the continual preservation of our souls from going down into the
   Pit--that we are overwhelmed with indebtedness to Him--and the very
   least return that we can make to Him is to render Him all the honor
   that we can. He has made Himself known to us in a way that He has not
   revealed Himself to the rest of His creatures. His handiwork is seen in
   the whole visible Creation. In every star His glory shines. But He is
   not seen there as He is revealed to us in Christ Jesus and, alas,
   unrenewed men have not eyes with which they can see the resplendent
   Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But He has given to us this
   spiritual eyesight! He has taught us much about Himself by His Spirit
   and the Spirit has revealed to us even the deep things of God. If it
   were possible for us to not honor Him after all that we know of Him,
   what criminality would be ours! But the knowledge and the Grace He has
   given us compel us to honor Him and the more we know of what He is, and
   of what He has done for us, the more do we feel that we must and will
   honor Him. Glory be unto Your holy name, O gracious Father, that in our
   inmost spirits we adore, honor and worship You at this moment! And, by
   Your Grace we will do so till time shall be no more!

   I hope you see clearly that it is your duty to honor God, so let us
   enquire in what way that duty comes home to each one of us. First, I
   think that we are to honor God by confessing His Deity in all our
   prayers, praises and, indeed, at all

   times. May none of us ever fall into the various heresies which some
   have held concerning the Persons of the blessed Trinity in Unity! Of
   all errors, these most closely touch the very vitals of true religion.
   I suppose if any man looks long into the Doctrine of the Trinity, he
   will be like one who gazes upon the sun and will be apt, first, to be
   dazzled and then to be blinded by the excessive light. If a man asks
   that he may understand this great mystery and refuses to believe until
   he does, then he will most assuredly be blinded! How can you, O man,
   hold the sea in the hollow of your hand? And how can you see God's face
   and yet live? Do you marvel that your mind staggers under the load that
   you try to put upon it and that your reason begins to reel? We cannot
   comprehend God! But we can honor the Father by worshipping Him and
   honor the Son by adoring Him--and honor the Holy Spirit by paying
   homage, reverence and glory unto Him--and never countenancing in our
   spirit any error which would detract from the Glory of Father, Son, or
   Holy Spirit, for, if we do, we shall not obtain the blessing promised
   in our text--"Those who honor Me I will honor."

   God save us from believing any doctrines which cast reflections upon
   our Lord Jesus Christ, or upon the Divine Spirit! I am afraid that the
   Church of Christ has never yet sufficiently honored the Spirit of God
   and that, in the ministry of the present day, there is such a general
   ignoring of the Holy Spirit and His work that many hearers might say,
   as those disciples at Ephesus did, "We have not so much as heard
   whether there is any Holy Spirit." If that is the case, it ought to be
   repented of and avoided in the future--for you may depend upon it that
   honoring the Triune God is absolutely essential to obtaining the
   blessing promised in our text, "Those who honor Me I will honor."

   Secondly, we can do this by confessing the dominion of Godand proving
   the reality of our confession by yielding obedience to Him. It is no
   use for you to say, "I honor God," and yet to continue to live contrary
   to His Law. If we do honor Him, we shall seek to obey His commandments
   and though, by reason of infirmity, we shall fall short of the
   perfection of obedience, we shall honor the Lord by weeping over our
   imperfections. We shall not quarrel with the requirements of God's
   commands, but we shall ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be conformed
   to them. That man does not honor God who goes picking and choosing
   among the Divine Precepts, attending to one, but not to another! He is
   not honoring God who does not render obedience to His will in all
   things--the social duties that appertain to the hearth and home, the
   duties that are associated with the Church of God and the duties which
   concern the common life of ourselves and others. It is never right to
   offer to God a sacrifice stained with the blood of a duty--and it is by
   endeavoring to be obedient to the Lord in all respects that our desire
   to honor Him is to be proved. If there is anything about the Lord's
   will that you do not like, my dear Brothers and Sisters, that is a
   point in which you are wrong! It is an indication of the true state of
   your soul when there is any Divine Precept against which you kick--and
   you should pray very fervently that you may overcome that sin and be
   conformed to the Lord's will in all things--for, unless you honor Him
   by seeking to render universal obedience to Him--unless, being saved by
   His Grace, you abhor all sin and seek, by the help of the Holy Spirit
   to walk blameless in all the commandments of the Lord, you have not
   given Him the honor which He rightly claims and you cannot expect that
   He should honor you!

   In the next place, seeing that we have all sinned, we must honor God by
   confessing sin and so glorifying His Justice. I believe that God is
   greatly glorified by a man who is overwhelmed with a sense of his
   guilt, when he comes and bares his bosom to the Divine inspection,
   acknowledging all his offenses, grieving over them and, as it were,
   laying his head upon the block and saying, "Lord, if You execute me. If
   You let the axe of Your Justice fall upon me to my utter destruction, I
   dare not complain for I deserve it all." Therefore, dear Friends,
   submit yourselves to the sentence of God--acknowledge how just it would
   be if He were to execute it upon you, for so you shall find favor at
   His hands. I do not know what else a poor convicted sinner can do that
   can be more acceptable to God, with the one exception of his coming to
   fully believe in Christ. So, guilty one, glorify God by making
   confession of your guilt. You have broken His Holy Law--acknowledge
   your offense in having broken it. Pay respect to the commands of God by
   confessing that you ought to have kept them. Admit the heinousness of
   the sin by which you have violated the will of God, for, in so doing,
   you will be honoring the

   Lord!

   And you, dear child of God, conscious of so many imperfections,
   remember that you honor God when you lie very low before Him--when you
   loathe yourself--when, as in the very dust, you cry, "Lord remember
   Your poor unworthy child and have pity on me!" You are thus magnifying
   and glorifying the holiness of God to which you feel that you have not
   yet attained. If you admit that you are but dust and ashes in His sight
   and not worthy to be regarded with favor by Him, that humility of yours
   is honoring and glorifying to Him.

   Further, we can honor the Lord by submitting to His teaching. A great
   many people go to the Bible to find texts in it to endorse a system of
   divinity which they have already embraced. That is not honoring God.
   The right course is to get your system of divinity out of the Bible
   under the unerring teaching of the Holy Spirit. This is the Book that
   is to teach us--we are not to try to square it to our scheme, but we
   are to make our scheme--if we have one--embrace all that is here
   revealed so far as we can ascertain it. Young man, I can speak from
   experience when I say that nothing will give you greater peace of mind
   than taking the Word of God as your only guide from the very beginning
   of your Christian life. It is commonly said that "the Bible, and the
   Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," but I scarcely know of
   any sect of Protestants, with one exception, of which that is true.
   There is something that all the others believe which cannot be found in
   the Bible and they have some other book or tradition tacked on at the
   end of the Bible. Sit down, my Friend, and study the Book without note
   or comment, asking the Holy Spirit to teach you what it means--and
   whatever it means, you believe it! You will not discover all that it
   means--there will be mistakes in you, as in your fellow Christians, but
   follow the Truth of God, as far as you can see it, wherever it may lead
   you, even if following it shall cause you to stand quite alone, for, in
   so doing, you will be honoring it and it will honor you.

   It is such a sweet thing to be able to say, "I may have been mistaken,
   but I have honestly sought to know the mind of God and with earnest
   dependence upon the Holy Spirit I have desired to accept His teaching.
   And, as far as I have learned it, I have followed it, regardless of the
   consequences of doing so, knowing that it must always be safe to follow
   where the Spirit leads the way." Act thus, young men and young women,
   whatever others may do! Some of them are content to follow the
   erroneous customs of former generations, although they are clearly
   contrary to the Word of God. Do not follow their evil example, but
   while the wax is soft, let it take the Divine impression of the Truth
   of God and so may you grow up to honor God beyond all who have gone
   before you!

   There is another way of honoring God and that is by simply trusting Him
   at all times. Always remember that the greater our troubles, the
   greater our weakness, the greater our infirmities--the greater is our
   opportunity of glorifying God by the aid of His Holy Spirit. "They that
   go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these
   see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep." They see much
   that landsmen never see and those who have deep experience of trial and
   trouble are the people who see most of the wonders of the Lord in the
   spiritual realm. Dear Brother, all seemed to go well with you until you
   trusted God--but since you did so, everything has seemed to go wrong
   with you! Can you trust Him now? Faith, when we are in smooth water,
   honors God, but faith, when we are in rough waters, will glorify Him
   far more! It is easy to bless His name when the barn is full and the
   table loaded--but can you glorify Him now that the homestead has burned
   down and the cupboard is bare? Ah, good woman--you could glorify God
   when your husband was in vigorous health and your children were all
   round about you--but now that He has been taken from you and your
   children are following him, consumption seizing upon them one after the
   other--can you trust the Lord now? And you, my Brother, now that your
   leg is broken, or your lungs begin to fail, or the asthma comes upon
   you, or old age is coming to cripple you--now that your circumstances
   are changing and your friends, like the swallows in autumn, begin to
   forsake you--can you rejoice in the Lord and glory in the God of Your
   salvation now? If you can do so, it is now in your power to honor God
   in a very wondrous way. It is glorious to be able to say, with Job,
   "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Whatever happens to you,
   never doubt the wisdom of God's working, or the love of His heart, but
   still, "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him." If you do this,
   you will honor Him and He will, in due time, honor you!

   I might remind you of many other ways in which we may honor and glorify
   God, but I will only mention one more. And that is this-- when we have
   not any particular trouble, we ought to honor God by great joy. I do
   not mean by such joy as the worldling has in his corn and wine, but by
   holy joy. How few Christians speak of God as their exceeding joy! I
   think we do meet with cheerful Christians, nowadays, more frequently
   than we used to, for we were, at one time, taught that the longer a
   man's face, the greater was His Grace. We do not believe in any such
   notion as that! Yet, to my mind we seldom, if ever, attain to the
   standard of joy which ought to be the abiding portion of a child of
   God. The elect ought to be the happiest people beneath the sky! Look at
   a great furnace when there is a strong blast blowing upon it--what
   intense heat there is there! A Christian ought to be like that furnace,
   glowing with intense delight, fervent love and overflowing joy! Why
   should you not rejoice, Beloved? Your sins are forgiven you! You are an
   heir of Heaven. You are, it may be, within a month or two, or within a
   year or two of being at God's right hand--to go no more out forever!
   Why

   should you not rejoice? Even now His Spirit dwells within you, His
   heart burns with love towards you and He rejoices over you--why should
   you not rejoice? If you rejoiced more, you would honor the Lord more
   and He would honor you even as He has promised! The poorest saint here
   can share in this great blessing simply by honoring God. The man with
   the least talent can honor God! The most ignorant Christian, the one
   who is least instructed in worldly learning can honor God! The weakest
   in bodily health, the sick, the dying can all honor God if they are His
   people! This plain duty is one which is possible to all the saints, by
   the Holy Spirit's gracious aid. May He help each one of us to carry it
   out and truly to honor God!

   II. Now I turn to the second point--HERE IS A VERY GRACIOUS
   REWARD--"Those who honor Me I will

   honor."

   First, this is true in the Church of God. The sons of Eli--Hophni and
   Phinehas--were priests, but they did not honor God and, therefore, God
   did not honor them. The people despised them and loathed the very
   services of the sanctuary because of their sin--and God thrust them out
   of the priest's office. I believe, my Brothers--and there are many of
   us who either are already ministers of the Gospel, or are in course of
   training for that high office--I believe that unless we with all our
   hearts honor God in our ministry, He will never honor us. My dear
   Brother, if you ever go in for anything else but glorifying God, you
   will make a failure of it! If you start with the idea of being a fine
   preacher, one who is able to orate in rounded periods and flowery
   sentences, or if it is your great ambition to gain a good position
   among respectable people, you will certainly come down with a crash and
   great will be your fall! But if any young man, truly called of God,
   says to himself, "I will glorify God whether I live or die--whether I
   am poor or whether I am prosperous--whether I am the means of bringing
   many souls to Christ, or am, apparently, a failure in my ministry, I
   will, at least preach the Truth of God and I will pray over it, and I
   will agonize in prayer for the souls of men. My teaching shall not aim
   at glorifying philosophical opinions, or displaying my own culture and
   my own powers of thought, but I will, above everything else, honor God.
   I will honor the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I will preach
   nothing up but Christ and nothing down but sin. I shall not seek to
   honor the denomination to which I belong, but I will live and labor
   simply to honor God"--well, my Brother, if that is your resolve, then
   the Lord will honor you!

   Then, next, this promise is true with regard to our own households.
   Poor Eli, I have no doubt, wished to have honor in his own house, so he
   paid great deference to his wicked sons. He knew that they were doing
   very, very wrong, but he spoke very gently to them, just as some
   Christian people whom I know are doing in their own families. Their
   boys are living as badly as ever they can, but they only say, "Our sons
   are so high-spirited and so easily offended that we must only
   indirectly hint that they are doing wrong. It would never do for us to
   pull them up sharply and say to them right straight out, 'You are going
   headlong to Hell and we implore you to stop, for, if you continue to
   act as you are now doing, you will be ruined forever.'" Yes, and in
   many a house God is not honored by family prayer--and the boys and
   girls are taught to look after money as if that were the chief end of
   life! "You go in for business, John, and make money somehow and do not
   be too particular about the means you employ in getting it. And, Mary,
   that is a very nice young man, an excellent Christian man, too, who is
   coming to see you--but he will not do for a husband--he has not enough
   money and that is the main thing to be considered nowadays." The
   worship of Mammon, the golden calf, prevails almost everywhere. God
   commanded His ancient people not to offer their children to Moloch, but
   it is done very often today--many parents are offering their sons and
   daughters to Moloch--the Moloch of fashion, the Moloch of
   wealth--daughters are given to men without characters as long as they
   have a sufficient quantity of gold.

   Well now, if the father or mother, instead of falling into that sin,
   says, "My chief concern for my dear boys and girls is that they should
   know the Lord. I should be glad to see them succeeding in business, or
   happily married to those who are in a good position, but my great
   longing is that they may know Christ and be found in Him, for that is
   the main thing, after all, and I will not tolerate in my house anything
   that Christ would not look upon with approbation, neither will I
   permit, as far as my power can go, anything that would grieve the
   Spirit of God." I believe that wherever parents thus seek the honor of
   God, God will honor their families very wonderfully. You will find,
   almost everywhere, that when a man gives everything up for God and does
   not look so much for the advancement of his own family as for the good
   of God's family as a whole, the Lord says to him very much what Queen
   Elizabeth said to one of the London merchants of her day. "I want you
   to go to Hamburg to attend to some business of mine," said the queen.
   "But Your Majesty," said the merchant, "my own business will suffer in
   my absence." "No," said the queen, "it will not, for if you attend to
   my

   business, I will attend to yours." And the Lord says to us that if we
   honor Him, He will honor us. And even in this present life He will give
   us a hundred fold for anything we give up for Him--and in the world to
   come? LIFE EVERLASTING!

   May none of you, dear Friends, ever be like Eli who had to mourn over
   the destruction of his sinful sons. But may you honor God in your
   families, for then He will also honor you there. Who is so honored as
   the venerable Christian who has his sons and his grandsons around him?
   He is a king, every inch of him, though, perhaps, he never earned more
   than a day-laborer's wages. As he lays his hands upon the heads of his
   children's children and implores his God to be their God, also, I seem
   to see a Patriarch stand before me in a grandeur which an emperor might
   envy! God will honor you in your family if you honor Him there.

   Then, again, God has a way of honoring His people in the society around
   them. You, young man, going into that warehouse and taking a clerkship
   with many others--if you are consistent, true to your colors and serve
   God faithfully--they will ridicule you, very likely, for a while. But
   if you continue to be consistent, they will soon respect you. If you
   honor God, God will honor you and you will find that, in society, it is
   the wise and safe method to keep the Lord always before you! Some of
   you young men who have come up to London from the country are apt to
   think that as others do not go to a place of worship on the Sabbath,
   you will not do as you did at your home. But I pray you to keep up your
   good country custom, for your employers and those who are about you
   will think far better of you if you do so. And, although this is, by
   itself, a low and ignoble motive, yet it has its place among the higher
   reasons for attending the means of Grace. If you honor God, you will
   get honor in the eyes of those whose opinion is worthy of your regard.

   Again, if we honor God, He will honor us in the wide, wide world, so
   far as our influence may reach. Look at that great crowd gathered in
   Smithfield! Who is that poor wretch standing in the middle? Many of
   those around him look upon him with the utmost scorn and derision. They
   have chained him up to a stake, and they are bringing dry firewood, for
   they are going to burn him to death! Who is that man? People in the
   crowd cry out that he is a dreadful heretic who deserves to die! But if
   you turn to Foxe's Book of Martyrs, you will find his name recorded
   there among the noble army who died as heroes of the Cross. Because he
   suffered for Christ, God has honored him and, at this present day, who
   among us would not rather be the martyr who was burned than the
   cardinal who was the means of getting him burned? Who would not rather
   have been numbered among the faithful multitudes in the valleys of
   Piedmont whose names are all unknown, than have been the Duke of Savoy,
   or the King of France, or the Pope of Rome who conspired together to
   put them to death?

   And, dear Friends, if God did not honor us before men at all, it would
   not matter much, for those who honor Him, He honors in their own
   consciences. God can honor you in such a way that you will be more
   contented with that honor than if your name and fame were blazoned
   forth before the whole world even though nobody else sees that He does
   it! The orator who addressed an audience and found that all his hearers
   went away with the exception of one man, was quite content with his one
   auditor, for that man was Plato! And if, in this world, you should so
   act that you should have no approbation left except the approval of God
   manifested to your own conscience, you might well be content! "I,
   Athanasius, against the world," was a grand thing for that staunch hero
   of the faith to be able to say, but if God was with Athana-sius, he
   might just as well have said, "I, Athanasius, against fifty thousand
   worlds," for what is the whole universe in comparison with God? "If God
   is for us, who can be against us?" Honor God, my dear young Friend
   leaving the parental roof and coming to London. I pray you to honor God
   and even if you should not meet with the esteem which a good character
   ought to win for you from those by whom you are surrounded--if you
   should come under a cloud--if you should, after all, have to live a
   life of poverty and obscurity--yet the fact that you have done what is
   right and that God smiles upon you with approval and gives you peace of
   conscience and quiet confidence in your soul will be a sufficient
   reward for you!

   I close by reminding you that we never know, any of us, how much God is
   honoring us. You did a noble deed the other day, my Brother, yet no one
   said, "Thank you," for it. You gave all you had, poor widow--the two
   mites that were all your living and nobody knew anything about it. But
   do you suppose that there is no fame except that which is spoken of by
   the breath of man? There are blessed spirits hovering all around
   us--multitudes of holy angels are watching the saints--and they see and
   approve all that is right! And I doubt not that there is often a worthy
   affirmation uttered by angelic lips when they see the devotion of the
   saints of God--the devotion which is unseen by mortal eyes!

   And, last of all, there shall come a day when this earth shall be all
   ablaze and, amidst the terrors of that great consummation of the age,
   the dead shall rise and you shall be among them, Brothers and Sisters.
   Then shall the trumpet sound exceedingly loud and long--and all human
   beings and the fallen spirits, too, shall come to judgment! And there,
   amidst such a throng as never was before beheld, the despised,
   misrepresented, persecuted follower of the right who honored God at all
   costs shall receive, before the assembled universe, honor from the Lord
   of All! Lift up your heads, O you children of God, for your Redemption
   draws near! It is a grand day, with some men, when they receive the
   Victoria Cross from their sovereign's hand, or when they are elevated
   to the House of Lords. But it will be a far higher honor when Christ
   shall say to the righteous, "Come, you blessed of My Father; inherit
   the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," and
   when He shall say to each one who has faithfully served Him, "Well
   done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in a few
   things, I will make you ruler over many things; enter you into the joy
   of your Lord." Brothers and Sisters, if God has saved us, let us live
   as in the light of the coming Day of Judgment! And may the Lord have
   mercy upon us in that day and honor us because first, by His Grace, He
   enabled us to honor Him!

   As for you who never think of honoring God and never care about Him,
   your destruction is certain if you continue in the way in which you are
   now walking. If you want to know how you may be damned, it is only a
   little matter of neglect that will ensure it. "How shall we escape if
   we neglect so great salvation?" I fear that many of you are living in
   that neglect. May the Holy Spirit graciously turn you from it and cause
   you to seek the Lord and believe in Jesus this very moment--that you,
   too, honoring God by your confession of sin and by believing in His
   Son, Jesus Christ, whom He has set forth as the one Propitiation for
   sin, may find the promise of our text true to you, also--for He will
   honor you even as you have honored Him!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 SAMUEL 2.

   Verses 1-3. And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoices in the LORD,
   my horn is exalted in the LORD: my mouth is enlarged over my enemies
   because I rejoice in Your salvation. There is none holy as the LORD:
   for there is none beside You: neither is there any rock like our God.
   Talk no more so exceedingly proud; let not arrogance come out of your
   mouth: for the LORD is a God ofknowledge, and by Him actions are
   weighed. This is a very suggestive and forcible expression. God does
   not judge our actions by their appearance, but puts them into the
   scales of the sanctuary and weighs them as carefully as bankers weigh
   gold!

   4-8. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are
   girded with strength. They that were full have hired out themselves for
   bread and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren has born
   seven and she that has many children is waxed feeble. The LORD kills,
   andmakes alive: he brings down to the grave, and brings up. The LORD
   makes poor, and makes rich: He brings low, and lifts up. He raises up
   the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, to
   set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory:
   for the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, and He has set the world
   upon them. What a clear view Hannah had of the Sovereignty of God and
   how plainly she perceived that God overrules all mortal things and does
   as He wills! How she seemed to glory in the power of that almighty hand
   whose working unbelievers cannot discern, but which, to this gracious
   woman's opened eyes, was so conspicuous everywhere!

   9-12. He will keep the feet of His saints and the wicked shall be
   silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail The
   adversaries of the LORD shall be broken topieces; out ofHeaven shallHe
   thunder upon them: the LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and He
   shall give strength unto His king and exalt the horn of His anointed.
   And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto
   the LORD before Eli the priest. Now the sons of Eli were corrupt; they
   knew not the LORD. Yet they were priests and when a man stands up to
   minister in holy things, and by virtue of his office is supposed to
   know the Lord, yet really does not, he stands not only in a position of
   the utmost guilt, but also in a position in which he is never likely to
   get a blessing. He seems to be beyond the reach of the ordinary
   agencies of mercy because he has assumed a position to which he has no
   right.

   13, 14. And the priest's custom with the people was that when any man
   offered a sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was
   boiling, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand and he struck it
   into the pan, or kettle, or cal-

   dron, or pot; all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took for
   himself So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came there.
   There was no such rule or regulation given by God, but these sons of
   Eli had made rules for themselves. It is always wrong to alter the
   regulations of the Lord's House. Even the least of them should be
   obeyed exactly as it stands.

   15, 16. Also before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came and
   said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for thepriest; for
   he willnot have boiled flesh ofyou, but raw. Andif any man said unto
   him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much
   as your soul desires, then he would answer him, No, but you shall give
   it to me now: and if not, I will take it by force. There were
   sacrifices in which God had His portion in the burning of the fat upon
   the altar--and the priest had a portion allotted to him. And the
   offerer himself had a portion upon which he fed, in token of his
   communion and fellowship with God. The priest ought to have been
   content with what was an ample portion for him, but the greed of these
   young men prostituted holy things and defiled the House of the Lord.

   17. Therefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD:
   for men abhorred the offering of the LORD. They not only grieved God,
   but they also grieved His people so much that they ceased to come where
   their consciences were wounded and where their most tender
   sensibilities were perpetually shocked.

   18. But Samuel ministered before the LORD, being a child, girded with a
   linen ephod. What a contrast there was between little Samuel and the
   sons of Eli! He was not led astray by the evil example of those who
   were older than he and to whom he would naturally look up because of
   their high office. This dear child escaped contamination because God's
   Grace preserved him and also because his mother's prayers, like a wall
   of fire, were round about him.

   19-21. Moreover his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him
   from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the
   yearly sacrifice. And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, the
   LORD give you seed of this woman for the loan which is lent to the
   LORD. And they went unto their own home. And the LORD visited Hannah,
   so that she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. And the
   child Samuel grew before the LORD. She lent one child to the Lord and
   she had five others given to her! God always pays good interest on all
   His loans. "He that has pity upon the poor lends unto the Lord." It
   would be well if more would see how much interest they could get from
   such a loan as that!

   22-25. Now Eli was very old, and heard what his sons did unto all
   Israel and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of
   the tabernacle of the congregation. And he said unto them, Why do you
   do such things? For I hear of your evil doings by all the people. No my
   sons; for it is not a good report that I hear: you make the LORD'S
   people to transgress. If one man sins against another, the judge shall
   judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall entreat for
   him?That is the way Eli rebuked his sons. "And very gently he did it,
   dear old man," says someone. Yes, but don't you imitate him! If you do,
   you may also inherit the curse that came upon his house! There are
   other virtues in this world besides gentleness. There is sometimes
   needed the power to speak sternly--to rebuke with firmness and
   severity-- and Eli had not this. He was an easy-going old soul. Ah, but
   when the honor of God is at stake, such action as his is out of place!
   It is all very well to have everybody saying, "Mr. So-and-So is such an
   amiable man! There is no sectarianism and no bigotry about him. He
   never says a word to offend anybody." Just so, but Martin Luther was
   not at all that kind of man and where would we have been without such
   protests as his?

   25. Notwithstanding, they listenednot unto the voice of their father
   because the LORD wouldslay them. They had gone so far in their sin that
   the Lord permitted them to go still further--and to bring punishment
   upon themselves for their evil deeds.

   26. And the child Samuel grew on and was in favor both with the LORD,
   and also with men. How vividly the Holy Spirit brings out the contrast
   between Samuel and these two wicked young men! They grew on in sin, but
   the child Samuel grew on in favor, both with God and with men. The Lord
   loves to watch His lilies growing among the sharp thorns and to see how
   brightly His stars are shining in the blackest night.

   27. 28. And there came a man of God unto Eli and said unto him, Thus
   says the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of your father when
   they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him?That is,
   Aaron--

   28-30. Out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon
   My altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before Me? And did I give
   unto the house of your father all the offerings made by fire of the
   children of Israel? Why do you kick at My sacrifice and at My offering,
   which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above Me,
   to

   make yourselves fat with the chief of all the offerings of Israel My
   people? Therefore the Lord God of Israel says, I said indeed that your
   house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever There
   was a condition attached to that promise--a condition implied, if not
   expressly stated.

   30, 31. But now the Lord says, Be it far from Me; for those who honor
   Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.
   Behold, the days come that I will cut off your arm. That is, "the
   strength of your family shall be taken away"--

   31-33. And the arm of your father's house, that there shall not be an
   old man in your house. And you shall see an enemy in My habitation, in
   all the wealth which God shall give Israel: and there shall not be an
   old man in your house forever. And the man of yours whom I shall not
   cut off from My altar, shall be to consume your eyes, and to grieve
   your heart: and all the increase of your house shall die in the flower
   of their age. God does not think little of sin in His ministers and in
   His sanctuary! There is a difference between sin and sin. The place
   where it is committed may make a difference and the office of the man
   who commits it may make a difference. Sin makes its culmination when
   the sinner is highly favored and brought into close relationship with
   God by office.

   34, 35. And this shall be sign unto you, that shall come upon your two
   sons, on Hophni andPhinehas; in one day they shall die, both of them.
   And I will raise Me up a faithful priest that shall do according to
   that which is in My heart and in My mind: and I will build him a sure
   house; and he shall walk before My anointed forever. No doubt first
   referring to Zadok who succeeded afterwards to the priest's office, but
   looking still further forward to our Lord Jesus Christ who is the
   ever-faithful High Priest who always does according to that which is in
   the mind and heart of the Father!

   36. Andit shall come to pass that everyone that is left in your house
   shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of
   bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray you, into one of the priests'
   offices, that I may eat a piece of bread. Or, rather, as the margin has
   it, "Put me, I pray you, into somewhat about the priesthood." "Put me
   into something that has to do with the priesthood." So the house of Eli
   passed from its honorable elevation into degradation and poverty.
   However highly favored any of us may have been, let us never presume
   upon that and turn aside to sin. If we do not know the Lord and do not
   honor Him in all the acts that we perform in His name, it may be a
   degradation like that of Eli's house may come upon us because we have
   despised the will and the words of the Most High.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ

   (No. 2907)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
   12, 1891.

   "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to
   you." John 16:14.

   THE needs of spiritual men are very great, but they cannot be greater
   than the power of the Divine Trinity is able to meet. We have one
   God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--One in Three and Three in One. And
   that blessed Trinity in Unity gives Himself to sinners that they may be
   saved. In the first place, every good thing that a sinner needs is in
   the Father. The prodigal son was wise when he said, "I will arise and
   go to my father." Every good and perfect gift comes from God the
   Father, the first Person in the blessed Trinity, because every good
   gift and every perfect gift can only be found in Him. But the needy
   soul says, "How shall I get to the Father? He is infinitely above me.
   How shall I reach up to Him?" In order that you might obtain the
   blessings of Grace, God was in Christ Jesus, the second ever-blessed
   Person of the Sacred Trinity. Let me read you part of the verse that
   follows my text--"All things that the Father has are Mine." So you see,
   everything is in the Father, first, and the Father puts all things into
   Christ. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell."
   Now you can get to Christ because He is Man as well as God. He is "over
   all, God blessed forever," but He came into this world, was born of the
   Virgin Mary, lived a life of poverty, "suffered under Pontius Pilate,
   was crucified, dead and buried." He is the conduit conveying to us all
   blessings from the Father. In the Gospel of John we read, "Of His
   fullness have we all received and grace for grace." Thus you see the
   Father with every good thing in Himself putting all fullness into the
   Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus who is also the Son of God.

   Now I hear a poor soul say, "But I cannot get to Christ. I am blind and
   lame. If I could get to Him, He would open my eyes, but I am so lame
   that I cannot run or even walk to Him. If I could get to Him, He would
   give me strength, but I lie as one dead. I cannot see Christ or tell
   where to find Him." Here comes in the work of the Holy Spirit, the
   third Person of the blessed Unity! It is His office to take of the
   things of Christ and show them unto saints and sinners, too. We cannot
   see them, but we shall see them quickly enough when He shows them to
   us! Our sin puts a veil between us and Christ. The Holy Spirit comes
   and takes the veil away from our heart and then we see Christ. It is
   the Holy Spirit's office to come between us and Christ, to lead us to
   Christ, even as the Son of God comes between us and the Father, to lead
   us to the Father so that we have the whole Trinity uniting to save a
   sinner--the Triune God bowing down out of Heaven for the salvation of
   rebellious men! Every time we dismiss you from this House of Prayer, we
   pronounce upon you the blessing of the Sacred Trinity--"May the Grace
   of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the
   Holy Spirit be with you!" And you need all that to make a sinner into a
   saint and to keep a saint from going back to being a sinner again! The
   whole blessed Godhead--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--must work upon
   every soul that is to be saved!

   See how Divinely they work together--how the Father glorifies the Son,
   how the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus, how both the Holy Spirit and the
   Lord Jesus glorify the Father! These Three are One, sweetly uniting in
   the salvation of the chosen seed.

   Tonight our work is to speak of the Holy Spirit. Oh, what a blessed
   Person He is! He is not merely a sacred influence, but a Divine
   Person--"very God of very God." He is the Spirit of holiness to be
   reverenced, to be spoken of with delight, yet with trembling, for,
   remember, there is a sin against the Holy Spirit. A word spoken against
   the Son of Man

   may be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (whatever that
   may be, I know not) is put down as a sin beyond the line of Divine
   Forgiveness! Therefore reverence, honor and worship God the Holy
   Spirit, in whom lies the only hope that any of us can ever have of
   seeing Jesus and so of seeing God the Father!

   First, tonight, I shall try to speak of what the Holy Spirit does. "He
   will receive of Mine and show it to you" Secondly I shall seek to set
   forth what the Holy Spirit aims at "He will glorify Me, for He will
   take of what is Mine and declare it to you." And, thirdly, I shall
   explain how in both these things He acts as the Comforter, for we read
   in the seventh verse, our Savior say, "If I go not away, the Comforter
   will not come unto you," and it is of the Comforter that He says, "He
   will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to
   you."

   I. First we are to consider WHAT THE HOLY SPIRIT DOES. Jesus says, "He
   will receive of Mine and show it to you."

   The Holy Spirit, then, deals with the things of Christ. How I wish that
   all Christ's ministers would imitate the Holy Spirit in this respect!
   When you are dealing with the things of Christ, you are on Holy Spirit
   ground--you are following the track of the Holy Spirit. Does the Holy
   Spirit deal with science? What is science? Another name for the
   ignorance of men. Does the Holy Spirit deal with politics? What are
   politics? Another name for every man getting as much as he can out of
   the nation. Does the Holy Spirit deal with these things? No, my
   Brothers, "He will receive of Mine." O my Brother, the Holy Spirit will
   leave you if you go gadding about after these insignificant trifles! He
   will leave you if you aim at magnifying yourself, your wisdom and your
   plans, for the Holy Spirit is taken up with the things of Christ! "He
   will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to
   you." I like what Mr. Wesley said to his preachers. "Leave other things
   alone," he said, "you are called to win souls." So I believe it is with
   all true preachers. We may leave other things alone. The Holy Spirit,
   who is our Teacher, will acknowledge and bless us if we keep to His
   line of things. O preacher of the Gospel, what can you receive like the
   things of Christ? And what can you talk of so precious to the souls of
   men as the things of Christ? Therefore follow the Holy Spirit in
   dealing with the things of Christ.

   Next, the Holy Spirit deals with feeble men. "He will glorify Me, for
   He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." "To you." He is
   not above dealing with simple minds. He comes to those who have no
   training, no education and He takes the things of Christ and shows them
   to such minds. The greatest mind of man that was ever created was a
   poor puny thing compared with the infinite mind of God! We may boast
   about the great capacity of the human intellect, but what a narrow and
   contracted thing it is at its utmost width! So, for the Holy Spirit to
   come and teach the little mind of man is a great condescension. But we
   see the great condescension of the Holy Spirit even more when we read,
   "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are
   called." And when we hear the Savior say, "I thank You, O Father, Lord
   of Heaven and earth, because You have hid these things from the wise
   and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes." The Holy Spirit takes
   of the things of Christ and shows them to those who are babes compared
   with the wise men of this world! The Lord Jesus might have selected
   princes to be His Apostles. He might have gathered together 12 of the
   greatest kings of the earth, or at least 12 senators from Rome--but he
   did not--He took fishermen and men belonging to that class to be the
   pioneers of His Kingdom! And God the Holy Spirit takes of the things of
   Christ, high and sublime as they are, and shows them to men like these
   Apostles were--men ready to follow where the Lord led them and to learn
   what the Lord taught them.

   If you think of the condescension of the Holy Spirit in taking of the
   things of Christ and showing them to us, you will not talk any more
   about coming down to the level of children when you talk to them. I
   remember a young man who was a great fool, but did not know it and,
   therefore, was all the greater fool. Once, speaking to children, he
   said, "My dear children, it takes a great deal to bring a great mind
   down to your capacities." You cannot show me a word of Christ of that
   kind! Where does the Holy Spirit ever talk about its being a great
   come-down for Him to teach children, or to teach us? No, no! He
   glorifies Christ by taking of His things and showing them to us, even
   such poor ignorant scholars as we are.

   If I understand what is meant here, I think that it means, first, that
   the Holy Spirit helps us to understand the words of Christ. If we will
   study the teaching of the Savior, it must be with the Holy Spirit as
   the Light of God to guide us. He will show us what Christ meant by the
   words He uttered. We shall not lose ourselves in the Savior's verbiage,
   but we shall get at the inner meaning of Christ's mind and be
   instructed therein, for the Lord Jesus says, "He will receive of Mine
   and show it to you." A sermon of Christ--even a single word of
   Christ--set in the Light of the Holy Spirit shines like a

   diamond! No, like a fixed star, with light that is never dim! Happy men
   and happy women who read the words of Christ in the Light shed upon
   them by the Holy Spirit! But I do not think that this is all that the
   text means.

   It means this--"Not only shall He reveal My words, but My things," for
   Christ says, "All things that the Father has are Mine: therefore said I
   that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you."

   The Holy Spirit takes the Nature of Christ and shows it to us. It is
   easy to say, "I believe Him to be God and Man," but the point is to
   apprehend that He is God and, therefore, able to save and even to work
   impossibilities. And to believe that He is Man and, therefore, feels
   for you, sympathizes with you and, therefore, is a Brother born to help
   you in your adversities. May the Holy Spirit make you see the God-Man
   tonight! May He show you the Humanity and the Deity of Christ as they
   are most blessedly united in His adorable Person--and you will be
   greatly comforted thereby.

   The Holy Spirit shows to us the offices of Christ. He is Prophet,
   Priest, King. Especially to you, Sinner, Christ is a Savior. Now, if
   you know that He takes up the work of saving sinners and that it is His
   business to save men, why then, dear Friend, surely you will have
   confidence in Him and not be afraid to come to Him! If I wanted my
   shoes mended, I would not take my hat off when I went into a cobbler's
   shop and say, "Please excuse me. May I beg you to be so good as to mend
   my shoes?" No, it is his trade! It is his business. He is glad to see
   me. "What do you need, Sir?" he asks and he is glad for the work. And
   when Christ puts over His door, "Savior," I, needing to be saved, go to
   Him, for I believe that He knows His calling and that He can carry it
   out and that He will be glad to see me--and that I shall not be more
   glad to be saved than He will be to save me! I want you to catch that
   idea. If the Holy Spirit will show you that, it will bring you very
   near to joy and peace this very night!

   May the Holy Spirit also show you Christ's engagements! He has come
   into the world engaged to save sinners. He pledged Himself to the
   Father to bring many sons and daughters to Glory and He must do it. He
   has bound Himself to His Father, as the Surety of the Covenant, that He
   will bring sinners into reconciliation with God. May the Holy Spirit
   show that fact to you--and right gladly you will leap into the Savior's
   arms!

   It is very sweet when the Holy Spirit shows us the love of Christ--how
   intensely He loves men! How He loved them of old, for His delights were
   with the sons of men--not because He had redeemed them, but He redeemed
   them because He loved them and delighted in them! Christ has had an
   eternal love to His people--

   "His heart is made of tenderness, His heart melts with love."

   It is His Heaven to bring men to Heaven! It is His Glory to bring sons
   and daughters to Glory! He is never so happy as when He is receiving
   sinners. And if the Holy Spirit will show you the depth and the height,
   the length and the breadth of the love of Christ to sinners, it will go
   a long way towards bringing all who are in this house, tonight, to
   accept the Savior.

   And when the Holy Spirit shows you the mercy of Christ--how willingly
   He forgives, how He passes by iniquity, transgression and sin--how He
   casts your sins into the sea, throws them behind God's back, puts them
   away forever-- ah, when you see this, then your hearts will be won to
   Him!

   Specially I would desire the Holy Spirit to show you the blood of
   Christ. A Spirit-taught view of the blood of Christ is the most
   wonderful sight that ever weeping eyes beheld! There is your sin, your
   wicked, horrible, damnable sin--but Christ comes into the world and
   takes the sin and suffers in your place! And the blood of such an One
   as He, perfect Man and Infinite God--such blood as was poured out on
   Calvary's tree--must take away sin! Oh, for a sight of it! If any of
   you are now despairing and the Holy Spirit will take of the blood of
   Christ and show it to you, despair will have no place in you any
   longer! It will be gone, for "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
   cleanses us from all sin," and He that believes in Him is forgiven all
   His iniquities!

   And if the Holy Spirit will also take of the prayers of Christ and show
   them to you, what a sight you will have! Christ on earth, praying till
   He gets into a bloody sweat! Christ in Heaven, praying with all His
   glorious vestments on, accepted by the Father, glorified at the
   Father's right hand and making intercession for transgressor--praying
   for you, praying for all who come to God by Him and able, therefore, to
   save them to the uttermost! This is the sight you will have! A
   knowledge of the intercession of Christ for guilty men is enough to
   make despair flee away once and for all! I can only tell you these
   things, but if the Holy Spirit will take of them and show them to you,
   oh, Beloved, you will have joy and peace tonight through believing!

   One thing I must add, however, and then I will leave this point upon
   which we could dilate for six months. I want you to remember that
   whatever the Holy Spirit shows you, you may have. Do you see that? He
   takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us. But why? Not as a
   boy at school does to one of his companions when he is teasing him. I
   remember often seeing it done. He pulls out of his pocket a beautiful
   apple and shows it to his schoolmate. "There," he says, "do you see
   that apple?" Is he going to say, "Now I am going to give you a piece of
   it"? No, not he! He only shows him the apple to tantalize him. Now, it
   would be blasphemy to imagine that the Holy Spirit would show you the
   things of Christ and then say, "You cannot have them." No, whatever He
   shows you, you may have! Whatever you see in Christ, you may have!
   Whatever the Holy Spirit makes you to see in the Person and work of the
   Lord Jesus, you may have it! And He shows it to you on purpose that you
   may have it, for He is no Tantalus to mock us with the sight of a
   blessing beyond our reach. He waits to bless us. Lay that thought up in
   your heart--it may help you some day, if not now. You remember what God
   said to Jacob, "The land where you lie, to you will I give it." If you
   find any promise in this Book and you dare to lie down upon it, it is
   yours! If you can just lie down and rest on it, it is yours--for it was
   not put there for you to rest on it without its being fulfilled to you!
   Only stretch yourself on any Covenant blessing and it is yours forever.
   God help us to do so!

   II. But now, secondly, and very briefly, let us consider WHAT THE HOLY
   SPIRIT AIMS AT. Well, He aims at

   this--Jesus says, "He shall glorify Me." When He shows us the things of
   Christ, His objective is to glorify Christ. The Holy Spirit's objective
   is to make Christ appear to be great and glorious to you and to me. The
   Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely glorious and even the Holy Spirit
   cannot make Him glorious except to our apprehension--but His desire is
   that we may see and know more of Christ--that we may honor Him more and
   glorify Him more.

   Well, how does the Holy Spirit go about this work? In this simple way,
   by showing us the things of Christ. Is not this a blessedly simple fact
   that when even the Holy Spirit intends to glorify Christ, all that He
   does is to show us Christ? Well, but does He not put fine words
   together and weave a spell of eloquence? No. He simply shows us Christ.
   Now, if you wanted to praise Jesus Christ tonight, what would you have
   to do? Why, you would only have to speak of Him as He is--holy,
   blessed, glorious! You would show Him, as it were, in order to praise
   Him, for there is no glorifying Christ except by making Him to be seen.
   Then He has the Glory that rightly belongs to Him. No words are needed,
   no descriptions are needed. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of
   what is Mine and declare it to you.

   And is it not strange that Christ should be glorified by His being
   shown to you? To you, my dear Friend! Perhaps you are saying, "I am a
   nobody." Yes, but Christ is glorified by being shown to you! "Oh, but I
   am very poor, very illiterate and besides, very wicked!" Yes, but
   Christ is glorified by being shown to you! Now a great king or a great
   queen would not be rendered much more illustrious by being shown to a
   little Sunday school girl, or exhibited to a crossing-sweeper boy. At
   least they would not think so--but Christ does not act as an earthly
   monarch might. He reckons it to be His Glory for the poorest pair of
   eyes that ever wept to look by faith upon Him. He reckons it to be His
   greatest honor for the poorest man, the poorest woman, or the poorest
   child that ever lived to see Him in the Light in which the Holy Spirit
   sets Him! Is not this a blessed Truth of God?

   I put it very simply and briefly. The Holy Spirit, you see, glorifies
   Christ by showing Him to sinners. Therefore, if you want to glorify
   Christ, do the same! Do not go and write a ponderous book and put fine
   words together. Tell sinners, in simple language, what Christ is. "I
   cannot praise Him," says one. You do not need to praise Him. Say what
   He is. If a man says to me, "Show me the sun," do I say, "Well, you
   must wait till I strike a match and light a candle--and then I will
   show you the sun"? That would be ridiculous, would it not? And for our
   candles to be held up to show Christ is absurd. Tellwhat He is.
   Tellwhat He is to you. Tellwhat He did for you. Tell what He did for
   sinners. That is all. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is
   Mine and declare it to you."

   I will not say more on this point except that if any of us are to
   glorify Christ, we must talk much of Him. We must tell what the Holy
   Spirit has told us and we must pray the Holy Spirit to bless to the
   minds of men the Truths of God we speak by enabling them to see Christ
   as the Spirit reveals Him.

   III. But now, thirdly, in both of these things--showing to us the
   things of Christ and glorifying Christ--THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A COMFORTER.
   Gracious Spirit, be a Comforter now to some poor struggling ones in the
   Tabernacle by showing them the things of Christ and by glorifying Him
   in their salvation!

   First, in showing to men the things of Christ, the Holy Spirit is a
   Comforter. There is no comfort like a sight of Christ. Sinner, your
   only comfort must lie in your Savior, in His precious blood and in His
   Resurrection from the dead. Look that way, man! If you look inside, you
   will never find any comfort there. Look where the Holy Spirit looks.
   "He will receive of Mine and show it to you." When a thing is shown to
   you, it is meant for you to look at it. If you want real comfort, I
   will tell you where to look, namely, to the Person and work of the Lord
   Jesus Christ. "Oh," you say, "but I am a wretched sinner!" I know you
   are. You are a great deal worse than you think you are. "Oh, but I
   think myself the worst that ever lived." No, you are worse than that!
   You do not know half your depravity. You are worse than you ever
   dreamed you were! But that is not where to look for comfort. "I am
   brutish," one says. "I am proud. I am self-righteous. I am envious. I
   have everything in me that is bad, Sir, and if I have a little bit that
   is good, sometimes, it is gone before I can see it. I am just lost,
   ruined and undone!" That is quite true--but I never told you to look
   there. Your comfort lies in this, "He will receive of Mine"--that is,
   of Christ's--"and shall show it to you." Your hope of transformation,
   of gaining a new character altogether, of eternal life, lies in Christ
   who quickens the dead and makes all things new! Look away from self and
   look to Christ, for He alone can save you!

   A sight of Christ is the destruction of despair. "Oh, but the devil
   tells me that I shall be cast into Hell! There is no hope for me." What
   does it matter what the devil tells you? He was a liar from the
   beginning. Let him say what he likes, but if you will look away to
   Christ, that will be the end of the devil's power over you! If the Holy
   Spirit shows you what Christ came to do on the Cross and what He is
   doing on His throne in Heaven, that will be the end of these troublous
   thoughts from Satan and you will be comforted.

   Dear child of God, are you in sorrow tonight? May the Holy Spirit take
   of the things of Christ and show them to you! That is the end to sorrow
   when you see Jesus, for sorrow, itself, is so sweetly sanctified by the
   companionship of Christ which it brings you that you will be glad to
   drink of His cup and to be baptized with His Baptism!

   Are you in need tonight, without even a place to lay your head? So,
   too, was He! "The Son of Man has not where to lay His head." Go to Him
   with your troubles. He will help you to bear your poverty. He will help
   you to get out of it for He is able to help you in temporal trials as
   well as in spiritual ones. Therefore go to Christ! All power is given
   unto Him in Heaven and in earth. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. Go
   your way to Him--and a sight of Him will give you comfort.

   Are you persecuted? Well, a sight of the thorn-crowned brow will take
   the thorn out of persecution. Are you very, very low? I think that you
   have all heard the story I am about to tell you, but some of you have,
   perhaps, forgotten it. Many years ago when this great congregation
   first met in the Surrey Music Hall and the terrible tragedy occurred--
   when many persons were either killed or wounded in the panic--I did my
   best to hold the people together till I heard that some were dead. And
   then I broke down like a man stunned and for a fortnight or so I had
   little reason left. I felt so broken in heart that I thought that I
   would never be able to face a congregation again. And I went down to a
   friend's house, a few miles away, to be very quiet and still. I was
   walking round his garden and I well remember the spot and even the time
   when this passage came to me, "Him has God exalted with His right hand
   to be a Prince and a Savior." And this thought came into my mind at
   once, "You are only a soldier in the great King's army and you may die
   in a ditch. But it does not matter what becomes of you as long as your
   King is exalted. He--HE is glorious! God has highly exalted Him." You
   have heard of the old French soldiers when they lay dying. If the
   emperor came by when they were ready to expire, they would raise
   themselves up and give one more cheer for their beloved leader. " Viva
   l'Empereurr would be their dying words. And so I thought, "He is
   exalted. What does it matters about me?"

   And in a moment my reason was perfectly restored! I was as clear as
   possible. I went into the house, had family prayer and came back to
   preach to my congregation on the following Sabbath--restored only by
   having looked to Jesus and having seen that He was glorious! If He is
   to the front, what does it matter what happens to us? Rank on rank we
   will die in the battle if He wins the victory! Only let the Man on the
   White Horse win--Let the King who died for us and washed us in His
   precious blood be glorified--and it is enough for us!

   But now, lastly, when Christ is glorified in the heart, He acts as a
   Comforter, too. I believe, Brothers and Sisters, that we would not have
   half the trouble that we have if we thought more of Christ. The fact is
   that we think so much of ourselves that we get troubled. But someone
   says, "But I have so many troubles." Why should you not have a great
   many troubles? Who are you that you should not have troubles? "Oh, but
   I have had loss after loss which you do not know of!"

   Very likely, dear Friend, I do not know of your losses, but is it any
   wonder that you should have them? "Oh," says one, "I seem to be kicked
   about like a football." Why should you not be? What are you? "Oh," said
   one poor penitent to me the other night, "for me to come to Christ,
   Sir, after my past life, seems so mean." I said, "Yes, so it is. But
   then, you are mean. It was a mean business of the prodigal son to come
   home and eat his father's bread and the fatted calf after he had spent
   his substance in riotous living." It was a mean thing, was it not? But
   then, the father did not think it mean! He clasped him to his bosom and
   welcomed him home. Come along, you mean sinners, you that have served
   the devil and now want to run away from him! Steal away from Satan at
   once, for my Lord is ready to receive you! You have no idea how willing
   He is to welcome you! He is so ready to forgive that you have not yet
   guessed how much sin He can forgive! "All manner of sin and blasphemy
   shall be forgiven unto men." Up to your necks in filth, in your very
   hearts saturated with the foulest iniquity--yet, if you come to Christ
   He will wash you whiter than snow! "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." Come along and try my Lord!

   Have exalted ideas of Christ! Oh, if a man will but have great thoughts
   of Christ, he shall then find his troubles lessening and his sins
   disappearing! I see you have been putting Christ on a wrong scale
   altogether! Perhaps even you people of God have not thought of Christ
   as you ought to do. I have heard of a certain commander who had led his
   troops into a rather difficult position. He knew what he was doing, but
   the soldiers did not all know--and there would be a battle in the
   morning. So he thought that he would go round from tent to tent and
   listen to what the soldiers said. He listened and there was one of them
   saying to his fellows, "See what a mess we are in now! Do you see, we
   have only so many cavalry, and so many infantry, and we have only a
   small quantity of artillery. And on the other side there are so many
   thousands against us! So strong, so mighty, that we shall be cut to
   pieces in the morning." And the general drew aside the canvas, and
   there they saw him standing and he said, "How many do you count me
   for?" He had won every battle that he had ever engaged in! He was the
   conqueror of conquerors. "How many do you count me for?"

   O Souls, you have never counted Christ for what He is! You have put
   down your sins, but you have never counted what kind of a Christ He is
   who has come to save you! Rather do like Luther, who said that when the
   devil came to him, he brought him a long sheet containing a list of his
   sins, or of a great number of them and Luther said to him, "Is that
   all?" "No," said the devil. "Well go and fetch some more, then." Away
   went Satan to bring him another long list, as long as your arm. Said
   Luther, "Is that all?" "Oh, no," said the devil, "I have yet more."
   "Well go and bring them all," said Luther. "Fetch them all out, the
   whole list of them." Then it was a very long black list. I think that I
   have heard that it would have gone round the world twice. I know that
   mine would. Well, what did Luther say when he saw them all? He said,
   "Write at the bottom of them, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
   cleanses us from all sin!'" It does not matter how long the list is
   when you write those blessed words at the end of it! Then the sins are
   all gone!

   Did you ever take up from your table a bill for a large sum? You felt a
   kind of flush coming over your face. You looked down the list. It was a
   rather long list of items, perhaps from a lawyer or a builder. But when
   you looked at it, you saw that there was a penny stamp at the bottom
   and that the account was receipted. "Oh," you said, "I do not care how
   long it is, for it is all paid." So, though your sins are many, if you
   have a receipt at the bottom--if you have trusted Jesus--your sins are
   all gone, drowned in the Red Sea of your Savior's blood and Christ is
   glorified in Your salvation! May God the Holy Spirit bring every
   unsaved one here tonight to repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus
   Christ. The Lord bless every one of you, for His name's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 16.

   Verse 1. These things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be
   offended. The temptation is when Christ is despised and rejected for
   our hearts to begin to sink and our faith to fail. Therefore did Christ
   warn His disciples that they "should not be offended."

   2. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yes, the time comes that
   whoever kills you will think that he does God service. The best of men
   are but men at the best and they are very apt to fail when they find
   persecution hot against

   them--especially when even religious men of a certain kind count it to
   be a religious duty to persecute the people of

   God.

   3. And these things will they do unto you because they have not known
   the Father, nor Me. This verse reminds us of our Lord's prayer on the
   Cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
   Persecution of God's people usually arises from ignorance of God the
   Father and God the Son.

   4. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, you
   may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto
   you at the beginning because I was with you. "I was your Protector. By
   My Presence I so sustained your hearts that it did not matter what
   trouble you fell into. But now I am going away and, therefore, I give
   you this warning."

   5. 6. But now I go My way to Him that sent Me and none of you asks Me,
   Where are You going? But because I have said these things unto you,
   sorrow has filled your hearts. We sometimes endure a needless sorrow
   for which the asking of a single question might remove it. Our Lord
   says to His disciples, "If you knew where I was going and understood My
   motive in going, your sorrow at My departure would be relieved."

   7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth It is expedient for you that I go
   away. "It is for your profit to lose My Presence, precious as that has
   been to you."

   7. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I
   depart, I will send Him unto you. The word, "Comforter," might just as
   well have been translated, "Advocate." The Holy Spirit is that Divine
   Advocate who pleads the cause of God in us and for us--and so comforts
   us. He it is who is now with us. If Jesus Christ were still upon earth
   in the flesh, He could only be in one place at one time. If He were in
   this assembly, He could not also be in Jerusalem or in New York. But
   the Comforter can be in all the gatherings of the Lord's people and
   with each individual Believer, the whole world over.

   8-12. And when He is come, He willreprove the world of sin, and of
   righteousness, and of judgment of sin, because they believe not on Me;
   of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and you see Me no more; of
   judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many
   things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Teachers, learn
   wisdom from Christ! He did not try to teach His disciples everything at
   once, but, by teaching them one Truth of God, He prepared them for
   another Truth. Let us do the same with those whom we try to teach. Let
   us dispense to them the simpler Truths of God, first, and afterwards
   those that are deeper and more mysterious.

   13, 14. However when He the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you
   into all Truth: for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatever He
   shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come.
   He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to
   you. That spirit which does not glorify Christ is not the Spirit of
   God! Hereby shall you discern between the spirit of error and the
   Spirit of Truth!

   15, 16. All things that the Father has are Mine: therefore said I, that
   He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you. A little while, and
   you shall not see Me: and again a little while, and you shall see Me,
   because I go to the Father This is what our whole life is--"a little
   while." But in that little while there are little whiles of sadness and
   little whiles of gladness--little whiles in which we have Christ with
   us and little whiles in which we see Him, but find Him not. Blessed be
   God, we are going away from the land of these changing little whiles up
   to the Place where the sun shines in its strength forever and ever!

   17, 18. Then said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this
   that He says unto us, A little while, and you shall not see Me: and,
   again, a little while, and you shall see Me: and, Because I go to the
   Father? They said therefore, What is this that He says, A little while?
   We cannot tell what He says. Sometimes, when you are reading the Bible,
   you will come across a text of which you will say to yourselves, "What
   is this? We cannot tell what He says." But do not give up reading the
   Bible because you cannot understand it! There is a great deal that a
   father says which his child cannot comprehend, yet it is a part of the
   child's education to be with his father and to hear some things that he
   does not, at first, understand but, by-and-by, it all becomes clear.
   So, Believer, what you know not now you shall know hereafter.

   19. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him. They did not ask
   Him, but they desired to do so--and a desire is a prayer. Where our
   blessed Master is present, the very desires of His people are prayers,
   even though their lips remain closed.

   19, 20. And said unto hem, Do you enquire among yourselves of that I
   said, A little while, and you shall not see Me: and again, a little
   while, and you shall see Me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That you
   shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be
   sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Oh, what a blessed
   promise!

   21-24. A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour is
   come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no
   more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you
   now, therefore, have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart
   shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you. And in that day you
   shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatever you
   shallask the Father in My name, Hie will give it to you. Until now you
   have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you shall receive, that your
   joy may be full. They had asked very little and they had never asked
   even that little in Christ's name--and there are but few Christians who
   do so even now. They ask for Christ's sake, which is a good plea, but
   to ask in Christ's name is still better! When you feel conscious that
   you have Christ's authority to use His name, you can put the King's own
   signature at the bottom of your petitions! There are some prayers to
   which a man dares not set Christ's seal, but when the prayer is such
   that Christ Himself might have offered it, then we may present it in
   His name and we may be certain that we shall receive what we have
   asked.

   25-28. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time
   comes when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show
   you plainly of the Father. At that day you shall ask in My name. AndI
   say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father
   Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed that I
   came from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the
   world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. Here are four
   unfathomable depths--"I came forth from the Father"--there is Christ's
   eternal Pre-Existence. "And am come into the world"--there is His
   Incarnation. "Again, I leave the world,"--there is His death,
   Resurrection and Ascension into the Glory of God. "And go to the
   Father"--there is His exaltation to the Father's right hand."

   29. His disciples said unto Him, Lo, now You speak plainly, and speak
   no proverb. Did you ever, when reading the Bible, come across a text
   that was opened up to you so sweetly that you cried out just as these
   disciples did "Lo, now You speak plainly, and speak no proverb"?

   30, 31. Now are we sure that You know all things, and need not that any
   man should ask You: by this we believe that You came forth from God.
   Jesus answered them, Do you now believe?Listen you who imagine that you
   are so strong in faith and every Grace, that you think you are almost
   perfect--"Do you now believe?"

   32. Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be
   scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone. Ah, me!
   These were the men who said they believed in Him, yet, in His time of
   trial they fled like cowardly unbelievers! God help us and sustain us,
   or we shall do as they did!

   32, 33. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These
   things I have spoken unto you that in Me you might have peace. In the
   world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome
   the world
     __________________________________________________________________

The Saint's Heritage and Watchword

   (No. 2908)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED 0N THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, NOVEMBER
   5, 1854.

   "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue
   that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the
   heritage of the servants of the LOUD, and their righteousness is of Me,
   says the Lord." Isaiah 54:17.

   This is the fifth of November, a day notable in English history. The
   events which transpired on it ought never to be forgotten. On this
   memorable day the Catholics, foiled in all their schemes for crushing
   our glorious Protestantism, devised a plot horrible and diabolical
   enough to render them forever hateful among upright men. The vast
   Armada of Spain on which they had relied had been, by the breath of
   God, scattered and given to destruction. And now the cowardly traitors
   attempted by the foulest means, the end which they could not accomplish
   by open warfare. Under the Houses of Parliament the deadly powder was
   concealed which they hoped would be the deathblow to both houses and so
   annihilate the power of Protestantism. But God looked from Heaven,
   confounded their knavish tricks, laid their secrets bare and exposed
   their treachery! Hallelujah to the King eternal, immortal, invisible
   who guarded us and guards us still from the devices of Rome and Hell!
   Praise to His name, we are free from the Pope of Rome, to whom--

   "Britons never will be slaves.

   While for our princes they prepare,

   In caverns deep a burning snare,

   He shot from Heaven a piercing ray

   And the dark treachery brought to day." Nor is this the only event for
   which the fifth of November is notable, for in 1688 we as a nation
   experienced a deliverance equally as great. James II had attempted to
   revive the dying cause of Popery--and the hopes of Satan were great.
   But sturdy Protestants would not easily lose their dearly-bought
   liberties and, therefore, brought about the glorious revolution by
   which King William III ascended the throne--and from him the succession
   has been happily continued until the reign of our Queen for whom our
   earnest prayers shall rise--

   "Such great deliverance God has worked,

   And down to us salvation brought,

   And still the care of guardian Heaven,

   Secures the bliss itself has given." Blessed be God that on this fifth
   of November we can record such deliverances! Our Puritan forefathers
   never suffered this day to pass over without a commemoration service.
   So far from this day being forgotten, it ought to be remembered, not by
   the festival of striplings, but by the songs of saints! I think I have
   now in my possession a record of sermons preached on the fifth of
   November by Matthew Henry. Many divines of his time regularly preached
   on this day. I think the true Protestant feeling of this country which
   has so lately revived and which has shown itself so strongly, will
   scarcely forgive me if I do not, this morning, return most humble and
   hearty thanks to that God who has delivered us from the curse and
   enabled us to stand as Protestant men free to preach the Gospel of
   Christ.

   I notice, in my text, two things--the first is the saint's heritage.
   The second the saint's watchword. I. First, THE SAINT'S HERITAGE.

   Now, do not suppose that this morning I shall have time, or
   opportunity, or talents, or power, to enter into an investigation of
   all the saint's heritages, especially when you remember that--

   "All things are ours--the gift of God, The purchase of a Savior's
   blood."

   Time would fail us to talk of all the possessions of the child of God.
   This world is his. Earth is his lodge and Heaven is his home. This life
   is his--with all its sorrows and its joys. Death is his--with all its
   terrors and solemn realities. And eternity is his--with its immortality
   and grandeur. God is his, with all His attributes. The saint has a
   prospective right to everything. God has made him the heir of all
   things, for we are co-heirs with Christ, joint-heirs with the Son of
   God! We have not time enough, in a life of 70 years, even to read over
   once the fair inventory of the saint's possessions! There is in it such
   an unfathomable depth, such an immeasurable height, such an intensity
   of value, such a wealth of preciousness that we would need to read it
   over an eternal number of times before we could ever be able to
   comprehend to the fullest, the love of God. So, you see, I am not about
   to describe the heritage of God's people at large. But I am going to
   speak of the one peculiar item of that bright heritage which is
   mentioned in my text--and that is preservation. "No weapon that is
   formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise
   against you in judgment you shall condemn." I shall speak of this as
   being the heritage, not only of the Church at large, but the personal
   and particular possession of every true Believer, every elect child of
   God!

   First, then, there is the promise that we shall have protection against
   the hand of men. "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper."
   Satan has always used the hand of man against the Church of Christ. The
   weapon of physical force has always been brought to bear against the
   Church of God. From the day when Cain, with his club, struck his
   brother Abel and laid him low, down to the time of Zacharias the son of
   Barachias and from that time until now, this weapon has been constantly
   used against the Church of God. There has never been a time when a
   weapon has not been forged against the Church of Christ. Yes, even at
   the present moment, as I stand here and, with the eyes of fancy, survey
   our world, I see a fire blazing--fierce is the flame and high its pile
   of fuel! I see a monarch forging a weapon--a crowned tyrant longs to
   bring forth chains of iron for the liberties of Europe and smaller
   despots long to destroy the germ of all true liberty, "the glorious
   Gospel of the blessed God." I see the armies ready against the Lord of
   Hosts, ready to do battle against the servants of God. [Singularly
   enough, the battle of Inkermann was at this moment raging, November 5,
   1854.] Still, here is our sweet comfort--they may forge the weapon,
   they may fashion the sword, they may shut the prison door, they may
   confine the prisoners, they may make their instruments of torture--but
   they cannot prosper, for God has said it. "He breaks the bow, and cuts
   the spear in sunder. He burns the chariot in the fire." "No weapon that
   is formed against you shall prosper." He will not let it do so!

   Let us look back through history and see how God has fulfilled this
   gracious promise to His Church in past days. He has done it sometimes
   in this way--He has not allowed the sword so much as to touch His
   Church. At other times, He has allowed the sword to do its work and
   yet, out of evil, He has brought forth good. Sometimes, no weapon that
   has been formed against the Church has prospered because God has not
   permitted it so much as to touch His Church. Think of the overthrow of
   Pharaoh. Look yonder! There he is, at the head of all the chivalry of
   Egypt, pursuing the chosen race! The sea divides to give passage to the
   Lord's elect. Lo, they tread the pebbly bottom of the Red Sea while the
   waters stand like walls of snow-white crystal on the right and on the
   left! But the impious monarch, all unmoved by this mighty marvel,
   shouts, "On, on, soldiers of Memphis! Do you fear to tread where slaves
   are bold?" Look! They boldly dash between the watery heights--chariots
   and horses are in the sea, madly pursuing Israel. Ho, Israel! Fear not
   the uplifted spear, dread not the rattling chariot--they are marching
   to their tombs! Their weapons shall not prosper! Moses lifts up the rod
   of God--the parted floods embrace with eager joy and grasp the helpless
   foe within their arms--

   "Over horse and over car,

   Over every man of war,

   Over Pharaoh's crown of gold

   The loud thundering billows rolled!

   'Mid the water dark and dread,

   Down they sank, they sank like lead!" Again, my Brothers and Sisters,
   behold another glorious proof of the promise. Haman had conceived a
   hatred to Mordecai and for his sake the whole race of the Jews must
   perish. How cunningly he lays his plots, how readily he obtains

   the consent of the king, how sure he is of his revenge! Even now, in
   imagination, he sees Mordecai swinging on the lofty gallows and all his
   kindred given to slaughter. Ah, you enemy, delight in your imagination,
   for it shall be disappointed! Rejoice in your design, but it shall be
   utterly confounded! There is a God in the courts of Heaven and an
   Esther in the palace of Shushan! You shall be hanged on your own
   gallows and the race of David shall revenge the deed of the Agagite
   upon, his sons! O Israel, well may you rejoice at the Feast of Purim,
   for the weapon of the mighty is broken! Nor here, alone can we see the
   promise fulfilled, for time would fail me to tell of conquered Amalek
   and routed Midian. Scarcely can I speak of Philistia and her giants
   given to the beast of prey, or Edom slaughtered by the sword. Let the
   armies witness who fled at the fancied rumbling of chariots, or that
   host who in one night became the inhabitants of the realms of death!
   Let the warriors who rest with their rusted swords beneath their earthy
   pillows rise from their long sleep and confess the futility of their
   efforts! Yes, let monarchs now in the chains of Hell bear witness to
   their own utter confusion when the Lord appeared in battle for His
   chosen! March on, despot! Bid your slaves rise against the free! Crush
   the helpless and usurp the dominions of your neighbor--but know that
   the Lord is mightier than you are! Your Northern hordes are not
   invincible! And Britons, with the help of God, shall teach you that in
   vain you lift the hand of robbery! You contend with a nation in whose
   midst the elect of God are praying against you--and you shall know that
   God has said unto her holy seed, "No weapon that is formed against you
   shall prosper."

   But now another view of the subject presents itself. Sometimes God has
   allowed the enemy to exult over us and the sword has been used with
   terrible effect. There have been dark and gloomy days for the chosen
   Church of Christ when persecution has cried "Havoc, and let slip the
   dogs of war!" When blood has flowed like water over the land our
   enemies have triumphed. The martyr was bound to the stake, or was
   crucified upon the tree. The pastor was cut off and the flocks were
   scattered. Cruel torture, awful suffering was endured by the saints of
   God. The elect cried and said, "O Lord, how long? Let it repent You
   concerning Your servants." The enemy laughed and said, "Ah, ah, so
   would we have it." Zion was under a cloud. Her precious saints,
   comparable to fine gold, were esteemed as earthen vessels, the work of
   the hands of the potter. And her princes were trodden down like mire in
   the streets.

   O my Soul, how was it, in that sad day, when the enemy came upon her
   like a flood and she could scarcely lift up the standard of the Lord
   against him? O God, there was an hour when You would not hear the cry
   of Your elect! It seemed as if Your ear was deaf. The plaint of the
   widow was unheeded. The groans, the agonies and the cries of martyrs
   were unnoticed and You did still allow the enemy to vex Your children.
   Persecution shook the land and set forth its burning lava of cruelty,
   devastating the fair fields of the Church of God. But did the enemy
   prosper? Did he succeed? Did persecution destroy God's Church? Did the
   weapon formed against us prosper? No! Each time that the Church had a
   wave of persecution pass over her, she rose out of it and lifted her
   fair countenance, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as
   an army with banners." She was all the more glorious for it all!

   Every time her blood was shed, each drop became a man and each man thus
   converted stood prepared to pour out the vital current from his veins
   to defend the cause of God and the Truth of God! Ah, those were times
   when instead of the Church being diminished and brought low, God did
   multiply her and persecution worked for her good instead of causing her
   evil! The persecutor did not destroy the Church. The ship of Christ's
   Church never sails so well as when she is rocked from side to side by
   the winds of persecution and when, at every lurch, she is well-near
   overwhelmed! Nothing has helped God's Church so much as
   persecution--she has been increased and strengthened by it!

   You will remember that this is not only the heritage of the Church at
   large, but also of every individual Believer. And now I can speak to
   some poor souls who are in this place of worship. O Brother, O Sister,
   there is a word for you this morning! "No weapon that is formed against
   you shall prosper." There are some dear Sisters who come into this
   House of Prayer under fear of brutal husbands. And there are sons and
   daughters who have cruel fathers. I know there are some here who meet
   with dire and terrible persecution because they come to the House of
   God. Little do some of us know, when we meet here, what our neighbor in
   the same seat has had to suffer through coming to this House of Prayer.
   I could unfold a tale that would ruffle up your spirits--a tale of
   persecution endured by some of the saints of God in this place. This is
   a word for you, my Friend--"No weapon that is formed against you shall
   prosper." The blow of a brutal husband shall not injure you--it may
   injure your body, but it cannot injure your soul! "Fear not them which
   kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him
   who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell." Why should you fear
   men when God is on your side? Remember that Christ has said, "Blessed
   are you when men shall revile you, and per-

   secute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My
   sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in
   Heaven: for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you."

   Hold on, young man! Hold on, young woman! Still continue in the fear of
   God and you shall find that persecution shall work for your good! But
   mark you, persecutor--if you are here this morning--there is a chain in
   Hell, of hot iron that shall be bound around your waist! There are
   fiends that have whips of fire and they shall scourge your soul
   throughout eternity because you dare to put a stumbling-block in the
   way of God's children! Remember what the Lord Jesus said--"Whoever
   shall offend one of these little ones, who believe in Me, it were
   better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he
   were drowned in the depth of the sea."

   The second portion of the saint's heritage is "every tongue that shall
   rise against you in judgment you shall condemn." Here is protection
   from the tongues of men. Satan leaves no stone unturned against the
   Church of God. He uses not simply the hands, but what is more often a
   sharper weapon, the tongue. We can bear a blow, sometimes, but we
   cannot endure an insult. There is a great power in the tongue. We can
   rise from a blow which struck us to the ground, but we cannot so easily
   recover from slander that lays the character low. Yet the promise of
   the text is, "Every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you
   shall condemn."

   Look at the Church at large and see how she has condemned her
   adversaries. When she first came into the world, she had to oppose
   Judaism--but she has condemned it and its doctrines are now decadent.
   Then up started philosophers and they said that the Gospel was all
   foolishness because they found nothing of worldly wisdom in it. But
   what has become of the philosopher? Where is the Stoic who boasted of
   his wisdom? Where the Epicurean who lectured in the state of Greece?
   Where are they now? They are gone and their names are only used to
   describe things that have ceased to be! Then Satan invented
   Mohammedanism in order to oppose the Truth of God, but the Church of
   God has condemned that long ago. The Cross has made the crescent to
   decrease.

   Where are the various systems of infidelity which have arisen, one
   after another? They are gone quite out of sight. Now and then we have
   felt rather alarmed because we have heard that some great people were
   going to prove that the Bible was not true and that our creed was not
   sound. I remember talking with an old man who said to me, "Ah, Sir,
   this geology will quite ruin man's belief in the Bible!" But, geology,
   instead of opposing the Gospel, furnishes many powerful confirmations
   of the facts of Revelation. Each one of the sciences has, in its
   imperfect condition, been used as a battering-ram against the Truth of
   God, but, as soon as it has been better understood, it has been made a
   pillar in Zion's citadel! Fear not, O sons of God, that the perversions
   of men of science can damage our cause! Lying tongues we shall condemn.
   O infidelity, abortion of the night, you have been condemned a thousand
   times! You are a changeable creature, changing your shape as the ages
   come and go. Once you were a laughing idiotic plaything for
   Voltaire--then a bullying blasphemer with Tom Paine! Then a cruel,
   blood-drinking fiend, fit mate for Robespierre, a speculating theorist
   with Owen and now a worldly, gross secularizing thing for impious
   lecturers and their profane admirers! I fear you not, Infidelity--you
   are an asp, biting at iron, depleting your spleen and breaking your
   fangs!

   My Friends, did you ever, in imagination, walk the centuries and mark
   the rise and fall of various empires of unbelief? If so, you seemed to
   be on a battlefield and to see corpses all around you. You ask the name
   of the dead and someone replies that it is the corpse of such-and-such
   a system, or the carcass of such-and-such a theory. And, mark you, as
   surely as time rolls on, the now rampant style of infidelity will
   perish and, in 50 years, we shall see the skeleton of an exploded
   scheme and its epitaph will be, "Here lies a fool, called of old, a
   Secularist." What shall we say of Mormonism, the haggard superstition
   of the West? Or of Puseyism, the express image of Popery? Or of
   Socinian and Arian heresies, of Armi-nian perversions, or of Antinomian
   abuse? What shall we say of each of these errors but that their
   death-knell shall soon toll and these children of Hell shall sink back
   to their birthplace in the Pit. Yon old and crazy church upon the seven
   hills has dared to hurl its anathemas at the saints of the Lord--and
   she does still hold the wine-cup of abomination in her hands. And she
   is still robed in scarlet and her sway is over many waters--but she
   shall be condemned in judgment! Lo, the millstone in the hand of the
   archangel hastens to its fall and Babylon the Great shall perish with a
   terrible overthrow! Then shall this cry go up from the Church of God,
   "Shout, O heavens, for the Lord has done it! Sing, O you inhabitants of
   the earth, for the promise is accomplished and every opposing tongue is
   condemned!"

   This promise is the personal heritage of each child of God--"Every
   tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn." What
   a sweet thought that is to me, for there are many tongues busy about
   me. Some say, "He is a

   good man." Others say, "He is deceiving the people." Well, if God will
   convert more sinners and bring more into His Church, men may say what
   they like about me! I am not careful to answer any of the self-thought
   Infallibles in this matter. You never hear of a preacher who gathers a
   crowd, or who is doing any good, but he is sure to be slandered and
   vilified! But here is a promise for him--"Every tongue that shall rise
   against you in judgment you shall condemn." Then the more accusers, the
   more acquittals! The more slander, the more honor! So let the enemy
   slander us as much as he pleases!

   But I know that there are some of my hearers who believe and love the
   Doctrines of Grace and, sometimes, you are called to dispute and
   contend them. I trust you are. I hope you love to "contend earnestly
   for the faith once delivered to the saints." I know what is the case
   with many of you--when you come to talk with an infidel, you do not
   know what to say. Has it not been so with you many a time? You have
   said, "I almost wish I could hold my tongue, for the man has confounded
   me." Yet remember, "Every tongue that shall rise against you in
   judgment you shall condemn." The last time you had that dispute, you
   thought that your adversary conquered, did you not? You thought
   wrongly! He might glory in his intellectual prowess. He might say, "Oh,
   that man is nothing to me." But leave him alone till he gets to
   bed--and when darkness is all around him, he will begin to think
   seriously. He conquered you in appearance, but now you master him! Wait
   till he is sick and then your words shall ring in his ears--they shall
   come up again from the grave, if he should survive you--and then you
   will conquer him. Do not be afraid to argue for the Truth of God. Do
   not think that infidels are wise men, or that Arminians are so
   exceedingly learned. Stand up for the Truth--and there is so much solid
   learning and real Truth to be found in the Doctrines that we uphold
   [Doctrines of Grace] that none of you need be ashamed of them! They are
   mighty and must prevail! The mighty God of Jacob, by the demonstration
   of the Holy Spirit, make them triumphant!

   There is one who has risen against me in judgment many a time and I
   daresay he has troubled many of the dear people of the Lord here--that
   is, Satan. He is always rising in judgment against us. Whenever we get
   into a little trouble, he comes and says, "You are no saint." If we
   commit a sin, he says, "You would not sin like that if you had been a
   child of God. You have no interest in the Covenant--you have deceived
   yourself." How many times Satan has risen against me in judgment and so
   risen that I have been fool enough to heed what he said! I have told
   him, sometimes, "You are a liar, and the father of lies," but, at other
   times, I have believed his malicious accusations. It is no easy thing
   to stand against the insinuations of the Evil One. You, my Brothers and
   Sisters, are not ignorant of his devices. He has set conscience at you,
   the Hell-hounds of legal convictions have howled upon you and the drum
   of terrible doom has thundered in your ears! Then up has stood the
   fiend, himself, and denied your union with Jesus, claiming you as his
   own prey and portion! Ah, but how glorious was the moment when our
   Advocate entered the forum of conscience and assured us that He had
   pleaded our cause in the Court of King's Bench above! And, oh, when He
   showed us the adversary's brief spoiled by the nails of the Cross, we
   felt that the tongue of Satan was condemned and his calumnies hushed!
   Glorious Counselor, all praise be to Your adorable name!

   Let the saints also know that they shall soon have a yet more public
   triumph over their cruel enemy. At the Day of Judgment, the foe of God
   and man shall be dragged from his cell, shall lift his bronze front
   scarred with thunder, receive his sentence and begin a Hell more
   terrible than all he has endured before. O saint, do you not know that
   you shall judge him? Know you not that you shall judge angels? You sons
   of God shall sit as co-assessors with His first-born Son and when He
   shall pronounce the doom of the old dragon, you shall solemnly say,
   "Amen," to the sentence. Rejoice, O poor tried one--you shall tread
   upon the lion and the dragon! Your foot shall be upon the head of your
   enemy and you shall know that the promise of this text is fulfilled in
   your own experience--"Every tongue that shall rise against you in
   judgment you shall condemn."

   Now, Beloved, I think I have spoken sufficiently, for the present, on
   this glorious heritage of the saints of God. The weapons forged against
   us are not to prosper and the tongues raised against us are to be
   condemned.

   II. Now I am to speak upon THE SAINT'S WATCHWORD. What is that? "This
   is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is
   of Me, says the Lord."

   In ancient times, as well as at the present time, armies used to have
   their watchwords by which they might recognize one another in the dark.
   We need a watchword now. It is very difficult to tell the children of
   God unless we have certain signs. God Himself gives us the
   watchword--"Their righteousness is of Me, says the Lord." You can
   always tell a saint of God by this watchword. If he says, "My
   righteousness is of God," you may safely believe that he is a disciple
   of Jesus

   Christ. If he does not understand our shibboleth, he may not have lived
   in that country where they speak the pure language of Canaan and that
   may excuse defects in his language. He may differ from us in some
   points, but if he sincerely says, "My righteousness is of God," you may
   safely conclude that he is not an enemy of the Truth. I mean "THE TRUTH
   as it is in Jesus."

   We may understand this watchword in two senses. It may mean that
   Christian justification in the eyes of the world is of God and also
   that their righteousness, their salvation, is of God. There is to be a
   time when God's children shall come out clear of all slander, when
   falsehood shall be swept away and they stall stand forth justified even
   by their enemies. Their slanderers shall have nothing to say against
   them then. They shall share in the admiration which an assembled
   universe shall be compelled to give to Him who does all things well.
   But this vindication will not be brought about by their own efforts.
   They have not been anxious to avoid reproach for Christ's sake. They
   have not wept and bemoaned themselves because they were counted the
   offscouring of all things. No, their righteousness--their entire
   clearing from the aspersions of malice and the calumnies of envy will
   come from Jehovah! The coat of arms of the Church is in the Lord's
   hands and He will wipe away every blot from it. The character of the
   saints, God, Himself, shall vindicate--and all liars shall have their
   portion in the Lake of Fire and brimstone. Let this be the motto on the
   flag on our lance! Let this be our cheering watchword--"Our
   righteousness is of the Lord."

   Now for the second meaning. "Their justifying righteousness is of Me,"
   says the Lord. If I wished to best you all-- and might ask you only one
   question, I would ask this--"What is your righteousness?" Come along in
   single file. What is your righteousness "Oh, I am as good as my
   neighbors!" Go along with you, you are not my comrade. What is your
   righteousness? "Well, I am rather betterthan my neighbors, for I go to
   chapel regularly." Off with you, Sir! You do not know the watchword.
   And you next--what is your righteousness? "I have been baptized and am
   a member of the church." Yes, and so you may be, but if that is your
   only hope, you are still in the gall of bitterness! Now, you next. What
   is your hope? "Oh, I do all I can and Christ makes up the rest."
   Rubbish! You are a Babylonian, you are no Israelite! Christ is no make
   weight--away with you! Here comes the last. What is your righteousness?
   "My righteousness is filthy rags, except the righteousness which I
   have, which Christ worked out for me on Calvary, which is imputed to me
   by God, Himself, and which makes me pure and spotless as an angel." Ah,
   Brother, you and I are fellow soldiers! I have found you--that is the
   watchword--"Your righteousness is of Me, says the Lord." I do not ask
   whether you are Churchmen, or Methodists, or Independents, or Baptists!
   If you do but know this watchword--"Your righteousness is of Me, says
   the Lord." I can leave all those minor things if you can sing--

   "Jesus, Your blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress."
   Tell me that you have any other trust and I will have nothing to do
   with you! Tell me that you can work out your own salvation without
   God's help and I will not acknowledge you as my Brother. But if you
   tell me that, from first to last, you rely only on Jesus, then I
   acknowledge you as my fellow soldier and I am glad to see you wherever
   I meet you!

   But, to wind up, we have had the heritage of the saints and we have had
   the watchword of the saints, what more shall I say? I will say--How
   well God has kept His promise! Has He not? You must know that it is
   just 249 years ago--it will be 250 next year--the fifth Jubilee--since
   under the Parliament House the train was laid and the gunpowder ready
   to blow up the Houses of Lords and Commons and utterly to destroy the
   nation! Ah, how Satan gloated over the thought that he would destroy
   the Church of God and exalt his darlings to honor in the places of
   those who loved the Lord! The plotters said, "The foundations will be
   destroyed and then what will the righteous do?" They thought that
   surely their end would be accomplished, but how sadly were they
   disappointed! They were discovered. Down went the soldiers and found
   out the plot and Popery has been prevented from spreading throughout
   Great Britain! Blessed be the name of the Lord, "No weapon that is
   formed against His Church shall prosper." We glory because we can put
   our finger upon the page of history and exclaim, "God is true, and past
   events are witnesses of His faithfulness!"

   O Beloved, has the Holy Spirit given you an inwrought knowledge of the
   Truth of this promise of God? Have you experienced blessed deliverances
   from the right hand of the Most High? Many of you, I fear, have neither
   part nor lot in this matter--and you have true cause to lament your
   terrible loss in being unable to grasp these Covenant blessings. But
   some of us may now anticipate the hour when we shall obtain complete
   redemption with all the blood-bought family and then, ah, then how
   shall we with rapture review delivering Grace in all its thousand
   instances! Hark! Hark! I thought I

   heard sweet music! I thought I heard a song descending from the regions
   up above, borne down by gales whose breath is sweet as that which comes
   from the spice groves of Araby! I hear a sound, not earthly--it is--it
   must be celestial, for no mortal sonnets can compare with these! O
   river of harmony, where are the lips from which you flow? The heavens
   are opened! I see a host in white robes, with crowns on their heads and
   palm branches in their hands! Who are these? And where did they come
   from? These are they who have passed through great tribulation and who
   tell us, "We have whitened our robes in the blood of the Lamb;
   therefore are we without fault before the Throne of God, and we serve
   Him day and night in His temple." Holy ones, repeat your song! Saints
   of God, re-echo the chorus! Repeat it yet again, that these ears may
   hear it! What do you sing? "No weapon that is formed against us has
   prospered; every tongue that has risen against us in judgment we have
   condemned. This is our heritage, our righteousness is of the Lord."
   Now, saints below, take up the strain and sing it by holy, joyous,
   confident anticipation--

   "No weapon has prospered, the foe is overcome!

   No tongue has succeeded, the wise ones are dumb!

   The Lord is our glory and each of the host

   Shall yet shout 'Hosanna,' on Canaan's fair coast!" Glory be to Father,
   Son, and Holy Spirit, world without end! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ISAIAH43:14-28; 44:1-8.

   Isaiah 43:14-16. Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One
   ofIsrael; For your sake Ihave sent to Babylon, and have brought down
   all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships. I am
   the LORD, your Holy One, the creator ofIsrael, your King. Thus says the
   LORD, which makes a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty water.
   Great events in history all have some connection with the Church of
   Christ. We may not always be able to see it, but we may rest assured
   that it is so. The rise and fall of empires have a great deal to do
   with the chosen people of God. So here He reminds them of what He did
   in the ancient days when He smote Egypt at the Red Sea and made a path
   for His people through the mighty waters.

   17, Which brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power;
   they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct,
   they are quenched as flax. There is a little blaze and a little smoke
   and then all is over with the flax. So shall it be with those who set
   themselves up against the Lord--He shall confound their wisdom and
   humble their pride.

   18, 19. Remember you not the former things, neither consider the things
   of old. BeholdI will do a new thing. What God has done once, He can do
   again; but He can also make yet grander and more marvelous displays of
   His power and Grace than He has ever yet given!

   19, 20. Now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even
   make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert The beast of the
   field shall honor Me, the dragons and the owls: because I give water in
   the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people,
   My chosen. If then, O child of God, you are in sore distress--if all
   around you is comfortless as a howling wilderness, yet do not despair!
   God can make a way for you even there, and can supply your needs. He
   can open up a way in the wilderness and rivers in the midst of the
   desert! Joy and rejoicing may come to you even in the depths of your
   distress.

   21. This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My
   praise. He will not be disappointed in His people. He made them that He
   might get glory out of them and He will surely have it--none shall be
   able to prevent it.

   22-24. Butyou have not called upon Me, O Jacob; butyou have been weary
   ofMe, O Israel You have not brought Me the small cattle of your burnt
   offerings; neither have You honored Me with your sacrifices. Ihave not
   caused you to serve with an offering, nor wearied you with incense. You
   have brought Me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled Me
   with the fat of your sacrifices: but you have made Me to serve with
   your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities. Remember that this
   is the wearied Lord who is speaking, the Lord whose patience seems to
   be well-near exhausted by the provocations of His people--yet how
   wonderful is His message to them!

   25, 26. I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for My own
   sake, and will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance. Let us
   plead together: declare you, that you may be justified. ' 'If you have
   anything to say in your

   own defense, out with it! Come to Me and let the cause of this quarrel
   be removed. Let Me hear your plea if you have

   one."

   27, 28. Your first father has sinned, and your teachers have
   transgressed against Me. Therefore I have profaned the princes of the
   sanctuary and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.
   God justifies himself for His heavy strokes upon Israel--He tells them
   that the reason lay in their own sin.

   Isaiah 44:1-3. Yet now hear, O Jacob My servant and Israel, whom I have
   chosen. Thus says the LORD, that made you, and formed you from the
   womb, which will help you. Fear not O Jacob, My servant; and you,
   Jeshrun, whom I have chosen. For I willpour water upon him that is
   thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I willpour My Spirit upon your
   seed, and My blessing upon your offspring. "Think not that I am anxious
   to punish you for your sin. Only return to Me, and I will be delighted
   to bless you. I will help you out of your troubles. I will supply your
   needs and not only so, but I will bless your children, generation after
   generation."

   4, 5. And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the
   water courses. One shall say, I am the LORD'S, and another shall call
   himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with His hand
   unto the LORD, and, surname himself by the name of Israel. God still
   has power over human hearts--He can bring back to himself His wandering
   children.

   6. Thus says the LORD the King ofIsrael, andHis Redeemer the LORD
   ofHosts; Iam the First, andIam the Last; and beside Me there is no God.
   He gathered up all into Himself as He is the First and the Last, where
   is there space for any other god? He, therefore, would have all our
   hearts. He would have us love, adore and serve Him and Him alone.

   7. And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in
   order for Me. Since I appointed the ancient people and the things that
   are coming, and shall come, let them show these to them. If these idols
   are gods, let them prophesy and tell what is to happen in the future!
   But they cannot even speak to one another.

   8. Fear you not, neither be afraid: have not I told you from that time,
   and have declared it? You are even My witnesses, is there a God beside
   Me?Indeed, there is no other God; Iknow not any.
     __________________________________________________________________

Job's Sure Knowledge

   (No. 2909)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 10, 1876,

   "For I know that my Redeemer lives." Job 19:25.

   I DARESAY you know that there are a great many difficulties about the
   translation of this passage. It is a very complicated piece of Hebrew,
   partly, I suppose, owing to its great antiquity, being found in what
   is, probably, one of the oldest Books of the Bible. Besides that,
   different persons have tried to translate it according to their own
   varying views. The Jews stiffly fight against the notion of the Messiah
   and His Resurrection being found in this verve, while many Christian
   commentators see here everything that we can find in the New Testament
   and translate the passage as though Job were as well instructed in this
   matter as we are now that Christ "has brought life and immortality to
   light through the Gospel." Others say that while there is, no doubt, a
   reference to the Person and the Resurrection of Christ, yet it is not
   so vivid as some seem to think.

   Personally, I am quite satisfied with the translation given in our
   Authorized Version, yet it has occurred to me that possibly, Job,
   himself, may not have known the full meaning of all that he said.
   Imagine the Patriarch driven into a corner, badgered by his so-called
   friends, charged by them with all manner of evils until he is quite
   boiling over with indignation and, at the same time, smarting under
   terrible bodily diseases and the dreadful losses which he has
   sustained-- and, at last, he bursts out with this exclamation, "I shall
   be vindicated one day. I am sure I shall. I know that my Vindicator
   lives. I am sure that there is One who will vindicate me and if He
   never clears my name and reputation as long as I live, it will be done
   afterwards. There must be a just God in Heaven who will see me righted
   and even though worms devour my body until the last relic of it has
   passed away, I do verily believe that, somehow, in the far-off ages, I
   shall be vindicated."

   He throws his faith forward to some tremendous era which he anticipates
   and he declares that there will be found then, as he believes there is
   alive even now, a Goel, a Kinsman, an Avenger who will stand up for him
   and set right all this wrong. He cannot conceive that God will permit
   such gross injustice to be done to a man who has walked as he has
   walked, to be brought so low and then to be stung with such unfounded
   accusations. He is positive that there must be a Vindicator for him
   somewhere and he appeals to that Last Dread Tribunal which he dimly
   sees in the far-off future and he believes that someone will be found
   to stand up successfully for him there.

   If that is the case, you will see that Job was driven, perhaps beyond
   his former knowledge, by his very pains and trials. He may but dimly
   have perceived a future state, but his condition revealed to him the
   necessity for such a state. He felt that if the righteous suffer so
   much in this life, often apparently without any just cause--and if the
   wicked prosper-- then there must be another state in which God will set
   right the wrongs of this and rectify the apparent inequalities of His
   Providence here. Job realized that and, possibly, his deep griefs may
   have been the channel of another Revelation to him, namely, that there
   was a mysterious Divine Being concerning whom that dark prophecy had
   been handed down from the Garden of Eden, itself, "The Seed of the
   woman shall bruise the serpent's head." He felt sure that for those who
   were wronged as he had been, there must be an Advocate provided. He had
   before complained that there was no Umpire--no "Daysman"--to stand
   between them both, but now he asks for an Advocate and he feels that
   there must be one, yes, he knowsthat there is and he declares that
   somewhere or other, there is an Advocate who will, some day or oth-

   er, set right all that concerns him, let things go now as they may! So
   possibly Job was seeing more than he had ever seen before of that
   mysterious One who pleads the cause of those who are oppressed and
   shows Himself strong on their behalf at the right hand of God!

   I am not going to enter into any discussion of the matter, but shall
   use the passage in the full Evangelical sense. Job may have known all
   that we now know concerning Christ, for he may have had special
   Revelations and manifestations. We do not find all that we know in his
   Book, yet he may have meant all that I shall say in this discourse. If
   he did not mean it, I trust that we shall, under the gracious guidance
   of the Holy Spirit!

   I. I shall speak first upon this point--JOB HAD A TRUE FRIEND AMID HIS
   MISTAKEN FRIENDS. These men were miserable comforters, but Job had a
   real Comforter. They were estranged from him, but he had a true Friend
   left, so he said, "I know that my Goel lives." That is the Hebrew word.
   I suppose you all know that it means the person nearest akin to him
   who, because he was nearest akin, was bound to take up his cause. If a
   man was slain by misadventure, the goel pursued the one who had slain
   him and endeavored to avenge his death. If a person fell into debt and
   was sold into slavery because of the debt, his goel, if he was able,
   had to redeem him--and hence we get the word, "redeemer." Or if estates
   became mortgaged through poverty, it was the duty of the next of kin to
   redeem them, if possible, and so, again, we get the idea of redeemer.
   But the word, "goel," is more comprehensive than the word, "redeemer,"
   so we will begin with its first meaning.

   Job, in the midst of his false friends, had One whom he called his
   Kinsman. "I know," he said, "that my Kinsman lives." We interpret that
   word, "Kinsman," as meaning our Lord Jesus Christ and we sing--

   "Jesus, our Kinsman and our God, Arrayed in majesty and blood, You are
   our life, our souls in Thee Possess a full felicity."

   I want you, just now, to think of Jesus Christ as your Kinsman if you
   are really in Him, for He is, indeed, the nearest akin to you of
   any--bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. "Forasmuch then as the
   children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also, Himself, likewise
   took part of the same." Now, your own flesh and blood, as you call
   them, are not so near to you in real kinship as Jesus is, for, often
   you will find flesh and blood near akin by birth but not by sympathy.
   Two brothers may be, spiritually, very different from one another and
   may not be able to enter into each other's trials at all. But this
   Kinsman participates in every pang that rends your heart. He knows your
   constitution, your weakness, your sensitiveness, the particular trial
   that cuts you to the quick--for in all your afflictions He was
   afflicted. Thus He is nearer to you than the nearest of earthly kin can
   possibly be, for He enters more fully into the whole of your life! He
   seems to have gone through it all and He still goes through it all in
   His constant sympathy with you.

   Christ's kinship with His people is to be thought of with great comfort
   because it is voluntary. We have some, perhaps, who are akin to us, yet
   who wish they were not. Many a time, when a rich man has poor
   relations, he is half ashamed of the kinship between them and wishes
   that it did not exist. Shame upon him for thinking so! But our Lord
   Jesus Christ's relationship to us is no accident of birth--it was
   voluntarily assumed by him! He would be one with us because He loved
   us. Nothing could satisfy Him till He had come to this earth and been
   made one flesh with His Church. "For this cause," it is said concerning
   marriage, "shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined
   unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great
   mystery," said Paul, "but I speak concerning Christ and the Church."
   And, verily, so it was with Christ, as the poet sings--

   "'Yes,' says the Lord, 'with her I'll go

   Through all the depths of care and woe

   And on the Cross will even dare

   The bitter pangs of death to bear. This He did because He would be one
   flesh with His people and that is a very near kinship which comes as
   close as that, and which willingly does so--not by force, but by
   voluntary choice.

   And further, this is a kinship of which Jesus is never ashamed. We have
   known or heard of the prosperous man who has been ashamed of his poor
   old mother and of the educated young man who has looked down with scorn
   upon the very father who has toiled and slaved in order to give him the
   advantages of such an education. It is disgraceful that there should
   ever be such ingrates, but it is written concerning our great Kinsman,
   "He that sanctifies and they who are sancti-

   fied are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them
   brethren." He declares to the whole universe, concerning those
   persecuted ones--those who are ridiculed as being fools, "They are My
   brethren." The Prince of Glory, whose fingers are adorned with stars of
   light like rings of priceless value, calls the poor bedridden woman who
   is a child of God, His sister! And He calls the humble, toiling,
   laboring man who walks with Him, His brother! And He is not ashamed to
   do so. Think, Beloved, with most intense gratitude, of this great
   Kinsman of yours who is so near of kin to you-- voluntarily near of kin
   and not ashamed to acknowledge the kinship!

   Remember, too, that your Kinsman lives in this respect--that He will
   always be your Kinsman! The closest ties of earthly relationship must,
   to a great extent, end in death, for there are no husbands and wives,
   as such, in Heaven. There cannot be, "for in the Resurrection they
   neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God
   in Heaven." There are other ties, of a spiritual kind, that will far
   outshine the best of bonds that linked us together here, but, when all
   other ties are broken, Jesus will always be our Kinsman, our Brother!
   We shall find the fraternal relationship better understood, more fully
   enjoyed and more clearly manifested up there than it can ever be down
   here. When all other relationships are growing dim, this blessed
   eternal kinship will shine out the more brightly! So I want all of you
   who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ to interpret my text in this
   way--"I know that my Kinsman lives"--and to feel how honored you are to
   have such a Kinsman as Christ is! Ruth was highly privileged in having
   such a kinsman as Boaz who was not content for her to glean in his
   fields, but who took her as his wife. And your great Kinsman intends
   that you should be betrothed to Him forever and He will bring you to
   His heavenly home at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!

   There was a second meaning to the word, "goel," arising out of the
   first--Job's Kinsman would become his Vindicator. It was the kinsman's
   duty to defend the rights of his needy relative, so Job intended here
   to say, "I know that my Vindicator lives." And the Lord Jesus Christ is
   the Vindicator of His people from all false charges. It is not easy for
   Christians to live in this world without being slandered and
   misrepresented. Certainly, those of us who live in the full blaze of
   public life can hardly utter a word without having it twisted, tortured
   and misconstrued. We are often represented as saying what we loathe
   even to think--yet we must not be surprised at that. The world loves
   lying--it always has done so and it always will. Even in private life
   you may meet with similar cruel treatment--there are some of God's best
   children who lie under reproach by the year together. The very things
   which they would not tolerate for a moment are laid to their charge and
   they are thought to be guilty of them--and even good people hold up
   their hands in pious horror at them though they are perfectly innocent
   all the while!

   Well, Beloved, always remember that your Vindicator lives! Do not be
   too much concerned to clear your own character. Above all, do not
   attempt to vindicate yours in a court of law, but say to yourself, "I
   know that my Vindicator lives." When He comes, "then shall the
   righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father." His
   people may now be under a cloud, but, when He appears, the cloud shall
   break and their true glory shall be seen! The greater the censure under
   which any of us have unjustly lived on earth, the greater will be the
   joy and the honor which will be vouchsafed to us in the day when Christ
   shall clear our character from all the shameful aspersions that have
   been brought against us! All will be cleared up in that day, so leave
   the accusations alone, knowing that your Vindicator lives.

   There is another most comforting thought--that our Vindicator will
   clear us from true charges as well as false ones. As for the false
   charges, what do they matter? It is the true ones that really concern
   us--can Christ clear us from them? Yes, that He can! Remember how the
   Apostle John writes, "If any man sins, we have an Advocate with the
   Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." You see, it is not merely if we
   have been sazdto sin when we did not, but if we reallysin, "we have an
   Advocate with the Father." O blessed Advocate, how do You clear Your
   people of the sin which they have actually committed? Why, in this
   way--He took it up Himself--the awful load of their guilt--and suffered
   the full penalty for it! So there He stands before the Eternal Throne
   to plead their cause and, as He does so, He says, "Those sins committed
   by My people--I have taken them upon Myself and suffered in the place
   of all who will believe in Me." O blessed Kinsman, how glorious are You
   in Your Grace, in that You have so completely undertaken our cause that
   You have been made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
   of God in You!

   Yes, Beloved, Jesus will plead the merit of His precious blood and His
   spotless righteousness and, before that powerful pleading, our sins and
   our transgressions shall sink beneath the flood and shall not be
   remembered against us any more forever!

   In that day, too, our Vindicator will defend us against all the
   accusations of Satan. Our great adversary often assails and attacks us
   here--and the Lord says to him, as He did concerning Joshua the high
   priest, "The Lord rebuke you, O Satan; even the Lord that has chosen
   Jerusalem rebuke you!" We may tell the devil, when we stand foot to
   foot with him and are sore beset, that our Vindicator lives and we may
   quote to him that grand promise, "The God of peace shall bruise Satan
   under your feet shortly," because our Vindicator, who is to bruise the
   serpent's head, still lives! The old serpent may nibble at your heel
   for a while, as he did at your Master's, but you, in the strength of
   your Lord, shall bruise his head! And whatever other adversary of your
   soul there may be at any time, you can rest in quiet confidence. Even
   if that adversary is permitted to prevail over you for a while, say to
   him, "Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise;
   when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me."

   So you have two meanings of the word goel--my Kinsman, my
   Vindicator--lives. I hope you who are greatly tempted and tried and you
   who are persecuted and oppressed will catch that second meaning and
   commit your cause unto God. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but
   rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is Mine; I
   will repay, says the Lord." Be slow to anger! Fret not yourselves
   because of the wicked man that prospers in his evil way and think not
   of being revenged upon your oppressors! In patience and quietness
   possess your souls knowing that your time of vindication will surely
   come, for your Vindicator lives!

   Then the third meaning of the word goel certainly is, "Redeemer," so
   Job could say, "I know that my Redeemer lives." As I have already said,
   the next of kin in the process of vindicating his poor kinsman was
   accustomed to redeem him from bondage, or to redeem any part of his
   estate that might be under mortgage. So, let us next think of how the
   Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us from bondage. Having broken the Law
   of God, we were in bondage to that Law. We had received the spirit of
   bondage again to fear. But we who have believed in Jesus, our Kinsman,
   can say that He has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a
   curse for us, and that we are no longer in bondage. We were also in
   bondage under sin, as Paul wrote, "I am carnal, sold under sin," but
   Christ has come and broken the power of sin in us so that its reigning
   power is subdued--and though it still strives to get the mastery and
   often makes us to groan within ourselves, even as Paul did, yet do we,
   with him, thank God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our
   Lord!

   There are two redemptions--redemption by price and redemption by power,
   and both of these Christ has worked for us--by price, by His Sacrifice
   upon the Cross of Calvary--and by power, by His Divine Spirit coming
   into our heart and renewing our soul. Ought we not unceasingly to bless
   the Lord who has redeemed us from under the Law, having paid the
   penalty for the commands which we had broken and who has also redeemed
   us from the power of sin? "I know that my Redeemer lives," then I know
   that I am a free man, for if the Son makes us free, then are we free,
   indeed! I know that He paid the price for my soul's eternal
   redemption--then may my soul continually exult in Him and rejoice in
   the liberty with which He has made me free!

   But, as I have already reminded you, the redeemer was also accustomed
   to redeem the estate as well as the person of his kinsman. We had lost
   everything. Father Adam had put everything under a heavy mortgage and
   we could not even meet the interest on it--but the whole estate is free
   from a mortgage now, even to Paradise itself! Does someone ask, "Is
   there not any mortgage even upon Paradise?" I answer--No, for Christ
   said to the dying thief, "Today shall you be with Me in Paradise." So
   it is clear that He has entered Paradise and claimed it on His people's
   behalf. Jesus Christ has said, in the words of the Psalmist, "I
   restored that which I took not away." Bankrupt debtors, through the
   Lord's Sovereign Grace you are no longer under any liabilities because
   of your sin if Christ is accepted by you as your Goel and Redeemer! He
   has restored the estates to you which your first father, Adam, had
   lost. And He has made you heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus
   Christ through the wondrous redemption which He worked for you on the
   Cross of Calvary!

   Suck the honey, if you can, out of these three glorious Truths of God
   and you will be able to do so in proportion as you can personally use
   the words of the text, "'I know that my Redeemer lives.' I know that He
   lives who will vindicate my character and rectify my wrongs. I know,
   too, that He lives who has redeemed me from sin and Hell--and even
   though I die, I know that He will redeem me from the power of the grave
   and that He will enable me to say, 'O death, where is your sting? O
   grave, where is your victory?'"

   Dwell on the remembrance that you have such a Divine Helper and then
   let us pass on to another thought at which I will only briefly hint as
   I proceed to another part of my theme.

   II. The second point is this--JOB HAD REAL PROPERTY AMID ABSOLUTE
   POVERTY.

   Job had lost everything--every stick and stone that he possessed. He
   had lost his children and he had lost his wife, too, for all practical
   purposes, for she had not acted like a wife to him in his time of
   trial. Poor Job--he had lost everything else, but he had not lost his
   Redeemer! Notice, he does not say, "I know that my wife and my children
   live," but he said, "I know that my Redeemer lives." Ah, "my
   Redeemer"--he has not lost Him, so he has the best of all possessions
   still left! Looking up to Him by faith, with the tears of joy standing
   in his eyes, he says, "Yes, He is my Redeemer and He still lives. I
   accept Him as mine and I will cling to Him forever." Can you, beloved
   Friends, not merely rejoice in Christ as the Redeemer, but also as
   yourRedeemer? Have you personally accepted Him as your Redeemer? Have
   you personally trusted Him with your soul, wholly and really? And do
   you already feel in your own heart a kinship to this great Kinsman, a
   trust in this great Vindicator, a reliance upon His great Redemption?
   Another man's redemption is of no value to my soul--the sweetness lies
   in the little word, "my"--"my Redeemer." Luther used to say that the
   marrow of the Gospel is found in the pronouns and I believe it is--"My
   Redeemer." Say, with me, each one of you for himself or herself--

   "My faith would lay her hand

   On that dear head of Yours,

   While like a penitent I stand,

   And there confess my sin.

   My soul looks back to see

   The burdens You did bear,

   When hanging on the cursed tree

   And hopes her guilt was there." If you really do rely upon Christ's
   atoning Sacrifice and so take Him as your Redeemer, you may not only
   hope your guilt was there, but you may knowthat it was! There, poor
   man, you may not have a penny in your pocket, but if you can truly say,
   "my Redeemer," you are infinitely better off than a millionaire who
   cannot say that! You who know not where you will have a lodging
   tonight, if you can truly say, "my Redeemer," you need not envy the
   very angels of God, for in this respect, you are ahead even of them,
   for they can call Him, "Lord," but not "Redeemer"! He is not so near
   akin to them as He is to you, "for verily He took not on Him the nature
   of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." He took your Nature
   and mine, Beloved, for Christ became a Man!

   So Job had something real and valuable left even when he had lost all
   his property.

   III. Thirdly, Job seems to lay stress upon the word, "lives"--"I know
   that my Redeemer lives." This teaches us that JOB HAD A LIVING KINSMAN
   AMID A DYING FAMILY.

   All his children were dead. We cannot easily estimate the full force of
   that blow upon the Patriarch's heart. The loss of one child is a very
   painful event, even when the child is a very little one and the parents
   have many others left. But it is a far worse bereavement when the
   children who are taken away are grown up, as Job's were. They were
   evidently a very united family who used to meet in each other's houses
   for mutual fellowship. They seem to have been a very happy family and
   they were certainly a family under very gracious influences, for Job
   was accustomed, after their days of festival, to offer sacrifices for
   them lest they should have sinned against the Lord. Altogether, it was
   a fine family--seven sons and three daughters--and now they were all
   gone at once! To lose all one's family at once like that is a heavy
   stroke that none can measure but those who have felt it. All were
   gone!--The whole ten at once! That was sad for poor Job, but it was
   most blessed that he was able to say, "Though my children are all dead,
   'I know that my Redeemer lives.' He is not dead and in Him I find more
   than all that I have lost."

   Look at your Lord, dear Friend, if you are mourning, just now, the sons
   of loved ones and see whether He is not better to you than ten sons and
   daughters! See whether there is not in His heart room enough for that
   affection which has been so rudely snapped, to grow again. The tendrils
   of your soul need something to cling to and to twist around--then let
   them wrap around Him! Rejoice that He lives in a dying world. If you
   walk through the cemetery, or stand by the open grave, how blessedly
   these words seem to fall upon your spirit--like the music of
   angels--"These are dead, but 'I know that my Redeemer lives--lives on,
   lives in power, lives in happiness, lives with a life which He
   communicates to all who trust Him. He lives and therefore I shall live
   with Him! He lives and therefore the dead who are in Him shall live
   forever." O blessed Truth of God!

   You will yourself die soon, dear Friend. No, I must correct myself--you
   will not die, for it is not death for one who knows the Savior to die.
   You will fall asleep in Him one of these days at the very hour that God
   has appointed--and

   when you open your eyes, it will not be in the narrow death
   chamber--you will not be on the bed of sickness. I think you will be
   startled to find yourself amid such new surroundings! "What is this I
   hear?" you will say. "Such music as this has never charmed me before!
   And what is that I see?" But you will not need to enquire, for you will
   know that face at once! You knew, while on earth, that Jesus still
   lived, but you will know it better then--when you lay aside these heavy
   optics that do but dim our sight and get into the pure spirit state and
   then see HIM! Oh, the bliss of that first sight of Christ! It seems to
   me as if that would gather up an eternity of delight into a single
   moment! That first glimpse of Him will be enough to make us swoon away
   with excessive rapture! I do verily think that some saints whom I have
   known have done just that--swooned away with the excess of joy that
   they have felt in their departing moments. I have, sounding in my ears
   just now, the voice of a dear Brother by whose bedside I sat for a
   little while before I came to this service. He said to me, "I shall be
   Home tonight, Pastor. I wanted to see your face once more before I
   went, but I shall be Home tonight and see the face of Jesus!" I hope
   you will all be prepared to die after that fashion. The godly old Negro
   said, "Our minister is dying full of life." That is the way to
   die--full of life! Because Jesus lives, we shall also live and we may
   well die full of life because of our union to Him!

   IV. The last thought I want to leave with you is this--JOB HAD ABSOLUTE
   CERTAINTY AMID UNCERTAIN

   AFFAIRS.

   He said, "I know that my Redeemer lives." Why, Job, I should have
   thought you would not have known anything for certain now! I should not
   have liked to insure Job's farm animals, or the houses in which his
   children met together to feast. Nothing seemed to be certain with Job
   but uncertainty--yet there wasone thing concerning which he felt that
   he could put his foot down firmly and say, "'I know.' The winds may
   rage and the tempests roar, but they cannot shake this rock. 'I know.'
   'I know.' 'I know!'" Beloved, is everything uncertain with you in this
   world? Of course it is, for it is so with everybody! But does it appear
   to be more uncertain with you than it does with anybody else? Does your
   business seem to be slipping away and every earthly comfort is
   threatening to disappear? Even if it is so, there is, nevertheless,
   something that is certain--something that is stable--Jesus your
   Redeemer lives! Rest on Him and you will never fail. Let your faith in
   Him be firm and confident--you cannot be too fully established in the
   belief that Jesus, who once died, has left the grave to die no more and
   that you, in Him, must also live eternally! Something may be wrong with
   you for the next few days or weeks, but all is right with you forever
   and "all's well that ends well."

   There may be some rough water to be crossed between here and the fair
   havens of eternal happiness, but all is right there forever and ever!
   There may be losses and crosses, there may be tumult and shipwrecks,
   but all is right forever with all who are in Christ Jesus! "Some on
   boards and some on broken pieces of the ship"--but all who are in
   Christ Jesus shall escape "safe to land." There are innumerable
   uncertainties, but there is this one certainty--"Israel shall be saved
   in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: you shall not be ashamed nor
   confounded world without end." Spring on this Rock, man! If you are
   struggling in the sea, just now, and waves of sin and doubt beat over
   you, leap onto this Rock-- Jesus lives! Trust the living Christ and,
   because He lives, you shall also live! I could cheerfully take my place
   with Job if I might be able to say as confidently as he did, "I know
   that my Redeemer lives."

   And if you, as a poor sinner, are trusting wholly and only in Christ,
   then He is your Redeemer and you are saved forever! If He is the only
   hope that you have and you cling to Him as the limpet clings to the
   rock, then all is right with you forever, and you may know that He is
   your Redeemer as surely as Job knew that He was his! The Lord bless
   you, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOB 19.

   Verses 1, 2. Then, Job answered andsaid, how long will you vex my soul
   and break me in pieces with words?They struck at him with their hard
   words as if they were breaking stones on the roadside! We ought to be
   very careful what we say to those who are suffering affliction and
   trial, for a word, though it seems to be a very little thing, will
   often cut far more deeply and wound far more terribly than a razor. So
   Job says, "How long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with
   words?"

   3. These ten times have you reproached me: you are not ashamed that you
   make yourselves strange to me. He means that they had reproached him
   several times over--and hints that they ought to have been ashamed to
   act so strangely, so coldly, so harshly towards him.

   4. And be it indeed that I have erred, my error remains with myself. "I
   have done you no harm. The error, if error there is, is within my own
   bosom, for you cannot find anything in my life to lay to my charge."
   Happy is the man who can say as much as that!

   5. 6. Ifindeedyou will magnify yourselves against me, andplead against
   me my reproach: know now that Godhas overthrown me, and has compassed
   me with His net Job seems to say, "I did not bring this trouble upon
   myself--it is God who has laid it upon me. Take heed lest in
   reproaching me because of my trouble, you should also reproach God." I
   suppose that we cannot, all of us, see into the inner meaning of these
   words, but if we are in very sore trouble and those who ought to
   comfort us are bringing cruel accusations against us, we shall read the
   language of Job with no small sympathy and satisfaction.

   7. Behold, if I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard: I cry aloud,
   but there is no judgment Poor Job! When our prayer is not heard, or we
   think it is not, then the clouds above us are indeed dark. You who are
   passing through a season of unanswered prayer--do not imagine that you
   are the first to travel that dreary way! You can see the footprints of
   others on that desolate sandy shore. Job knew what that experience
   meant. So did David and so did our blessed Lord. Read the 2nd verse of
   the 22nd Psalm, and hear Jesus say, "O My God, I cry in the daytime,
   but You hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent."

   8. He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and He has set darkness
   in my paths. God haddone this and done it to Job whom He called "a
   perfect and an upright man." Then how can you and I expect to escape
   trial and difficulty when such a man as the Patriarch of Uz found his
   road blocked up and darkness all around him?

   9. 10. He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my
   head. He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and my hope has
   He removed like a tree. That is, torn up by the roots and carried down
   the stream to be forgotten by the people who once knew it and rejoiced
   in its welcome shade.

   11. He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me unto Him
   as one of His enemies. Does God ever act like that towards His own
   children? Yes, there are times when, without any anger in His heart,
   but with designs of love toward them, He treats His children,
   outwardly, as if He were an enemy to them. See the gardener going up to
   that beautiful tree. He takes out a sharp knife, feels its edge to be
   sure that it is sharp and then he begins pruning it here, gashing it
   there and making it to bleed in another place as if he were going to
   cut it all to pieces! Yet all that is not because he has any anger
   against the tree, but, on the contrary, because he greatly values it
   and wishes it to bring forth more fruit than it has ever done. Do not
   think that God's sharpest knife means death to His loved ones--it means
   more life and a richer, fuller life.

   12. His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and
   encamp round about my tabernacle. Troops of trouble, troops of
   Chaldeans and Sabeans, troops in which Job counted the stormy winds as
   terrible allies of the Most High--all these had come up against Job and
   he seemed to be like a country that is beaten down and devoured by
   powerful invaders.

   13. He has put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintance are verily
   estranged from me. He looks on those so-called "friends" of his and,
   remembering the bitter things they had said, he tells them that they
   are estranged from him.

   14. 15. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten
   me. They that dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger:
   I am an alien in their sight What a long way a child of God may be
   permitted to go in trouble! Ah, Brothers and Sisters! We do not know
   how those who are most dear to God's heart may suffer all the more for
   that very reason--"for whom the Lord loves He chastens."

   16, 17. I called my servant, andhe gave me no answer; I entreated him
   with my mouth My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for
   the children's sake of my own body. He mentioned to his wife those whom
   death had taken away and asked her to speak kindly to him, but even she
   had hard words to throw in his teeth!

   18-20. Yes, young children despised me; I arose, and they spoke against
   me. All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned
   against me. My bone cleaves to my skin and to my flesh, and I am
   escaped with the skin of

   my teeth. There is no skin upon the teeth, or scarcely any, and,
   therefore, Job means that there was next to nothing of him left, like
   the skin of his teeth.

   21. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends; for the
   hand of God has touched me. How full of pity it is that he has thus to
   beg for sympathy! This strong man--this most patient man--this perfect
   and upright man before God has to ask for sympathy! Do you wonder that
   it was so? HE, who was far greater than Job, ran back thrice to His
   sleeping disciples as if He needed some help from them, yet He found it
   not, for He had to say to them, "What? Could you not watch with Me one
   hour?" Let this be a lesson to us to try and possess hearts of
   compassion towards those who are in sorrow and distress.

   22. Why do youpersecute me as God does, andare not satisfied with my
   flesh? "If God smites me, why do you, who are round about me, do the
   same? Is it not enough that God seems to be turned against me? Why
   should you also be my enemies?"

   23. 24. Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in
   a book! That they were engraved with an iron pen and lead in the rock
   forever! Inscriptions have been found, engraved in the rocks, that may
   have been done in the time of Job and it was common, in ancient days,
   to write on tablets of lead or brass. So Job desired that what he was
   saying might be recorded for future reference, for he was persuaded
   that he was being harshly dealt with and unjustly judged.

   25. For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the
   latter day upon the earth. "For I know." What a splendid burst of
   confidence this is, right out of the depth of his sorrow, like some
   wondrous star that suddenly blazes upon the brow of the blackest night,
   or like the sudden rising of the morning sun!

   26-28. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my
   flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall
   behold, and not another; though my reins are consumed within me. But
   you should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is
   found in me?Job seems to say, speaking about himself, though in the
   third person, "He is a devout man, can you not see that? He has faith
   in God, my Friends, can you not perceive that? Why, then, do you
   persecute him so?"

   29. Be you afraid of the sword: for wrath brings the punishments of the
   sword, that you may know there is a judgment Now Job carries the war
   into the enemy's camp and he says, "You charge me with all sorts of sin
   and yet you cannot deny that the root of the matter is in me. Would it
   not be much wiser for you to be yourselves afraid lest God should cut
   you off for falsely accusing me and slandering me in the time of my
   sorrow?" There we may confidently leave Job, for the man who can truly
   say what he has said about his Redeemer will come out all right at the
   last.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Harvest and the Vintage

   (No. 2910)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 17, 1876.

   "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud One sat
   like unto the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His
   hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying
   with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Your sickle,
   and reap: for the time is come for You to reap; for the harvest of the
   earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the
   earth, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the
   temple which is in Heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And another
   angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried
   with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in
   your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth;
   for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel thrust in his sickle into
   the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the
   great winepress of the wrath of God and the winepress was trodden
   outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress even unto the
   horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs."
   Revelation 14:14-20.

   I AM no Prophet, nor the son of a Prophet. Neither do I profess to be
   able to explain all the prophecies in this blessed Book. I believe that
   many of them will only be explained as the events occur which they
   foretell. Yet there are some things which are plain even to the most
   superficial reader. It is plain, for instance, that it is certainly
   foretold that the power of antichrist shall be utterly and eternally
   destroyed and that Babylon, that is to say, the Papal system, with all
   its abominations, shall be cast like a millstone into the flood to rise
   no more forever. It is also certain that the Jews, as a people, will
   yet acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, as their King, and
   that they will return to their own land, "and they shall build the old
   wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations and they shall
   repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." It is
   also certain that our Lord Jesus Christ will come again to this earth
   and that He will gloriously reign among His ancients and that there
   will be a thousand years of joy and peace such as were never known on
   this earth before! It is also certain that there will be a great and
   general judgment when all nations shall be gathered before the Son of
   Man sitting upon the Throne of His Glory--and His final word concerning
   these upon His left hand will be, "These shall go away into everlasting
   punishment" and, concerning those upon His right hand, "but the
   righteous into life eternal."

   How all these great events are to be chronologically arranged, I cannot
   tell. This I know--for I have read a multitude of books upon this
   subject, and of making them there is practically no end--all the
   authors seem to me to be wonderfully wise in confuting one another, but
   not to be so successful in establishing their own theories! Therefore I
   am content to believe what I see to be clearly taught in the Scriptures
   and to leave to abler minds than my own the arrangement of the various
   events in some sort of historical sequence. This, however, seems to me
   to be clearly revealed in the Scriptures--that there is to come--we
   know not when--a solemn winding up of all the events of this world's
   history. Whatever else may happen, or may not happen, the Apostle Paul
   plainly declared that God "has appointed a day in which He will judge
   the world in righteousness by that Man whom He has ordained. Therefore
   He has given assurance unto all men in that He has raised Him from the
   dead." Even though we cannot comprehend some things that are foretold
   by John, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or Ezekiel, we know that "it is
   appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." And that
   "we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ; that everyone
   may receive the things done in his body, according

   to what he has done, whether it is good or bad." Judgment must
   certainly come, even to the house of God, for Peter says that there it
   shall begin And if it shall begin there, "what shall the end be of them
   that obey not the Gospel of God?"

   That there will be a Day of Judgment appears to be clear even to human
   reason, for, apart from Revelation, or, perhaps, assisted by some dim
   relics of it, all nations--I think I may say all, for no exceptions are
   known to me--have believed in a judgment. They have called it by
   different names and they have described it in various ways, but they
   have all believed, more or less clearly, in a great Throne of Justice,
   before which wrongs will be rectified, sin will be punished and
   righteousness will be rewarded. This has seemed so self-evident, even
   to the crudest thoughts of the lowest of mankind, that, in some shape
   or other, the most unenlightened nations have believed it! And it
   strikes one, at once, as being most reasonable, for, in this world, how
   often does infamy triumph! How often is oppression linked with power to
   destroy innocence and virtue! What are the groans, sighs and wails that
   I hear and what are the tears that I see but the outbursts of men who
   are being crushed beneath the awful burden of lifelong injustice? The
   best of men are, all too often, trodden down as the very mire of the
   street, while the worst are sitting proudly in the high places of the
   earth! If there is a God at all--and we know that there is--there must
   be a time and a way of rectifying all this in another state! And so
   there is, as David says, "Verily there is a reward for the righteous:
   verily He is a God that judges in the earth."And, therefore, verily
   there must be a time ofjudgment for the ungodly--even common reason
   seems to teach us that!

   Moreover, there is within us all a conscience which Shakespeare says,
   "does make cowards of us all." And well I think that it may do so since
   we have all sinned and turned from the path of right. Let man do what
   he will with that conscience--unless there is an extraordinary
   restraint put upon it--it bears testimony to the great fact that the
   judgment is coming on apace! We have known men stifle or silence this
   voice till they have come to a sick-bed, or have been at sea in a
   storm--yet why have they been so alarmed at the approach of death?
   Death itself is not to be feared, but it is--

   "The dread of something after death-- The undiscovered country, from
   whose boundary No traveler returns"--

   that makes a man cling even to an ignominious and shameful life rather
   than hurry himself, all unprepared, before the bar of God! Men who
   have, when in health, denied this, have, as they have lain dying,
   proved that they believed it by the cold clammy sweat that has stood
   upon their brow at the very thought of passing into the spirit world!
   They have known that there is a God--a God who must do right--and
   knowing that they have done wrong they have been afraid to fall into
   the hands of the living God!

   But we are not left to the faint taper of human reason, or to the
   flickering candle of conscience--we have the full sunlight of Divine
   Revelation! Our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, has told us, in many
   different ways, sometimes by parable, and sometimes by plain speech,
   that there is a day assuredly coming in which all mankind shall stand
   before His bar. And the Apostle John, in the visions which we are about
   to consider, had a view--not exactly of the Judgment itself--but of a
   parable or picture of that Judgment. May the Holy Spirit help us to
   look into it with Divinely-opened eyes and may He graciously impress
   the Truth of God concerning the Judgment upon all our hearts!

   Before we consider my main subject, let me call your attention to what
   John says about the coming of the Judge. "I looked, and behold a white
   cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on
   His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle."

   Observe then, first, the Judge's Throne. On that great Judgment Day, He
   will come sitting upon a cloud. What can this metaphor mean? Surely it
   must mean that His Judgment Seat will be far more glorious than the
   thrones of mere mortal monarchs. They may sit upon thrones of ivory.
   They may exalt themselves upon thrones made of gold and bedecked with
   myriads of gems shining like the eyes of the morning, or the stars of
   the midnight sky--but their thrones can never be compared in splendor
   with the Judgment Seat of Christ! A Great White Throne shall come
   sailing along the sky and on it shall sit the King of kings, and Lord
   of lords--the Judge of All--who has the right to sit in judgment, whose
   decisions will be impartial and Infallible and whose sentences will
   assuredly be carried out! He asks not for any throne that this world
   could supply. He borrows no leave to judge from Parliament, or Pope, or
   prince. He is Judge by Divine Right, as from God, Himself, and as the
   Mediator, appointed by God to judge the quick and the dead!

   His mysterious Throne is also said to be "a white cloud." The word
   expresses not so much the color of whiteness as the dazzling brilliancy
   of a white substance--dazzling because of its perfect purity. A Throne
   as of alabaster shall that

   white cloud be to Him--a throne as of transparent glass, pure as
   crystal--a Throne that shall be without spot or blemish--a Throne whose
   judgment no bribe can ever influence--a Throne concerning which it may
   be said that the Judge seated there never fears the face of man or
   devil, nor will He ever do any man or devil an injustice, but will "lay
   judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet."

   The Judge's Throne, then, shall be unique for its splendor and
   unearthly purity. And He will be seated upon a cloud which will be so
   elevated in the sky that all can see it. If Christ were to be seated
   upon a throne set up at Jerusalem or at Rome, only a part of the
   world's vast population would be able to behold Him, but on that
   tremendous day there shall be an audience chamber large enough to hold
   the quick and the dead of all climes and all times! And Christ shall be
   there, above them all, "and every eye shall see Him, and they also
   which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of
   Him." On some calm summer evenings, as the sun has been setting, I have
   seen a cloud, wafted by the wind in the very face of the sun and the
   sun has shone upon it, lighting it up with such glory as only Heaven
   could give! And I have said to myself, "So shall it be in that Day when
   the Son of Man shall appear, seated upon a white cloud as His last
   Throne of Judgment."

   Now turn your eyes for a little while from the Judge's Throne to His
   Person. "Upon the cloud One sat like unto the Son of Man." And well may
   John say "like unto the Son of Man," for it is none but He, "THE Son of
   Man." Man has had many sons, but no other like this "Son of Man!" He is
   the truest Man who ever lived--the most manly of all men--the only One
   in whom manhood has reached its perfection! And in that day every eye
   shall see that though He is "very God of very God," yet is He also just
   as truly Man. They shall behold the nail-prints in His hands and His
   feet, and the marks of the spear in His side. And they shall see that
   it is even He whom they called, "the Nazarene," and whom wicked men
   nailed to the Cross of Calvary. It is HE who shall come to judge the
   quick and the dead--the gentle Jesus, "meek and lowly in heart," still
   full of love and abundant in mercy, for those attributes can never
   depart from our Lord Jesus Christ! Yet they will be consistent with the
   sternest justice and the most unflinching administration of the Law of
   God. It will go ill, in that day, with those who have despised the Lamb
   of Calvary, for they shall find that He is also "the Lion of the tribe
   of Judah!" None are more terrible in justice than those who are tender
   in mercy. Bring to me the gentlest spirit that ever lived and begin to
   tell the tale of the Bulgarian massacres--and I will guarantee you that
   in proportion to the tenderness will be the indignation! They who have
   no heart cannot display real indignation--but where there beats a true
   heart of love, there must be righteous wrath against that which is
   unloving--holy anger against that which is unjust and true. So shall it
   be with Him who will sit upon the white cloud. With a perfectly
   balanced mind, calm and absolutely impartial, gentle, yet terrible, He
   will sit upon that Throne of spotless purity, "and every eye shall see
   Him." My eyes shall see Him and your eyes shall see Him--and the eyes
   of everyone who has been born of woman shall see Him on that day!

   We have glanced at the Judge's Throne and at His Person. Now let us
   note His adornments. John mentions that He saw "on His head a golden
   crown." That is to signify that He is a Sovereign and, indeed, as I
   have already reminded you, He is King of kings and Lord of lords--and
   He is to be the Judge of All by virtue of His Divine Authority and
   Power. How different it will be to see Him with a crown of gold upon
   His head from what it was to see Him wearing that terrible crown of
   thorns which the cruel soldiers plaited and thrust upon His brow! The
   word used here does not usually refer to the diadem of power, but to
   the crown won in conflict--and it is very remarkable that it should be
   said that when Christ comes to judge the world, He will wear the
   garland of victory--the crown which He has won in the great battle
   which He has fought. How significant of His final triumph will that
   crown of gold be about that brow that was once covered with bloody
   sweat when He was fighting the battle for our salvation! As His saints
   catch a glimpse of that fillet of gold, they will remember His
   victorious words, "It is finished!" And the very sight of that golden
   crown will fill their hearts with ineffable joy and delight, for they
   will recollect that He triumphed on the Cross for them and that He has
   vanquished all their foes and now He has come to claim them as the
   reward of His struggles and the spoils of His victory!

   Give one more look at the Judge upon His Throne and you will see that
   He carries "in His hand a sharp sickle" or reaping-hook. This is His
   scepter and it signifies that He has come to finish His last great work
   which will be sharp, swift and decisive. When He came to fight the
   battle of Truth, "out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword," but
   now it is hand-work rather than mouth-work with Him. There will be no
   ministry of mercy now, no further proclamation of the Gospel, but, with
   a sharp sickle, Christ will come to reap! The sowing time will be over
   and the reaping time will have come. What a sight that will be! "For He
   will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness: because a short
   work will

   the Lord make upon the earth." On that last tremendous day when the
   earth will be rocking and reeling to and fro in terror at His coming,
   there will be a fulfillment of that verse in the last chapter of this
   Book--"He who is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he who is filthy,
   let him be filthy still: and he who is righteous, let him be righteous
   still: and he who is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come
   quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his
   work shall be."

   I. Now follow me while we look, first, at THE HARVEST and may the
   Spirit of God render these great Truths of God exceedingly impressive
   to us! The first thing to be done, at the coming of the Lord, is to
   gather to Himself His own people--the wheat which He Himself sowed--the
   precious grain which He watered with His bitter tears and His bloody
   sweat. "Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice
   to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Your sickle, and reap: for the
   time is come for You to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe."

   Notice that this reaping comes first and I think it comes first in
   order of time. If I read the Scriptures aright, there are to be two
   resurrections and the first will be the resurrection of the righteous,
   for it is written, "but the rest of the dead lived not again until the
   thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed
   and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on such the
   second death has no power." Sometimes, in Scripture, the resurrection
   of the just and of the unjust is represented as taking place
   simultaneously and, at other times, they are represented as having an
   interval of a thousand years between the two. Yet a thousand years are
   but as one day to God and it may be that the whole period is included
   in the Day of Judgment. Still, it strikes me that we have sufficient
   warrant from Scripture to say that in the order of time, the harvest
   comes before the vintage, as Paul says, "The dead in Christ shall rise
   first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
   with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we
   ever be with the Lord." After that, I gather that He will come to judge
   and to condemn the wicked.

   But, certainly, if not first in order of time, it is here put first in
   order of importance, for it is the gathering in of the wheat to which
   Christ especially looks forward. It is this on which His soul is set
   with ardent longing. Judgment is His strange work, His left-handed
   work, but, "He delights in mercy" and He will put this work first when
   He comes to "judge the world with righteousness, and the people with
   His Truth." He has such regard for His saints that "when He makes
   inquisition for blood, He remembers them." His eye is always fixed upon
   them and even on the Day of Judgment, the great event to Christ shall
   be the clearing of the righteous from every accusation that may be
   brought against them-- the complete and final justification of as many
   as have believed in Him!

   We can see, from reading this passage, that those to be left after the
   righteous are gathered in, are very clearly indicated. In this world,
   in the present state, there is a mixture of good and bad. Here, the
   tares and the wheat grow close together in the same field and, as a
   general rule, no man can tell the tares from the wheat. If any of us
   were to try to root up the tares, we would be almost sure to also root
   up the wheat. But, in that Day, the righteous and the wicked will be
   easily distinguished from one another. Nobody ever mistook an ear of
   wheat for a cluster of grapes and when Christ comes, the distinction
   between the righteous and the wicked will be as clearly manifested
   between a field of wheat in the time of harvest and a vineyard when the
   grapes are ripe. It is plainly declared that in that Day, God's wheat
   will be ripe for the heavenly garner--"Thrust in Your sickle, and reap:
   for the time is come for You to reap; for the harvest of the earth is
   ripe." When the Lord Jesus comes, every child of God will be found to
   be ripe for Heaven. There is a great deal of greenness and sourness in
   us while we are in the blade and in the ear--but when we are dried--as
   the word might be translated--when the wheat has become mellowed by the
   ripening influences of autumn--then shall we be as sweet, ripe corn for
   the Lord of the Harvest to gather into His garner! Some of you do not
   feel very ripe at present, but you may rest assured that you will not
   be harvested until you are fully ripe. The Lord will not reap one ear
   of His corn green and He has a secret way of preparing His people for
   Heaven when He has prepared Heaven for them. The righteous will be
   perfectly ripe in that day! "The time is come for You to reap; for the
   harvest of the earth is ripe."

   Notice, also, that they are all to be gathered in and that this great
   task is to be accomplished by the crowned King, Himself. I want that
   fact to be specially noted by you, so let me again read the 16th verse.
   "And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and
   the earth was reaped." With the golden crown upon His brow, He that is
   like unto the Son of Man will stoop from His Throne of cloud and reap
   His saints--gathering them all to His bosom in one glorious sweep of
   His strong right arm! It does not say that Christ will send an angel to
   do this reaping. His love to His chosen is so great that He will not
   entrust this task to any angel, but will do it all Himself! He alone
   knows how much that

   ripe corn has cost Him. Those precious souls were espoused unto Him
   from eternity and they were redeemed by Him with His own heart's blood!
   They are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones, so He
   gathers them unto Himself and does not think it beneath His dignity to
   be the Reaper of this golden grain Himself! Do you not delight in that
   thought--you who love the Lord? Does not your heart rejoice in knowing
   that in that Great Day when you stand like ripe corn, Christ shall
   come, sitting upon a white cloud and having on His head a golden crown
   and, with the sharp sickle in His hand, He will gather you unto Himself
   with the glad joy of the reaper?

   It is another metaphor that we find in the Book of Malachi, but it has
   the same meaning--"They shall be Mine, says the Lord of Hosts, in that
   day when I make up My jewels." None can tell, not even those who have
   had the greatest sympathy with Christ in the sowing, what will be His
   joy in the reaping! Or what shall be our joy, too, when we enter into
   the joy of our glorified Lord! The harvest, even on earth, is a happy
   time--hear how the reapers sing and shout as they carry the golden
   sheaves into the garner! But what rejoicing and what shouting there
   will be when we, as shocks of corn fully ripe, are taken Home to the
   heavenly garner! Well did we sing, just now, in anticipation of that
   last harvest home--

   "Hallelujah!

   Welcome, welcome, Son of God!"

   May you and I, dear Friends, all be garnered among the wheat in that
   great harvest day!

   II. Now, for a little while, we must have the very heavy task of
   looking at THE VINTAGE.

   The vintage represents the destruction of the wicked. "And another
   angel came out of the temple which is in Heaven, he also having a sharp
   sickle." You see, it is not the crowned Christ who comes to do this
   work of judgment, but an angel. "And another angel came out from the
   altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that
   had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in your sharp sickle, and gather
   the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe."
   I want to speak to you very calmly, yet very solemnly, about this last
   vintage, because it may concern some of you. If you do not escape from
   the wrath to come, it willconcern you--awfully and terribly concern
   you!

   Notice, first, that this vintage comes after the harvest. As I have
   told you, I think it will be so in the order of time. After Christ
   shall have gathered His saints unto Himself, then shall He summon the
   wicked to appear before His Judgment Seat. Then shall follow their
   terrible condemnation and even if it is not second in the order of
   time, it will be second in the order of importance. Dreadful as is
   their doom, our Lord Jesus Christ does not look upon that as the
   principal event of that Last Great Day. His own words are, "The Son of
   Man shall send forth His angels and they shall gather out of His
   Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall
   cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing
   of teeth. Then shall the righteous come forth as the sun in the Kingdom
   of their Father." As I said before, the wicked will be clearly
   distinguished from the righteous in that Day. Nobody will mistake them
   then. They may be mistaken here, for they may go to the same place of
   worship, they may sing the same hymns and, in many respects, they may
   be like the children of God. We may easily mistake tares--such tares as
   Christ mentioned--for blades of wheat, but again I remark that there is
   no possibility of mistaking a cluster of grapes for an ear of corn! So,
   in that Day, there will be no way of evading the Judge's Infallible
   Judgment--there will be no miscarriage of justice before the bar of
   God!

   Observe, next, that the condemnation of the ungodly is called for by
   the angel of fire. "Another angel came out from the altar, which had
   power over fire." Ah, me! What does this mean? Has God appointed some
   holy spirits to watch over the instruments of terror with which He will
   execute the fierceness of His wrath? Was that the angel, "which had
   power over fire," who launched the thunderbolts in Egypt on that dread
   night when the first-born in all the land were slain unless they were
   sheltered under the sprinkled blood? Was that the angel, "which had
   power over fire," who smote the hosts of Sennacherib? Was that the
   angel, "which had power over fire," who opened the furnaces of Hell and
   caused fire and brimstone to descend on guilty Sodom and Gomorrah? It
   may be and that this same angel shall come forward, at the last, to
   demand that justice shall be executed upon those who have despised God
   and rejected Jesus Christ whom He has sent!

   It appears also, from the parable, that the wicked will be fully ripe
   for punishment. That is a very strong expression in the 18th
   verse--"Gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes
   are fully ripe. "The righteous are said to be ripe--some of them,
   perhaps, only just ripe--but the wicked are fully ripe, for sin has a
   wonderfully ripening effect upon men. They add iniquity unto iniquity
   until they have filled up the measure of it. The Greek word used here
   means

   that they have reached their acme--they have come to the highest point
   of sin! Are any of you here fully ripe? Why, I think that one sin makes
   a man ripe for judgment, but to go on, year after year, despising
   Christ and rejecting His Gospel must make man what we call "dead ripe."
   When a man goes on to profanity, blasphemy and infidelity, surely he
   must be "fully ripe." So will all be in that great Day of the gathering
   of the vintage of woe! And, just as the clusters of the vine cannot
   resist the force of the hand that plucks them, or the sharp knife that
   cuts them off, so shall the wicked, in that day, be utterly
   defenseless, hopeless and helpless! And he that reaps them with his
   sharp sickle, shall find no difficulty in cutting them all off. Again I
   remind you that it will not be Christ who will do this work--an angel
   will do it, not the crowned King seated on the white cloud! They would
   not have anything to do with Him, so He will have nothing to do with
   them except to deliver them over to the angel that has power over fire
   and His brother executioner!

   What a terrible sight that judgment will be! As John looked upon it in
   his vision, I feel sure that his very bones must have trembled and the
   marrow in them must have melted as he saw that angel with his sharp
   sickle quickly reap all the clusters of the vine of the earth and cast
   them into the great winepress of the Wrath of God. O Sinner, this is
   but a faint picture of the doom of the lost, yet the picture itself is
   too terrible for me to try to describe or explain! What will happen, in
   that great Day, when you shall be reaped and cast into the great
   winepress of the Wrath of God, or, as it may be read, "the great
   winepress of an angry God"? Ask yourself, my Hearer, this solemn
   question, "Shall I ever be cast into that great winepress?" If you
   continue to reject the mercy of Christ, what else can happen to you?

   Note, further, that this winepress is "outside the city--not in the New
   Jerusalem--not in Heaven--but "outside the city." That reminds us of
   another winepress, or olive press, which was "outside the city" and
   which was called Geth-semane where He who shall, by-and-by, be seated
   on the white cloud, Himself suffered even unto agony and bloody sweat.
   These people would not plead His sufferings on their own account--they
   would not have Him to reign over them and, therefore, they must go into
   the great winepress of the angry God. Perhaps, in that dread day, if
   any of you are there-- which may God in mercy prevent!--you will
   remember that wondrous passage in the prophecy of Isaiah in which
   Christ says, "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people
   there was none with me." And as you would not have the salvation which
   He worked out in that winepress, you must be cast into the great
   winepress of the wrath of God!

   "And the winepress was trodden outside the city." This represents the
   awful suffering of lost souls, the eternal punishment that will then
   begin. And, as the red juice spurts from the trodden grapes, so did
   John, in his terrible vision, see the blood of men come flowing forth,
   "even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six
   hundred furlongs." That metaphor and measurement are meant to show how
   terrible is the wrath of God against the ungodly. Perhaps someone here
   says, "That is too terrible a theme to talk about." Then, what must it
   be to endure it? Somebody will object to my words upon this awful
   topic. No, Sir, be critical of the Scriptures, not of me! I do not
   explain the idea, but I tell you what John saw in vision. "It was only
   a vision," someone says. I know it was, but the reality will be far
   more terrible! There can be no possible exaggeration of the wrath of
   God! I beseech you, my dear Hearers--though I know not, and never wish
   to know much about this dreadful subject--remember that what we do know
   about the doom of the lost is enough to make one's hair stand on end
   and one's heart almost to cease to beat! So I beseech you, do not risk
   that doom for yourselves! Escape for your lives! Look not behind you,
   but flee to the one Refuge which God has provided. Whoever will entrust
   His soul to Jesus Christ shall be eternally saved! Look to Him who wore
   the crown of thorns and repose your soul's entire confidence in Him!
   And then, in that Last Great Day, you shall see Him seated on the white
   cloud, wearing the golden crown and you shall be gathered, with the
   wheat, into His garner!

   But if you reject Him, do not think it wrong that you should be cast
   with the grapes into the winepress of the Wrath of God and be trodden
   with the rest of "the clusters of the vine of the earth." I beg you to
   take Christ as your Savior this very hour lest this night you should
   die unsaved! Lay hold of Jesus lest you never hear another Gospel
   invitation or warning. If I have seemed to speak terribly, God knows
   that I have done it out of love to your souls and, believe me, that I
   do not speak as strongly as the Truth of God might well permit me to
   do, for there is something far more terrible about the doom of the lost
   than language can ever express or thought conceive!

   God save all of you from ever suffering that doom, for Jesus Christ's
   sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: REVELATION 14.

   Verse 1. And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and
   with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name
   written on their foreheads. The great question for us is--shall we be
   among the number? If we have the Father's name engraved upon our
   hearts, we may conclude that we shall, one day, have it written on our
   foreheads, and that we shall be among that chosen company.

   2, 3. And I heard a voice from Heaven, as the voice of many waters, and
   as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers
   harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before
   the Throne of God, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no
   man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand,
   which were redeemed from the earth. Notice how loud their singing
   was--it was like many waters and great thunder. But notice, also, the
   sweetness of it, for it was melodious as the music of well-skilled
   harpers harping with their harps. Note, too, the freshness, the
   vivacity of it--"they sang as it were a new song." Shall we be there to
   sing that new song? If so, we must be "redeemed from the earth," not
   with a general, but with a particular redemption, which lifts us up
   from the rest of our fellow creatures. And we must also have attended
   the saved rehearsals, for none can sing in Heaven but those who have
   learned the song and none can learn it but those who are "redeemed from
   the earth."

   4, 5. These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are
   virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes, these
   were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to
   the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without
   fault before the Throne of God. Now we have another vision.

   6, 7. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of Heaven, having the
   everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to
   every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud
   voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is
   come: and worship Him that made Heaven, and earth, and the sea and the
   fountains of waters. This vision represents the spread of the Gospel.
   It is generally referred to the Reformation period, when, all of a
   sudden, the Truth of God, which had so long lain hidden in old musty
   books, was proclaimed in every marketplace. Beneath many a "Gospel oak"
   the good news was told out--the good news concerning Christ--as if an
   angel were flying through the midst of Heaven. This preaching of the
   Truth of God led to the commencement of the downfall of Rome, which is
   here called, Babylon, and which is ultimately to fall to utter and
   everlasting ruin.

   8. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is
   fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine
   of the wrath of her fornication. That is spiritual fornication, as we
   understand it in the Old Testament--man's idolatry--the setting up of
   visible objects of worship instead of the invisible God. And what is
   there, in all the world, that is so idolatrous as the so-Called
   "religion" of Rome? She multiplies her idol gods to great excess--her
   crosses and her crucifixes, her saints and her "sacraments" and her
   relics--her "old cast clouts" and her "old rotten rags." The Papacy is
   the most pagan of all the paganisms that have ever existed on the face
   of the earth--but it is to come to an end, for the mouth of the Lord
   has said so.

   9, 10. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If
   any man worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his
   forehead, or on his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath
   of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His
   indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
   presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb. How
   clear, therefore, we ought to keep out of this idolatrous system! For
   even if we have not the mark of the beast on our foreheads by an open
   profession of loyalty to it, yet if we have the mark on our hands by
   being the partakers of Rome's sins, we shall also be partakers of her
   plagues concerning Romanism in all its forms! The great message to be
   proclaimed today is, "Come out of her, my people--come away from her,
   as far as the poles are asunder--that you be not partakers of her sins
   and that you receive not of her plagues."

   11, 12. And the smoke oftheir torment ascends up forever and ever: and
   theyhave no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image,
   and whoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the
   saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith
   of Jesus. Truly Rome has tried "the patience of the saints." What
   country is there in Europe which has not been dyed crimson with the
   blood of the martyrs? The rack, the stake, the brook, the dungeon, the
   fires--all sorts of cruelties have been practiced upon those who "keep
   the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Let the valleys of
   Piedmont speak! Do they not cry aloud to our God for vengeance? Let the
   St. Bartholomew massacre bear witness before the living God! Let the
   stakes of Smithfield say, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are
   they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."

   13. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are
   the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: Yes, says the Spirit,
   that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. I
   t matters not where they die, or under what ignominy they die--whether
   branded with the name of heretic, or cast out as the offscouring of all
   things, yet blessed are they and their works follow them to Heaven to
   bear witness to their faith! And they spiritually continue to live on
   earth to propagate the gracious Seed for which they, by His Grace, laid
   down their lives!

   14-18. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud One
   sat like unto the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in
   His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple,
   crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Your
   sickle, and reap: for the time is come for You to reap; for the harvest
   of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle
   on the earth; and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of
   the temple which is in Heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And
   another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and
   cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust
   in your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth;
   for her grapes are fully ripe. After the glad harvest comes the sad
   vintage. After the gathering in of the righteous, there will be the
   gathering in of the wicked.

   19, 20. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered
   the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the
   Wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood
   came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of
   a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Cases of Conscience"

   (No. 2911)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   EARLY IN THE YEAR 1862.

   "For my iniquities are gone over my head: as a heavy burden they are
   too heavy for me." Psalm 38:4.

   I HAVE a special purpose before me this evening. I shall endeavor to
   describe the state of the sinner's heart when it has been awakened,
   when conscience is set at work, when sin and the judgment of God upon
   it occupy the mind's attention--that period which John Bunyan describes
   in his, "Pilgrim's Progress," as being spent between the City of
   Destruction and the Wicket Gate--that state of mind in which a man is
   found when he flees from his former sin and desires to escape from the
   wrath to come, but has not yet found out the way of salvation so as to
   realize his own pardon and forgiveness through the great Atonement made
   upon the Cross.

   In fulfilling this intention, I propose, first, to speak of the terrors
   which frequently accompany conviction of sin. Secondly, to describe the
   cases of some who, while really convicted of sin, are, nevertheless,
   strangers to those terrors. And then to address a few words of advice
   both to those who are sorely broken by cruel fears and those, on the
   other hand, who are more gently brought to Christ

   I. There is A GREAT AND APPALLING TERROR OF MIND WHICH FREQUENTLY
   ACCOMPANIES CONVICTION OF SIN. The experience which I shall try to
   describe has not been that of all those who are brought to Christ. I
   must make, as it were, a broad outline--an open sketch without filling
   it up--a picture in which many, though certainly not all, may be able
   to read the story of their own passage through the Slough of Despond.

   Usually, when Divine Grace comes into the heart, one of the first
   things that attends it is a sort of indefinable fear. The man does not
   know how or why it is that he has such a fear. He felt safe enough
   before, but now the very ground under his feet seems to be rotten. He
   played with sin, thinking it was only a trifle, but, suddenly, he is
   made to tremble at it. He finds that the serpent has a sting and he is
   afraid of it. Sometimes, by night, he will be scared with visions in
   his dreams and, by day, something more vivid than visions will appear
   before him. He now begins to believe that there is a Hell, that there
   is a just God, that sin must be punished, that he has sinned and that,
   therefore, he must die! He does not know that he is to do, but he feel
   that something must be done, either by himself or by somebody else, for
   his soul is truly afraid. To a greater or less extent, he has first the
   fear of punishment which afterwards, through the Grace of God, grows
   into a fear of sin!

   Then, as this fear increases, a kind of disquietude and unrest lays
   hold of the man. David tells us his own experience and his prayer when
   he was in such a state as I am trying to describe. "O Lord, rebuke me
   not in Your wrath: neither chasten me in Your hot displeasure. For Your
   arrows stick fast in me, and your hand presses me sorely. There is no
   soundness in my flesh because of Your anger. Neither is there any rest
   in my bones because of my sin." That is the case with a man under
   conviction of sin--he is restless and ill at ease. Those things which
   he once counted as pleasures now seem to him to be exceedingly
   wearisome. If he still seeks the amusements which once charmed him,
   they only sicken him now--he cannot bear to look at them. He has such a
   sad heart within him that he does not want to have songs sung to him,
   for they seem to be out of place to such a man as he feels himself to
   be. The Psalmist's words describe him just now. "Fools because of their
   transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul
   abhors all manner of meat and they draw near unto the gates of death."

   The companions of such a man cannot understand what is the matter with
   him! They think that he is suffering from a fit of melancholy. So,
   indeed, he is, but I pray that it may not be a mere fitful spasm, but
   that it may continue and that it may be increased and intensified until
   he is "dead, indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ
   our Lord." The man's melancholy will then give place to "unspeakable
   joy and full of glory." He then begins to be a quiet stay-at-home. He
   tries to find rest there but, somehow, even his own family does not
   afford him the peace it once did. His wife thinks that something
   strange has come over him and if she is not herself converted, it must
   be quite incomprehensible to her. But if she should ever be led forth
   on the same pilgrimage, she would understand that this is a part of the
   footsteps of the flock--one of the first of the footsteps of the
   straying sheep when the Shepherd comes to fetch them back.

   This disquietude and unrest of spirit will grow, by-and-by, into a
   burdensomeness of heart, just as Bunyan describes Christian with a
   burden on his back which made him sigh and groan. You remember how he
   pictures the pilgrim--"I saw a man clothed with rags standing in a
   certain place, a book in his hand and a great burden upon his back. I
   looked and saw him open the book, and read therein. And as he read, he
   wept and trembled and, not being able to contain it any longer, he
   broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, 'What shall I do?'" The man of
   whom I am speaking comes to just such state as this. He has no visible
   burden upon his shoulders, yet he has upon his heart a load so heavy
   that it threatens to crush him to the very dust and to drive him to
   utter despair! It may be that through the persuasion of his former
   companions, he is led to indulge in sin as he was known to do, but if
   so, in the sin he is wretched and after the sin he is far more
   miserable than he was before! He may sing, but even while he is
   singing, he will be like the man who could amuse others with his funny
   sayings while his own heart was heavy within him. And this becomes the
   man's constant state of mind--not only can he find no rest, night nor
   day, but all the while he has to carry his heavy burden wherever he may
   be! And he cries to the Lord with David, "Day and night Your hand was
   heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer."

   With some men this state of mind will continue until they come, at
   last, to utterly loathe themselves. They might even adopt the language
   of David in the Psalm from which I have taken my text. "I am troubled;
   I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. For my loins
   are filled with a loathsome disease and there is no soundness in my
   flesh." There was one who said that he wished he had been a frog or a
   toad--anything rather than a man--when he realized how sinful he had
   been! So detestable did he appear in his own sight for having sinned
   and wantonly sinned against such light, against such love, against such
   long-suffering--for having rejected Christ, grieved the Holy Spirit and
   despised the precious blood which alone can cleanse from sin! All these
   things come up before the man's mind and he thinks that no doom is too
   bad for him. "No," he says, "I once thought that it was an unjust thing
   for a man to be cast away to all eternity, but now I feel that whatever
   You do with me, O God, it will be impossible for You to be too severe!
   I deserve all that Your Infinite Justice can bring upon me. I will be
   quite willing to sign my own death warrant and to set my seal to my own
   condemnation and say that it is just."

   Loathing thus himself and his life, his sin and his pleasures--and
   loathing even his very existence--the man, if left to himself, will
   often undergo such terror of conscience that even his body will begin
   to feel it. His mortal frame, sympathizing with his immortal spirit,
   will grow sick. There have been some with whom I have myself had to
   deal, who have had sore sickness through conviction of sin and, for a
   little season, it did seem as if the only hope for them to be able to
   live at all was for them to find immediate pardon through the blood of
   Jesus Christ. There have been some, I doubt not, who have almost been
   bereft of their senses when they have seen sin in its true colors.
   Thank God, dear Friends, if you have never come to this! But if you
   have, thank God for it. There are thousands who have passed through
   that experience and yet, through the thickest darkness, have come into
   the brightest Light of God!

   The man who is the subject of this conviction will also have a
   perpetual consciousness of feebleness as David says in the eighth verse
   of this Psalm, "I am feeble and sorely broken." The strong man suddenly
   becomes weak as a little child. The very wise man, the keen critic, the
   severe judge of others suddenly becomes gentle, tender-hearted, soft in
   spirit. He does not now sit in judgment upon any other man, for he has
   enough to do in standing before the bar of his own con-science--and he
   dreads lest he should soon be judged and condemned by his God! He used
   to talk, in days gone by, a great deal about the dignity and might of
   man but now he knows more about human depravity and weakness. At one
   time he used to say, "I can believe in Christ whenever I like. I can be
   saved whenever I please!" Salvation seemed to him a

   very easy matter in those days but now it seems to him to be the
   hardest thing in the world to believe in Christ! His cry now is--

   "But oh, for this no strength have I, My strength is at Your feet to
   lie."

   He does not find fault with sermons as he used to do. If they do but
   reach his heart and bring to him even a little comfort, he is pleased
   and thankful. He is glad enough, now, to eat his food off the poorest
   platter if he can but get food for his soul. He feels that if the Lord
   would but send him His pardon, even if it came by a limping messenger,
   he would not trouble about the messenger, but he would prize the pardon
   that he brought! He is brought very low--the high-soaring spirit lies
   in the dust and out of the dust cries--"Lord, save me, or I perish!"

   Beside and beyond all this, his soul gets to be in a terrible agony of
   desire. It has come to this with him--that he must have mercy, that he
   must be saved! He feels as if he could not take a denial--that it were
   better for him to die than to continue to live in such a state as that
   in which he finds himself. He can use the words of our hymn--

   "Wealth and honor I disdain,

   Earthly comforts all are vain--

   These can never satisfy--

   Give me Christ, or else I die!"

   He has the same sort of look that you may have seen on the faces of
   starving people when, at last, a roast is set before them. It is bread
   they need--bread! So this spiritually starving man feels that he must
   have provision for his soul or he will expire. There is something
   terribly startling in the cry of, "Fire!" at the dead of night. But the
   cry of, "Bread! Bread!" seems to come from the very vitals of humanity
   and to reach the very center of our hearts. So will it be with this
   man's prayer at last. It is not a matter of, "maybe," with him--he
   cannot bear to look upon salvation in the light of a perhapsor a
   maybe--he feels that he musthave it, that he cannot take a denial! He
   agonizes, groans and cries to God, "Lord, save me! Lord, save me! God
   be merciful to me a sinner!"

   We have known some who have gone even further than this until, at last,
   their prayer has been mingled with despair rather than with faith. They
   have prayed to God for deliverance. They have, in some sense, looked to
   Christ upon the Cross. Yet they have not seemed able to believe that
   there could be power in Him to save them. Some of us have known what it
   was to have the great Judge of All put on the black cap and pronounce
   sentence of death upon us. We have gone into the condemned cell and
   waited there--really expecting to be led out to execution--and to hear
   the Lord say to us, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire
   prepared for the devil and his angels." I cannot tell you what is the
   intense delight of a heart that has been prostrate in the dust when it
   receives full remission, free forgiveness! It mounts as high, then, as
   it was known to descend into the depths!

   I will mention only one more characteristic of this man under
   conviction of sin--he probably feels himself a solitary person. David
   says in this Psalm, "My loved ones and my friends stand aloof from my
   plague and my kinsmen stand afar off." The man under conviction of sin
   feels that he is quite alone, that he has no one in the world to help
   him. I have frequently noticed that young people in this condition have
   been afraid to mention to their own parents, or to their minister, what
   they feel. If we try to probe them a little, to find out what is the
   matter, they are very reluctant to tell us because it seems to them
   that they are the only persons who ever felt as they do. I believe that
   almost all those who come to Christ think that they are very singular
   people--very odd people. I know I thought that there never could be any
   other sinner as bad as I was--and that none could ever have felt the
   horror of great darkness that I felt! Little did I think that the path
   I was then treading, instead of being trodden by one solitary pilgrim,
   was the beaten track of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims!

   II. Now, secondly, I shall endeavor to show you that IT SHOULD NOT BE A
   CAUSE OF DISQUIET TO ANY OF YOU IF YOU HAVE NOT BEEN SPIRITUALLY
   EXERCISED TO THE SAME EXTENT AS OTHERS.

   Dear Friends, all the distress that is felt by the mind when under
   conviction of sin is not the work of the Spirit of God, though some of
   it is. I cannot draw the line and say exactly how far it is the
   Spirit's work but, certainly, there is a portion of this horror and
   distress which does notcome from God. Therefore, learn this
   lesson--that it is not necessary for you to traverse the whole ground
   of every other sinner's experience in passing from the kingdom of
   darkness into the Kingdom of God's dear Son!

   No doubt part of the horror I have been describing comes from Satan. He
   does not want to lose those who have been his subjects. He sees that
   one who was once a very contented slave begins to feel his chain
   irksome and longs to escape from the cruel servitude and, therefore,
   Satan brings out his great whip to frighten him, tells him that he must
   not attempt to escape, or he will flog him for his past sins. So the
   poor wretch crouches down at his feet and Satan says, "Now is my only
   chance to prevent him from escaping. Servants of the infernal powers
   attack him, vex him, torment him, insinuate every doubt and every fear
   and every blasphemy that you can! This is our only opportunity! He will
   be out of gunshot soon--it is now or never with us. Let us leave no
   stone unturned to break his heart and ruin him before he gets peace
   through Christ." No doubt that evil spirit who "worries whom he can't
   devour," has very often tried to trouble poor sinners because he knew
   that they were about to escape from his domain. It is not necessary,
   Brothers and Sisters, and it is not desirable that you and I should
   know all this horror! That which comes from Satan we should think
   ourselves happy to escape.

   Another part of this agony, no doubt, arises from ignorance. If some of
   those poor weeping souls knew more, they would sorrow less and suffer
   less. In John Bunyan's, "Grace Abounding," you can trace very clearly
   that very much of the conflict that he had to endure was the result of
   his utter ignorance. He knew very little about spiritual things. At
   first he had but one book, " The Poor Man's Pathway to Heaven."" He
   does not appear to have attended much on the ministry in his early
   days, so he had not learned much about the Kingdom of Heaven and he was
   in a state of great darkness when he found his way to Christ. But I do
   not think that you and I, Beloved, who have been from our youth up
   instructed in the things of God--if we know the plan of salvation, if
   we know that simple faith in the precious blood will save us-- should
   desire to pass through these extraordinary agonies and racking of
   conscience and heart.

   Besides, a part of this experience may also come from constitutional
   tendencies. There are some who seem to have been born on the darkest
   nights of the whole year and, on every possible occasion, they look
   rather at the spots on the sun than at the sun itself. Their
   observations are rather directed to the whirlpools and the barren
   deserts than to the gently-flowing rivers and green pastures! They have
   a very keen apprehension of the snakes and other reptiles, but not of
   the flowers and the birds. They were born in gloom and they seem to
   carry the gloom of their nativity to their graves-- and it seems very
   natural and very likely, since the Spirit of God does not change our
   physical constitutions, though He does change our moral nature--that
   there should be in such people, coupled with that conviction which is
   the work of the Spirit, a tendency to certain fears and trembling which
   spring only from the flesh and are not the work of the Spirit

   of God.

   These few remarks may help to put some here who have been praying to
   experience these terrors, upon the right track. They will not, I hope,
   pray for such a thing anymore! Am I addressing any who think they are
   not saved because they have not known such terrors as some others have
   experienced? Let me remind you, dear Friends, that there are many of
   the true children of God who have never known these horrors! I suppose
   there are many in this church, over which I am overseer, who have not
   experimentally known these terrors. They know what repentance of sin
   is, but the horror of great darkness they have not known. Certainly, in
   Scripture, we have not many of such cases recorded. I do not think that
   Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened, ever went through such an
   experience as David did in this matter. It may be that the Apostle Paul
   did, for he had scales upon his eyes--and it may be that the blindness
   of his body was but a picture of the darkness of his mind. But I do not
   think that Peter, James and John and those other disciples whom Christ
   called while they were fishing, or engaged in other occupations, knew
   much about this kind of experience. They knew what repentance of sin
   was--mark that--and that is the Spirit's work beyond any doubt. But
   they do not appear to have known that terror which springs from the
   flesh, or rises from the pit of Hell.

   Therefore, dear Brothers and Sisters, since many of the children of God
   have not felt these horrors, do not look upon those who have felt them
   as models for your imitation! And do not condemn yourself because you
   have not gone through an experience similar to theirs. While it is
   quite certain that some good people have known these terrors, you must
   remember that there may have been special demons in their case, why it
   was so with them. What a blessing it has been to others that John
   Bunyan, who seems to be my chief illustration tonight, passed through
   such an experience, for, if he had not done so, he could not have
   written his, "GraceAbounding"" and "Pilgrim'sProgress."" But you and I
   do not expect to write a "Pilgrim's Progress."" We have not that
   special work to do! But Bunyan had and, therefore, we do not need the
   peculiar training through which he had to pass.

   Certain metals that will have to endure an extraordinary strain have to
   pass through an annealing process. But other substances which are not
   put to so severe a test need not be prepared in the same stern fashion.
   The Apostle Paul traces many of his deep troubles and holy triumphs to
   the qualifications with which he was fitted for ministering to the
   saints. "Whether we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and
   salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings
   which we also suffer or whether we are comforted, it is for your
   consolation and salvation." Beyond a doubt there are some servants of
   God who have a great work to do in deep waters. In the course of their
   lifetime they are to contend with Satan in a very special fashion--so
   the Lord gives them a special training that they may become good
   soldiers of Jesus Christ from the very commencement of their career.
   None of you may have to do the work of Luther or Calvin-- you will not
   all have to go forth to address multitudes, as Whitefield did--and you
   do not, therefore, need the peculiar training which was necessary for
   them.

   But I again remind you that you must have that which is the work of the
   Spirit! Repentance and abhorrence of sin you must have! But that which
   is beyond this, which God employs as a disciplinary training for some
   of His servants, is not necessary for all of you to have. If you had
   felt such horrors as others have experienced, you might not have been
   in your right senses now. The Lord, who tempers the wind to the shorn
   sheep, has tempered the Spirit's convictions to you. Possibly you are
   of a feeble constitution and you could not safely pass through what
   some strong men have endured. Your spirit may be so tender, your mind
   may be so susceptible, that it would have been broken if it had been
   subjected to the rough handling that others have had. You know that a
   physician, when he seeks to cure a number of patients, treats them in
   various ways. He gives a good dose of medicine to a strong soldier and
   lets it work its way. But if he has to deal with a feeble girl, he
   gives her only a small dose, lest the larger quantity should kill her.
   So our Lord, when He is curing us of the evil disease of sin, acts
   differently in different cases and, with some of us, He works very
   gently.

   It is not necessary for me to say any more upon this point except to
   remind you that these horrors and terrors are not essential to
   salvation, or else they would have been commanded. Faith and
   repentance, the essentials to salvation, are commanded--"Repent and be
   baptized, every one of you." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you
   shall be saved." "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." The
   things that are essential to salvation are put very plainly in the
   Scriptures. I do not read anywhere in the Word of God, "Be tempted of
   the devil and you shall be saved." I do not read, "Feel a horror of
   great darkness and you shall be saved." I do not find the Lord
   commanding you to despair in order that you may be saved. So far from
   these things being essential to salvation, they are often stumbling
   blocks in the way of sinners seeking the Savior--and devices of the
   devil from which may God deliver us!

   To doubt, for instance, whether Christ can save me is a heinous sin! To
   think that my case is so bad that God cannot blot out my sin is to
   doubt His Omnipotence and to do Him grievous dishonor. For me to
   despair of receiving the mercy of Christ is to do despite to that
   generous and self-sacrificing Savior who bled to death on Calvary's
   Cross! To think that He is either unable or unwilling to forgive us is
   to add to our former offenses--and that which is, in itself, sinful
   cannot be a help to salvation! That which is, in itself, the very
   climax and culminating point of human guilt--to doubt the love,
   kindness and mercy of God--cannot, in any sense, be a desirable thing
   in any child of God! To repent is one thing, but to despair is quite
   another matter. To dread sin and to loathe it is one thing--but to
   doubt the power of the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin is quite
   another.

   III. Now, having handled these two points, let me close with WORDS OF
   ADVICE TO BOTH THESE CLASSES

   OF PERSONS WHOM I HAVE BEEN DESCRIBING.

   Dear Friends, you who are frightened and alarmed, vexed and troubled, I
   know what you are saying, "Oh, that we could escape from this misery!"
   There is another friend, over yonder, who has never had these fears and
   he is saying, "I wish I had them, for, if I had them, there would be
   some hope for me." If you do not have them, you want them--and if you
   do have them, you want to get rid of them! There is no pleasing you
   either way. But good physicians do not seek to please their patients,
   but to cure them! It is not their aim to make the medicine palatable,
   but to make it efficacious. So, the Lord does not study our wishes, but
   gives us what is best for us--and we are very foolish to wish to have
   it otherwise.

   Let me remind you who are in terror because of sin that the only way to
   escape from that terror aright is to flee at once to Jesus! As a good
   old woman, who had long been accustomed to reading "The Pilgrim's
   Progress," wisely said, "No doubt Mr. Bunyan described what he went
   through before he found Christ, but he did not picture the way of
   salvation as he might have done. Evangelist ought to have said to the
   pilgrim, 'Do you see that Cross yonder? And do you see

   Jesus, the Son of God made flesh, and bleeding and dying there? Look to
   Him and you shall be saved! Trust Him and your sins shall all be put
   away at once.' That is the true Gospel which gives peace to troubled
   hearts." So I say to you, poor troubled Friend, and to you who are not
   troubled, flee to Christ! Trust the Son of God to save you and He will
   save you! Trust Him to put away all your past guilt and He will do it.
   Trust Him to keep you in the future and He will vouchsafe you His
   promised aid. Trust Him with the enormous load of your sin and He will
   take it upon His shoulders and roll it into the Red Sea of His atoning
   blood! Trust Him with the foul disease of your evil habits--and with
   the touch of His healing finger you will be made whole! Say not, "I am
   too miserable to rest on Him," but rest on Him, however miserable you
   may be. Say not, "I am not in a fit state to come to Christ," for
   whatever state you are in, you are fit to come to Christ. He needs no
   fitness in you except that, just as you are, you trust in "the Lamb of
   God, which takes away the sin of the world." May the Holy Spirit enable
   you to do so! I will not argue with you about your doubts and fears,
   your, "ifs," and your, "buts." This is God's commandment to you, poor
   Sinner--"Trust in Christ." So, do not dare to disobey it, but may the
   Holy Spirit compel you to obey it, for then shall you go on your way
   rejoicing because your sins, which are many, are all forgiven you!

   To you who have not felt such terrors as I have been describing, what
   shall I say? Do not displease the Lord by seeking for them. Do not
   begin fretting and complaining because you have not been tried as
   others have been. If a child cries because he has not been whipped, he
   ought to have full satisfaction! If a young man should go to a
   physician and complain that he was afraid he would not continue to live
   because he had not had the measles, or whooping cough, or scarlet
   fever, what would the physician say to him? The most likely reply would
   be, "Be thankful, Sir, that you have not had those maladies." If you
   cry because you have not had to smart under the Lord's rod, it may be
   that you will have your desire granted to your cost! The Lord may say,
   "That sinner might have gone straight to the Cross, but he would not.
   He wanted to go through the Slough of Despond, so he shall go through
   it--and he shall flounder about in it with the frogs croaking in his
   ears and the filth rolling into his mouth for many a day--until he
   knows better than to dictate to his Heavenly Father." If you have not
   gone to Sinai with Mr. Worldly Wiseman to hear its thunder and to see
   its lightning, be thankful that you have not! Flee from all these
   things to Christ, without asking Him for a preparatory training in the
   terrors and horrors which some have had to experience! Trust in Christ
   and you shall find salvation at once!

   I was reading, the other day, the preface to the hymn of a very
   excellent writer. There is a passage in the memoir in which the author
   says that "he stuck by a feeling religion, and a feeling religion stuck
   by him." Well, dear Friends, I am afraid that many of you find that "a
   feeling religion" does stick by you--but I believe that is one of the
   worst kinds of religion in the whole world! It is a believingreligion
   that saves the soul! And those who are so dependent upon feelings are
   in the seventh Heaven of delight one day and in the depths of despair
   the next! They go up and down so quickly because they are built upon
   the sandy shifting foundation of their own emotions! Be not so foolish,
   Beloved! Build on what Christ did, on what Christ was, on what He is
   and what He suffered! Building so, you shall find Him "the same
   yesterday, and today, and forever"--and your hope, faith and comfort
   shall abide with you--since they are founded upon the immovable Rock of
   Ages!

   I have tried to preach the Gospel simply tonight. Remember, Souls, that
   the Word is not preached in vain. We are either, "a savor of life unto
   life," or, "of death unto death" to our hearers. Which is it to you,
   dear Friends? Is it a savor of death unto death to you, O impenitent
   Sinner? And is it to you, O penitent Soul, a savor of life unto life?
   By this test shall you tell which it is--if you now, from your heart,
   trust Christ, in obedience to the Lord's command, then has the Gospel
   saved you and you may go in peace. "Woman, you are loosed from your
   infirmity." "Man, your sins are forgiven you." "Arise, take up your bed
   and go to your house." Go your way, for the Lord has had mercy on you!
   Glorify Him in the family and tell others, wherever you can, what great
   things the Lord has done for you!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 38; ISAIAH 53.

   I am going to read two portions of Scripture. In the first--the 38th
   Psalm--we shall hear a suffering servant of Jehovah crying out to his
   God.

   Psalm 38:1. O LORD, rebuke me not in Your wrath: neither chasten me in
   Your hot displeasure. "If You do rebuke me, do it gently, O my Lord! If
   You do chasten me, let not Your displeasure wax hot against Your
   servant."

   2. For Your arrows stick fast in me, and Your hand presses me down. God
   may aim His arrows even at His own children and He may lay His hand
   very heavily upon those whom He deeply loves.

   3. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger; neither is
   there any rest in my bones because of my sin. David was under the
   afflicting hand of God even with regard to his bodily disease. He could
   have borne the pain if it had been merely physical--but there was a
   sense of sin mixed with it which made it sting him in his very soul.

   4. 5. For my iniquities are gone over my head: as an heavy burden they
   are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my
   foolishness. David had some painful old sores. I mean old sins and they
   seem to have broken out again and again. And when he wrote this Psalm,
   he was groaning in his spirit at the remembrance of them. His faith was
   at a low ebb and his feelings were of the most bitter and sorrowful
   kind.

   6. Iam troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day
   long. Yet he was a true child of God all the while, for this is,
   according to its title, "A Psalm of David," concerning whom the Lord
   said, "I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart,
   which shall fulfill all My will." God's flowers do not have sunlight 24
   hours in the day. They have their night seasons when it is not only
   dark, but it may also be heavy with the cold dew, or trying with a
   sharp frost.

   7, 8. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no
   soundness in my flesh. I am feeble and sorely broken: I have roared by
   reason of the turmoil of my heart. That is an expressive word that
   David uses--"I have roared." He felt as if his prayers were more like
   the agonized cries of a wounded beast than the intelligent
   supplications of a human being--least of all, of a man of God. And
   sometimes, when the spirit is greatly bowed down, it cannot express
   itself in words, but has to be content with groans, cries, sobs and
   tears.

   9. LORD, all my desire is before You; and my groaning is not hid from
   You. What a sweet, sweet Truth that is! Happy is that man who, in the
   time of deepest darkness, can still grasp that Truth of God and hold it
   fast. "Lord, my groaning is not hid from You! I could only roar out my
   complaint, or groan it out, but You could hear it just as well as if I
   had ordered my words aright before You."

   10, 11. My heart pants, my strength fails me: as for the light of my
   eyes, it also is gone from me. My loved ones and my friends stand aloof
   from my plague; and my kinsmen stand afar off "Relatives and friends
   alike all get away from me as far as they can, for they cannot bear to
   be in such sorrowful company."

   12, 13. They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they
   that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the
   day long. But I, as a deaf man, heard not: and I was as a dumb man that
   opens not his mouth. Although David was a tried man, he was, at least
   at that time, a wise man. God did not leave His servant to act or to
   speak foolishly and, Beloved, when men are unjustly rebuking and
   reproaching you, there is nothing more wise than to act as if you did
   not hear them! It is the very acme of wisdom if you can keep quite
   quiet and not answer them--refusing to make any apologies or
   extenuations--or even showing any sign that you have so much as heard
   what they have said!

   14, 15. Thus I was as a man that hears not, and in whose mouth are no
   reproofs. For in You, O LORD, do I hope. What sublime faith there is
   here! It is easy to have faith in sunshiny weather--to have faith when
   you have the least need of it. There are plenty of people who fancy
   they are believing in God when everything is going well with them. It
   is one thing to believe when you are lying at anchor in a peaceful
   harbor--it is quite another matter to believe when you are at sea in a
   storm. David hoped in God when trouble had come upon him wave upon
   wave--"For in You, O Lord, do I hope."

   15. You will hear, O LORD my God. ' 'Even if I do not hear You, You
   will hear me and if no man shall hear me, You will hear my prayer and
   answer my supplication."

   16-20. For I said, hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me:
   when my foot slips, they magnify themselves against me. For Iam ready
   to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me. For I will declare my
   iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. But my enemies are vigorous, and
   they are strong: and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. They
   also that render evil for good are my adversaries; because I follow
   what is good. We need never be afraid of any man's opposition when the
   reason for his being our adversary is that we "follow what is good," as
   our translators quaintly express it.

   21, 22. Forsake me not, O Lord: O my God, be not far from me. Make
   haste to help me, O Lord, my Salvation. Now we shall see, as we read
   that wondrous 53rd chapter of Isaiah, not a man of God in trouble, but
   the Son of God in trouble! And we shall see Him, also, as a deaf man
   that hears not, "and as a dumb man that opens not His mouth."

   Isaiah 53:1-9. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm
   ofthe LORD revealed?For He shallgrow up before Him as a tender plant,
   and as a root out of a dry ground: He has no form nor comeliness and
   when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He
   is despised and rejected of men; a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with
   grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and
   we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our
   sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
   But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our
   iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His
   stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have
   turned everyone to His own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the
   iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He
   opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as
   a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opens not His mouth. He was
   taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His
   generation? For He was cut off out ofthe land ofthe living: for the
   transgression ofMy people was He stricken. And He made His grave with
   the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no
   violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Those wicked men were
   His enemies because He did "follow what is good." They that rewarded
   Him evil for good were His adversaries even as they are ours.

   10. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him. We might say the same of
   that tried child of God whose utterances we read just now--"It pleased
   the Lord to bruise Him."

   10, 11. He has put Him to grief: when You shall make His soul an
   offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and
   the pleasure ofthe LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the
   travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My
   righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.
   What gracious Gospel words these are, even though they were recorded
   under the old dispensation! Oh, how you who are full of iniquity ought
   to catch at these Inspired declarations which so clearly set forth the
   substitutionary work of Christ on behalf of the guilty! If you realize
   your need of such a Savior as He is, how these words ought to gladden
   Your heart!

   12. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall
   divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul
   unto death: and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bore the
   sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
     __________________________________________________________________

Comfort for Tried Believers

   (No. 2912)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 21, 1876.

   "There hats no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but
   God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you
   are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape,
   that you may be able to bear it." 1 Corinthians 10:13.

   THIS verse immediately follows the warning to "him that thinks he
   stands" to "take heed lest he fall." None of us know what stuff we are
   really made of until we are tried and tested. It is a very easy thing
   to imagine yourself to be strong, but it is a very different matter to
   find that you have sufficient strength when you actually need it. It
   has even been found possible, in these modern days, for some Brothers
   and Sisters to believe themselves to be perfect--to believe that sin is
   entirely conquered within them--but I will guarantee you that you will
   find that the practice of perfection is not nearly so common as the
   profession of it--and nothing like so easy. And I will venture to go
   even further and say that if you watch those in whom sin is said to be
   dead, you will find that if it is dead, it is not buried--and that it
   smells remarkably like other dead things which ought to be buried! It
   is possibly worse than when it was alive, for it has become alive again
   in an even worse sense with a double putridity. Let no one of us
   imagine himself to be perfect, or to be immune against the temptations
   of Satan or even the grosser vices to which the flesh is prone. It may
   only need for you to be attacked at a certain point and in a certain
   way and you will be overcome even as others have been. Your wisest way
   is to believe yourself neither to be wise nor strong and, therefore, to
   lie humbly at His feet who can make you both wise and strong--and to
   look away from yourself up to Him who will keep the feet of His saints.
   It ought to cool the hot blood of self-conceit in any man to remind him
   that although he thinks that he stands, it is simply because he has not
   been tempted as others have been who have fallen! Or if he has been
   tempted in a way which overthrew them, while he has stood fast, yet, if
   the temptations were still further increased and he were left to
   himself, he would find that at the last the fierce wind from the Pit
   would sweep him off his feet even as it has swept off other men who
   thought that they could never be moved.

   After the Apostle Paul had, by this warning, rebuked the boastings of
   these who thought they were standing securely, he thought of the far
   larger number of persons who never think that they can stand, but who
   are in constant terror lest they should fall. They say they are not the
   people of God yet, in almost the next breath they say they are afraid
   that they will lose what they just said they did not have! They
   sometimes hope that they are saved, yet they quickly doubt if it is so
   with them--and they are troubled with the fear that even though they
   are saved, they may yet fall and perish! Their feelings are a strange
   mingle-mangle of incorrect caution and incorrect doubt! And Paul seems
   to me in this verse to give them a cordial by which their fainting
   spirits may be revived. And I would like to pass it on to any of you
   who also need it. You may be tried in two senses--trial will come, and
   the trial will often be a temptation, while the temptation will always
   be a trial

   I. Now comes in the comfort--and the first comfort, even in great
   trouble, is that WE HAVE NOT, AFTER ALL, BEEN TRIED IN ANY VERY UNUSUAL
   WAY--"There has no temptation (or trial) taken you but such as is
   common to man."

   You may think, my dear Brothers and Sisters, that you have been tried
   more than others, but it is only your lack of knowledge of the trials
   of others which leads you to imagine that your trials are unique. There
   are many others besides

   you in the furnace and in quite as hot a part of it as that in which
   you are now placed. Note what Paul says--"There has no temptation taken
   you but such as is common to man." It is a human temptation, not a
   superhuman one, which has assailed you. That is to say, one which can
   be withstood by men--not one that must inevitably sweep them away. You
   have never been tempted with an angelic temptation. Satan has tempted
   you, young man, but not with the same temptation with which he allured
   the angels who kept not their first estate. There may be other orders
   of intelligence for whom there are other forms of temptation because
   their intellects are superior to yours--but God has allowed you to be
   assailed in a way which is suitable as a test to you as a man. The
   trials that have come upon you have been moderated to your capacity as
   a man. The Lord knows that you are but animated dust, so He has not
   permitted you to be treated as if you were made of steel or iron. He
   has, Himself, dealt with you as an earthen vessel--a thing of clay in
   which He has caused life to dwell. He has not broken you with His rod
   of iron as He would have done if He had struck you with it.

   "But I am very sorely tempted," says one. Yes, perhaps you are, but the
   Lord has given you the history of the children of Israel in the
   wilderness to let you see that you have not been tempted more than they
   were. "Ah," says another, "but I find myself placed in a very peculiar
   position where I am greatly tried. I have to labor hard and I have much
   difficulty in earning my daily bread--and I am beset with trials of
   many kinds." Well, dear Friend, even though what you say is perfectly
   true, I am not certain that your position is any more likely to bring
   temptation than was that of the children of Israel in the wilderness.
   "Ah," you say, "but they had not to work to earn their bread. The manna
   came to them every morning and they had only to gather it to eat it.
   They were not engaged in commercial transactions. There were no markets
   in the desert--no Corn Exchange, no Stock Exchange, no Smithfield, no
   Billingsgate--no taking down the shutters in the morning and putting
   them up again at night--and going a great part of the day without any
   customers. They were separated from all other nations and were in a
   peculiarly advantageous position."

   Yet, dear Friends, you need not wish to be placed in such a position
   because, advantageous as it was, in some respects the Israelites there
   were evidently tempted to all sorts of sins and fell into them very
   grievously. Having often read the story of their 40 years' sojourn in
   the wilderness, you know their sad history. With so favorable a
   position granted to them under the Lord's own special guardianship and
   enriched with many choice mercies, we might have expected that they
   would have been free from temptation--or, at any rate, that they would
   not have fallen into its snare! Yet it was not so, for the devil can
   tempt in the wilderness quite as well as in the city, as we know from
   the experience of Christ, Himself! The devil would tempt you even if
   your bread was given to you every morning instead of your having to
   earn it. He would tempt you if you had no business to attend to and
   never had to go into the world to meet with your fellow men. In fact,
   the story of the Israelites teaches me that it is best for you to work
   and best for you to be poor--and best for you not to make money as fast
   as you would like--and best for you to be surrounded by cares of
   various kinds. I think I judge rightly that the people of God, the
   saved ones, do not fall into such gross sins as the Israelites did in
   the wilderness. So that the saints' position, though it may appear
   worse than that of Israel, is really better.

   To what, my dear Brothers and Sisters, are you tempted? Are you tempted
   to lust after evil things. They lusted after the meat that was not
   suitable to the climate, nor good for their health--and they despised
   the manna which was the very best food they could have! Do you ever get
   a craving for what you ought not to desire? Are you growing covetous?
   Do you long for ease? Do you wish for wealth? Do you love pleasure?
   Well, dear Friends, this temptation has happened to others before it
   happened to those people in the wilderness! You are not the first to be
   tempted in that fashion and if Divine Grace has helped others to
   overcome the covetous desire and the lusting of the spirit, it can help
   you to do the same! But, mark also that if others have fallen through
   such temptations and perished in the wilderness, you, too, apart from
   Divine Grace, will do the same! Therefore have you urgent need to cry
   to the Strong for strength lest you also should fall even as they did.

   Are you tempted to idolatry? It is a very common temptation to make an
   idol of a child, or of some particular pursuit in which you are
   engaged. Is there anything in the world that is so dear to you that the
   very thought of losing it makes you feel that you would rebel against
   God if He took it away from you? Remember what John was inspired to
   write. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." But if you are
   tempted to idolatry, do not forget that this is a thing that is common
   to men. In the wilderness the Israelites were tempted to set up a
   golden calf and to worship it--and even to practice other idolatrous
   rites which were too foul for me to describe. They were tempted to
   idolatry, so it is not an

   uncommon temptation. And if you are also tempted in a similar fashion,
   you must cry to God for Grace to resist and to overcome the temptation.

   Are you tried, sometimes, even with that terrible temptation which is
   mentioned in the verse where Paul says, "Neither let us commit
   fornication, as some of them committed"? Has strong passion sometimes
   suggested to you that which your soul abhors? Have you been, at times,
   forced to the very brink of that dread abyss of uncleanness till you
   have had to cry with the Psalmist, "My feet were almost gone! My steps
   had well-near slipped"? Ah, this temptation, also, is not uncommon to
   men! And even those who live nearest to God and are the most pure in
   heart sometimes have to blush before the Lord that such evil
   suggestions should ever come into their minds.

   And have you, too, been tempted "to tempt Christ, as some of them were
   also tempted and were destroyed by serpents"? They wanted God to change
   His plans and purposes concerning them. They found fault with Him and
   said that He had brought them into the wilderness to destroy them. Do
   you feel that your present troubles are too severe--that they should
   not have been sent to you--at least not as many and as heavy as they
   are? If so and if you feel that you have a cause for complaint against
   the Most High--and that you want Him to change His methods of dealing
   with you so as to suit your whims and fancies--alas, sad as such a
   state of mind is, it is only too "common to man."

   And possibly you may also have been tempted to murmur, "as some of them
   also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer." I must withdraw
   that word, "possibly," for I am greatly afraid that many professing
   Christians do murmur and that they do not always realize what a gross
   sin it is to murmur, seeing that it is an act of distinct rebellion
   against God. But, should you at any time feel a murmuring spirit rising
   up within your heart, you must not say, "This is a trial which nobody
   else has ever experienced." Alas, it is a very human temptation which
   is exceedingly "common to man."

   So, summing up all that I have been saying and looking around this
   congregation and upon all of you who know the Lord--although it would
   be impossible for me to recount all the different forms of temptation
   and trial through which you have gone, yet this is a matter of
   fact--"there has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man."
   We are all in the same boat, Brothers and Sisters, as far as temptation
   and trial are concerned. We are all warring the same warfare. Your duty
   may call you to one part of the field and mine may call me to another
   part, but the bullets whiz by me as well as by you. There is no nook so
   quiet but it has its own special dangers and there is no Valley of
   Humiliation so lowly but it has its peculiar temptations. Sins are
   everywhere! They sit down with you at your board and they go with you
   to your bed. Snares are set for you in your home and in the street--in
   your business and in your recreations. Snares are not absent from your
   pains and they are abundant in your pleasures. Everywhere and under all
   circumstances, we must expect to be tried--this experience is common to
   men! The remembrance that it is so ought to be somewhat of a comfort to
   us in every time of trial and temptation.

   II. But secondly, in our text we have a far better source of comfort
   than that--it is this--"BUT GOD IS FAITHFUL." There has no temptation
   taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will
   not allow you to be tempted above what you are able."

   "God is faithful." Oh, how I love those words! They sound in my heart
   like heavenly music. "GOD is faithful." You are not faithful, my
   Brother or Sister--at least I know I am not, in the full sense of the
   term, faithful--full of faith and faithful. "But"--oh, that blessed
   "but"--"but GOD is faithful"! "If we believe not, yet He abides
   faithful"--always true to every promise He has made--always gracious to
   every child whom He has adopted into His family--"a very present help
   in trouble"--preserving us from sinking in our seas of trouble and
   delivering us from the trouble when it has accomplished the purpose for
   which it was sent.

   "God is faithful"--faithful to that first promise of His which came
   into your soul when you yielded yourself to Jesus and He whispered to
   your heart, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." Do you remember
   that promise? And has not the Lord been faithful to it? "God is
   faithful" also to that promise which He made of old concerning His Son,
   Jesus Christ--"He shall see His seed." He has seen His seed in you and
   He will see you to be His seed forevermore.

   "God is faithful" to all His promises! And in your experience, my
   Brother or Sister, He has been faithful to the promises which met your
   case in all your changing circumstances. Has He not been faithful? Can
   you put your finger upon a single page of your diary and say, "God was
   unfaithful this day"? Your friend who ate bread with you has lifted up
   his heel against you, but has your God forsaken you? Even your own
   children have been unkind and ungrateful to

   you, but has the Lord ever treated you ill? Where you had the most hope
   among your earthly friends and acquaintances, you have had the most
   disappointments--but has Jesus ever been a wilderness to you? "All men
   are liars," you have said in the bitterness of your spirit when you
   have trusted in them and they have failed you in the time of trial! But
   have you ever found Christ false to His Word? Can you not join your
   testimony with that of all the saints above and the saints below and
   say with Paul, "God is faithful"?

   Even if any of you are looking forward to a dreaded sickness, or to a
   painful operation, or to business losses which may sink you from your
   present comfortable position to one of great trial and poverty--think
   of this blessed Truth of God--"God is faithful." The whole world may
   reel to and fro like a drunken man, but the Rock of Ages stands secure!
   The shooting stars of temporary prosperity may die out in everlasting
   night, but God is "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
   neither shadow of turning." "God is faithful." Whatever your future
   trials are to be, put this short sweet sentence into your mouth and
   keep it there as a heavenly lozenge which shall sustain you at all
   times. Make it also into a jubilant refrain and, as you go on your way,
   sing again and again, "God is faithful." Trials and temptations will
   assail you, "but God is, faithful." Friends will fail and forsake you,
   "but God is faithful." Wealth may be lost and property may vanish, "but
   God is faithful." What more do you need than this, soldiers of Christ?
   Here you have breastplate, helmet, sword, shield, spear--yes, the whole
   panoply of God!

   III. The third comfort for a tried and tempted Believer arises from
   GOD'S POWER, for Paul says, "God is faithful, who will not allow you to
   be tempted above what you are able."

   God, then, has power to limit temptation! It is clear, from the Book of
   Job, that Satan could not tempt or try the Patriarch except by Divine
   permission and, even then, his power was limited. Nor can he tempt us
   unless God allows him to do so. Although the devil had great power over
   the elements, so that he brought disaster upon poor Job, yet there was
   a very definite limit to his chain, even when the Lord let him loose,
   to a certain extent. And when God set up his barriers, Satan could not
   go beyond them. You remember that the Lord first said to Satan,
   concerning His servant Job, "Behold, all that he has is in your power;
   only upon himself put not forth your hand." When the devil again
   intruded himself among the sons of God, the Lord let out more links of
   his chain, but there was still a most emphatic limit to his power over
   the Patriarch, "Behold, he is in your hands, but spare his life." The
   devil would have liked to kill Job outright, but he could go no further
   than the Lord allowed him to go and God still has unlimited power over
   the devil and over every form of temptation or trial that can ever come
   upon you.

   If the Lord appoints for you 10 troubles, He will not suffer them to be
   increased to eleven. If He ordains that you shall be in trouble for six
   years, you will not be in it for six years and a day, but when the
   allotted time has expired, you shall come out of it. Nothing can resist
   the might of the Omnipotent Jehovah, "who make the clouds His chariot:
   who walks upon the wings of the wind." He can put a bit in the mouth of
   the tempest and rein in the rushing steeds of the storm--and the
   fiercest of your trials and temptations must feel the force of His
   overruling and restraining hand! When you are on the dunghill, remember
   that God is on His Throne. Well did the Psalmist sing, "The Lord
   reigns; let the earth rejoice." But much more may His own people
   rejoice because His sovereignty is pledged to defend them! Why, if all
   the armies of the devil were let loose upon a single saint who felt
   himself to be weak as a worm and the Lord said to them, "I am his
   defense and you shall not touch him," they could not touch him! And he
   would be able to say with the utmost confidence, "Greater is He that is
   for me than all that can be against me." The adversaries of the
   righteous may rage as much as they will, but they will have to spend
   their strength in raging--for that is all they can do against God's
   people without His express permission!

   Not a hair of their head can be scorched by the fires of persecution
   unless the Lord allows it. The waters of the Red Sea cannot drown
   them--they march between the watery walls dry shod. The lions cannot
   devour them--Daniel enjoyed a good night's rest even in the lions' den.
   Even the waves of the sea become the servitors of the saints, for,
   "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights," in
   preparation for future service for God. All His people are kept by His
   almighty power! How greatly this ought to comfort you who are sorely
   tried! Every twig of the rod of correction has been made by God and
   every stroke of it is counted by Him. There is not a drop more gall in
   your cup than the Lord has ordained. He has weighed, in the scales of
   the sanctuary, every ingredient of your medicine and mixed it with all
   His Infallible skill so that it may produce the cure of all your ills.
   Should not this make you rejoice in the Lord all the day long, and in
   the night seasons as well?

   IV. Fourthly, not only should tried Believers rejoice in God's power,
   but they should also rejoice in GOD'S JUDGMENT, for Paul says, "God is
   faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are
   able."

   Who beside God knows how much we are able to are? Our consolation
   arises from the fact that God knows exactly how much we can bear. We
   have no idea, ourselves, what we can bear. I have many a time heard a
   person say, "If such-and-such a thing were to happen, it would break my
   heart and I would die." Well, that very thing has happened, but the
   person concerned did not break his heart and he did not die! On the
   contrary, he behaved himself as a Christian in a trial should. God
   helped him wondrously and he played the man, became more than conqueror
   and was the brighter and the braver, ever afterwards, for all the
   affliction through which he had passed. Brother, your own strength, in
   some respects, is greater than you think and, in other respects, it is
   less than you think--but God knows just how much you can bear, so leave
   yourself in His hands!

   I have known some people who have wished for trouble--it is a great
   pity that anybody should be so foolish as that. I remember one who used
   to think that he was not a child of God because he had not had much
   trouble. He used to fret all day long because he had nothing really to
   make him fret! I once heard a woman in the street say to her child who
   was screaming lustily, "If you cry for nothing, I'll give you something
   to cry for." So, when a man wants trouble, he will probably get it, but
   it is a very silly child or man who asks for the rod! Be content to
   have as little of it as you really must--you will have quite enough of
   it before you get to Heaven. Do not ask for it--you will have it in due
   time. God knows, to an ounce, just what His children and His servants
   can carry and He never overloads them. It is true that He sometimes
   sends them more trouble than they could have carried by themselves, but
   then, as He increases the weight of their burden, He also increases the
   strength of the back upon which He places it!

   I have often admired the loving-kindness of the Lord to many of my own
   flock and have noted the great joy that our young Christians have had
   for a number of years. I have observed how remarkably God has preserved
   them from temptation without and from trials within. The Lord does not
   send His young children out to battle. He does not intend such little
   boats as these to go far out to sea. He will not overdrive these lambs.
   Yet the advanced Christians are just as happy as the young people are
   and they are stronger and more fit for stern service and more able to
   sympathize with others who are in trouble because of what they have,
   themselves, passed through. As they have grown stronger, God has given
   them more fighting to do for Him, while the raw recruits have been kept
   at home to be drilled and disciplined. You know that when there is a
   desperate fight being waged and the issue of the battle seems in doubt,
   the commander orders "the old guard" to the front. That is part of the
   privilege of being an old guardsman--to go into the hottest place on
   the field of battle. And it is one of the privileges of the advanced
   children of God to be tempted more than others and to suffer more than
   others. If I could have any trial or temptation which, otherwise, would
   fall upon a young Brother who has only known the Lord a week or two, I
   would gladly say, "Let me have it." It might stagger him and I would be
   sorry for him to be staggered by it, so I will willingly endure it. You
   tried Believers must not imagine that God does not love you as much as
   He did in the days of your spiritual youth when He did not test you as
   He does now. He loves you quite as much as He did then and He trusts
   you even more than He did then because He has made you stronger than
   you used to be! He gives you the honor and privilege of marching with
   the vanguard of His army, or leading the forlorn hope, or standing foot
   to foot with old Apollyon!

   God knows exactly how much temptation or trial you can bear and He will
   not suffer the trial to go beyond that point. But, mark you, it will go
   right up to that point, for there is no such thing in the world as
   faith that runs to waste! For every grain of faith that God gives, He
   usually gives the equivalent trial of some sort or other, for, if faith
   could ever be in excess, it would degenerate into fanaticism, or some
   other unholy thing. If the Lord supplies us at our back door, as it
   were, with His good treasure, we are to dispose of it in our front shop
   in our holy trading for Him.

   V. Fifthly, our text seems to intimate that GOD HAS IN STORE SOMETHING
   TO GO WITH OUR TEMPTATIONS--"He will, with the temptation, also make a
   way to escape, that you may be able to bear it."

   You know how you treat your own child. There is a dose of nasty
   medicine to be taken and the little one does not like it. The very
   sight of the spoon and cup makes him afraid. But mother says, "Now,
   Johnny, take this medicine and then you shall have this lump of sugar,
   or this fruit, to take away the taste of it." And when God sends a
   trial or trouble to one of His children, He is sure to have a choice
   sweetmeat to go with it. I have heard a child say, "I do not mind
   taking the medicine so long as I get the sugar." And I have known some
   of the Lord's people say, "We will willingly bear sick-

   ness, pain, bereavement, temptation and persecution if we may but have
   our Savior's Presence in it all." Some of us will never forget our
   experiences in sickness when our pain has been sharpest and worst--it
   has also been sweetest and best at the same time! What do I not
   personally owe to the file, the anvil and the hammer in my Master's
   workshop? I have often said, and I say again that the best piece of
   furniture in my house is the cross of affliction. I have, long ago,
   learned to prize it and to praise God for it--and for that which has
   come to me with it--for I have often found that with the trial the Lord
   has made a way of escape and that I have been able to bear it.

   Even with the temptation to sin, the Lord often sends to the tempted
   soul such a Revelation of the sinfulness of sin and of the beauty of
   holiness, that the poison of the temptation is quite neutralized. Even
   with temporal trials, the Lord often gives temporal mercies. Sometimes,
   when He has been pleased to take away a man's wealth, He has restored
   to Him His health and so the man has been a distinct gainer. I have
   known several instances in which that has occurred. And when one dear
   child has been taken away out of a family, there has, perhaps, been the
   conversion of another of the children which has been a wonderful
   compensation for the trial. And oftentimes trouble has been attended
   with an unusual delight in the Lord. The Word of God has been
   peculiarly sweet at such a time and the minister has seemed to preach
   better than he ever did before--his message exactly fitting your
   condition just then. You have been surprised to find that the
   bitterness which came with the trouble has passed away almost before
   you were aware of it! And, as death is swallowed up in victory, like
   one bitter drop in a glass of water, so your trouble has been diluted
   with sweet wine and you have swallowed it and have scarcely tasted its
   bitterness. Thus the Lord, by His Grace, and Presence, and comfort, has
   made you so glad that you have hardly known that you have been in such
   trouble because of the super-abounding mercy which came with it! Ought
   not that comfort us and make us ready for whatever the Lord pleases to
   send to us or to permit to come upon us?

   VI. Now notice, in the last place, that GOD MAKES A WAY OF ESCAPE FOR
   HIS PEOPLE--"He will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape,
   that you may be able to bear it."

   I will read that over again. "He will, with the temptation, also make a
   way to escape"--"that you may get out of it?" Oh, no!--"That you may
   not have to endure it"? Oh, no!--"That you may be able to bear it."
   That is a curious way to escape, is it not? Here is your way of retreat
   blocked up and the opposing army is in front of you--yet you are to
   escape. You say to the Lord, "Which way am I to run?" But the Lord
   replies, "You must not run away. Your way to escape is to cut a road
   right through your adversaries." That is a singular way to escape, but
   it is the most glorious way in the whole world. The best way for an
   army to escape is by conquering its foe. It is not the best way for the
   pilgrim to go, to the right into the dark mountains, or to the left
   into the thick forest to escape from his enemies--the best way for him
   to escape is to go straight forward, despite all his adversaries--and
   that is the only right way for you to escape.

   Now, beloved Brother or Sister, you may, at this moment, be expecting
   some very heavy affliction and you have been asking the Lord to make a
   way of escape for you. You have said, "Oh, that I might not have to
   come to that hour of trial!" But you wilhave to come to it. "But cannot
   that dear one's life be spared?" I hope it may, but it is possible that
   it may not. "Then how am I to have a way of escape?" Your way of escape
   is not to avoid the trial, but to be able to bear it. What a mercy it
   is that God, though He will not let His people escape trial, will
   really let them escape, for this is a way of escape for them and the
   best way of escape, too! It is a way of escape from all the sin of the
   temptation and from all the evil of the trial--you must have the trial,
   but you will only have the beneficial part of it! Brother, you must be
   plunged into that sea of sorrow, but it will not drown you, it will
   only wash and cleanse you. Sir, you must go into that fire-- your Lord
   has so ordained it--yet you are going to escape the fire. Do you ask,
   "How can that be?" Why, thus--none of your gold shall be destroyed,
   only the dross shall be consumed and you shall be all the purer for
   passing through the fire! So again I say that this is the very best way
   to escape, for if we could escape in any other way, we would lose all
   the benefit of the trial!

   What shall I say, then, in closing, but this, Brothers and Sisters? Are
   you troubled just now and are you inclined to despair? Take wise
   counsel--the storms that are beating about your boat are only such as
   beat about your Master's vessel and the ships and boats in which His
   Apostles sailed across the sea of old. The storms are not
   Supernatural--they are not beyond what believers in Jesus are able to
   bear. Put your vessel's head to the wind like a brave sailor! Do not
   try to avoid that fierce blast. Sail in its very teeth, for there is a
   power within you which can overcome all the winds and the waves, for is
   not the Lord, Himself, with you as your Captain? And is not the Holy
   Spirit with you as your Pilot? And

   have you not a faithful God to trust to in the stormiest night you will
   ever know? True, your foes are many and mighty, but face them like a
   man! Have no thought of turning back and flinging away your shield, but
   resolve, in the mighty power of faith, that since the Lord has said
   that, "as your days, so shall your strength be," to the end you shall
   endure and that, with Job, you will say, "Though He slay me, yet, will
   I trust, in Him."

   It will not be easy to keep that resolve, yet the Lord deserves that we
   should keep it. Think of yourself, beloved Brother, in the worst
   conceivable condition and then know that there is no sufficient reason,
   even in such a condition as that, for you to doubt your God! Suppose
   you were brought to your last penny, yet remember that there was a time
   when you were not worth a penny--a time when you could not put food
   into your own mouth and could not put on your own garments. You were
   cast upon God in your first childhood and He took care of you then--and
   if you grow to be a child again and the infirmities of age increase and
   multiply, He who was so good at the beginning will be quite as good at
   the end! Remember His ancient promise, "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." Such a promise as this, if God
   the Holy Spirit will bless it, will make the most tried Believer
   rejoice in the Lord and go on his way defying every foe who may be in
   his path!

   What I cannot understand is what people do who have not a God to trust
   to. I often go to see poor sick people, full of aches and pains, and it
   charms me to hear them talk of the goodness of the Lord to them. In
   talking, this week, with one of our Brothers who is very sick and ill,
   he spoke with such holy joy and boasting of the Lord's goodness to him
   that I could not help saying that it would take a great many infidel
   arguments to make me doubt the power of true religion after I had
   listened to him! I like to see God's tried people dying full of joy,
   praising and blessing the name of the Lord who is their All-in-All in
   their most trying hour! It is not so with all of you--then what do you
   do when trial comes without a God to help you? You have not much of
   this world's goods and you have to work hard, yet when you die, you
   have no Home to go to, you have no hope of going to Heaven. Oh, you
   poor No-Hopes!

   "Oh," says one, "we are not all poor! Some of us are quite well-to-do."
   But you are poor, for all that, even if you have all your heart can
   wish for here. If you have not a God, where do you carry your troubles
   and your griefs, for I am sure that you have some? O my dear Friend,
   may the Lord make you feel that you cannot do without Him! And when
   your heart has come to this resolve, "I cannot do without my God, I
   will not try to do without Him. I feel that I must have Him," then you
   shall have Him! He waits to be gracious and He has said, "They that
   seek Me early shall find Me." May you seek Him now and find Him--and to
   Him shall be the praise forever and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 CORINTHIANS 10:1-13.

   Verses 1-4. Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant
   how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and allpassed through
   the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
   and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same
   spiritual drink: for they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed
   them; and that Rock was Christ You see, then, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, that the possession of privileges is not everything. Paul
   would not have us to be ignorant that all those who were with Moses in
   the wilderness had privileges of a very high order. Did they not all
   pass through the Red Sea and so escape from their powerful and cruel
   foes? Did they not all drink of water which gushed forth from the
   flinty Rock? Were they not all fed with manna from Heaven? Yet their
   privileges did not save them, for while they had the five privileges
   mentioned in these four verses, they fell into the five great sins of
   which we are about to read. And so their privileges, instead of being a
   blessing to them, only increased their condemnation!

   5, 6. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were
   overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples. Or
   warnings, for just as they were overthrown in the wilderness, so may we
   be, notwithstanding all the Gospel privileges which we enjoy, if we are
   not true Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ! If the life of Christ is
   not in our souls, all the privileges of the Church of God cannot save
   us. "These things were our examples."

   6-11. To the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also
   lusted. Neither be you idolaters, as were some of them; as it is
   written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
   Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell
   in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as
   some of them also

   tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur you, as some of
   them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer Now all these
   things happened unto them for example. The Apostle has told us that
   before, but he tells it to us again, to warn us, by these beacons, lest
   we come to a similar destruction to that which fell on those ancient
   unbelievers.

   11, 12. And they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of
   the world are come. Therefore let him that thinks he stands take heed
   lest he fall. We also are to take heed lest we fall, especially those
   of us who think we are standing securely! You have seen how terrible
   was the fate of those unbelievers in the wilderness who never entered
   into Canaan, but left their carcasses in the desert! Now Paul urges us,
   with such beacons to warn us, to take heed lest we also fall as they
   did.

   13. There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but
   God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you
   are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape,
   that you may be able to bear it. O Lord, fulfill Your gracious purpose
   unto Your servants! Hold us up, lest we fall! We are very weak! Keep
   us, for your dear Son's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

David's First Victory

   (No. 2913)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone,
   and smote the Philistine and slew him, but there was no sword in the
   hand of David." 1 Samuel 17:50.

   A CAREFUL reading of the whole chapter will well repay your pains. I
   have selected a verse for convenience, but I need the entire narrative
   for a text. If you are well versed in the history, we shall have no
   need of any preface or translation. So we shall proceed at once to
   regard David in his conflict with Goliath and his victory over him,
   first, as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, secondly, as an example
   for ourselves. As that which is a type of the head always bears a
   relationship to the members and, as the members of Christ's mystical
   body now are and shall yet more fully be like Him, it is but one
   thought, after all, that we shall be following out in the meditation
   that lies before us.

   I. Let us begin by calling your attention to the fact that David in
   this matter WAS A TYPE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

   The early fathers of the Church were very great in opening up typical
   analogies. So full, indeed, were they in their expositions and so
   minute in their details, that at length they went too far and
   degenerated into trifling. Origen, for example, very notably exceeded
   what can be regarded as wise interpretation in giving spiritual
   meanings to literal records. And others who essayed to go yet farther
   than that great master of mysticism, very soon did much damage to the
   Church of God, bringing precious Truths of God into serious discredit.
   The study of the types of the Old Testament has scarcely regained its
   proper place in the Christian Church since the days in which those
   gracious men, by their imprudent zeal, perverted it. We cannot,
   however, bring ourselves to think that a good thing ceases to be good
   because it has, at some time, been turned to an ill account. We think
   it can still be used properly and profitably. Within certain limits,
   then-- limits, we suppose, which there is little danger of
   transgressing in these mechanical, dry times--the types and the
   allegories of Holy Scripture may be used as a handbook of
   instruction--a vade mecum of sound Doctrine.

   By the common consent of Evangelical Christians, David is seen to be an
   eminent type of the Lord Jesus Christ. With regard to this particular
   transaction let us note, at the outset, that before he fought with
   Goliath, David was anointed of God. Samuel had gone down to Bethlehem
   and poured a horn of oil upon his head. The parallel will readily occur
   to you. Thus has the Lord found out for Himself one whom He has chosen
   out of the people. With His holy oil has He anointed him. Upon Saul's
   head a small amount of oil was poured--upon David's head a full horn of
   oil. This may, perhaps, be designed to contrast the brevity and scant
   renown of Saul's reign with the length, power and excellence of the
   reign of David. Or, being interpreted spiritually, it may denote that
   the Law, the old Judaism of which Saul is the type, had but a limited
   measure of blessing, while that of the Gospel, which David represents,
   is characterized by its abounding fullness. Jesus, the antitype of
   David, is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows! Grace
   and Truth came by Jesus Christ. The Spirit was not given by measure to
   Him.

   David was anointed several times. He was anointed, as you read in the
   chapter preceding our text, "in the midst of his brothers"--anointed,
   as you find in 2 Samuel 2:4, by his brethren, the men of Judah--and
   anointed again, as you will observe in 2 Samuel 5:3, by all the elders
   of Israel. We will not go into that, now, but it will suffice us to
   note that our Lord was anointed of God, is anointed of His saints and
   shall be anointed of the whole Church. The Spirit of the Lord was upon
   Him and it was in the power of that Spirit with which He was anointed
   of the Father, that He went forth

   to fight the great battles of His Church. At His Baptism, coming up out
   of the Jordan, He was anointed by the Spirit as it rested upon Him,
   descending out of Heaven like a dove--and straightway He went, as He
   was driven into the wilderness, and held that notable forty-days'
   conflict with the arch-fiend, the great adversary of souls! His battles
   were in the spirit and power of the Highest, for the might and majesty
   of the Eternal Spirit rested upon Him.

   See how the correspondence goes on. Our Lord was sent by His Father to
   His brethren. As David was sent by Jesse to his brethren with suitable
   presents and comfortable words in order to commune with them, even so,
   in the fullness of time, was our Lord commissioned to visit His
   brethren. He remained concealed for a while in the house of His reputed
   father, but afterwards He came forth and was distinctly recognized as
   the Sent One of God, bearing countless gifts in His hands, coming on an
   mission of mercy and of love from God to those whom He was not ashamed
   to call His brethren. We have read how David was treated. His brethren
   did not receive him lovingly. They answered his unaffected kindness
   with unprovoked rudeness--they laid bitter things to his charge. How
   truly does this answer to the manner in which our Lord, the Son of
   David, was abused! He came unto His own and His own received Him not.
   Though He came to them with words of tenderness, they replied to Him
   with words of scorn. For His blessings they gave Him curses. For the
   bread of Heaven they gave Him stones and for the benedictions of Heaven
   they gave Him the spite of earth, the maledictions of

   Hell!

   Never was a brother, "the first-born among many brethren," so ill-used
   by the rest of the household! Surely that parable of the wicked
   husbandmen was fulfilled toward Him. We know it is written that the
   owner of the vineyard said, "They will reverence my son," but,
   contrariwise, they said, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and
   the inheritance shall be ours." Jesus was roughly handled by His
   brethren whom He came to bless. David, you will remember, answered his
   brethren with great gentleness. He did not return railing for railing,
   but with much gentleness he endured their churlishness. In this he
   supplied us with but a faint picture of our beloved Master, who, when
   He was reviled, reviled not again. "Consider Him that endured such
   contradiction of sinners against Himself." His only reply, even to the
   strokes which were to effect His death, was, "Father, forgive them, for
   they know not what they do." "We hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
   He was despised and we esteemed Him not." Yet for all that, no word of
   anger dropped from His lips. He might have said, "Is there not a
   cause?" He spoke little, however, in His own defense. Rather He went
   about His life-work as zealously as if all who saw Him had approved of
   Him. So David, being thus rejected of his brethren, became a type of
   Christ.

   We pass on to observe that David was moved by an intense love of his
   people. He saw them defied by the Philistines. As he marked how they
   were crushed in spirit before their formidable enemies, a fervent
   indignation stirred his soul, but when he heard the terms of defiance,
   he felt that the God of Israel, Himself, was compromised in this
   quarrel. The name of Jehovah was dishonored! That braggart giant who
   stalked before the hosts defied the armies of the living God! No wonder
   that the warm and devout heart of the brave young shepherd was moved
   with a mighty heaving! The passion of a warrior kindled in his breast
   at the sound of that profane voice of the uncircumcised Philistine who
   could trifle with the honor of Jehovah, the God of Heaven and of earth!
   A further motive was present to stimulate his patriotic ambition. How
   could David's bosom fail to glow with strong emotion when he was told
   that the man who would vanquish and slay that Philistine should be
   married to the king's daughter? Such a prize might well quicken his
   ardor. And with all these motives acting upon him, his determination to
   go forth and do battle with the champion of Philistia was prompt and
   resolute.

   Now in all this he plainly foreshadowed our Lord Jesus Christ. He loved
   His own--He was always ready to lay down His life for the sheep. But He
   loved his Father. "Know you not," He had said of old, "that I must be
   about My Father's business?" "The zeal of Your house has eaten Me up."
   And then there was the joy that was set before Him that He should have
   the Church for His spouse--that at the peril, not to say the price of
   His life, He should obtain her--that He should see of the travail of
   His soul in her and should be satisfied. She was to be lifted up to His
   royalties and to share His crown and throne. The New Jerusalem, the
   mother of us all, was to be unto Jesus the gift of God as His reward!
   And this inspired Him, so he went forth and entered upon the battle for
   our sakes. Let us pause and bless His name that He ever should have
   loved the people and that the saints should have been in His hands! Let
   us bless Him that the zeal of God's house did eat Him up--that He
   consecrated Himself so fully to the great enterprise! Above all, let us
   humbly and gratefully bless Him that He loved us and gave Himself for
   us. As a part of His Church whom He had betrothed unto Himself

   forever, we are partakers in all that He did! It was for us that He
   fought the fight, for us He won the victory, for us He has gone to
   Glory. And He will come, by-and-by, to take us up to behold that Glory
   and be with Him where He is. While we see the type in David, let us
   take care not to forget to adore Jesus, Himself, who is here mirrored
   forth to our minds in the achievement of our salvation.

   I might, indeed, instance many further details in which David yet
   further became a type of our Lord. The whole narrative being full of
   minute particulars supplies us copiously with points of analogy. But
   there is one thing I would have you specially observe.

   Goliath is called, in the Hebrew, not "champion," as we read it in the
   English, but the middleman, the mediator If you put the whole case
   fairly before your own minds, you will readily see the fitness of the
   word that is used. There is the host of the Philistines on the one side
   and there is the host of Israel on the other side. A valley lies
   between them. Goliath says, "I will represent Philistia. I stand as the
   middleman. Instead of all the rank and file coming forth personally to
   the fight, I appear as the representative of my nation--the mediator.
   Choose you a mediator who will come and contend with me. Instead of the
   battle being between the individuals of which the respective armies are
   composed, let two representative men decide in, duel to the death, the
   question in debate." Now, it is exactly upon that ground that the Lord
   Jesus Christ fought the battles of His people. We fell representatively
   in the first Adam, and our salvation is now by another
   Representative--the Second Adam. He is the Middleman, the "one Mediator
   between God and men." In His love to us and His zeal for the Glory of
   God, we may view Him as stepping forward into the midst of the arena
   which divides the camps of good and of evil, of God and of the
   devil--and there facing the defiant adversary--He stands to contend in
   our name and on our behalf if we are, indeed, His people, that He may
   decide for us the quarrel which never could have been decided by us.
   Personally, we should, beyond a doubt, have been put to the rout. But
   His one single arm is enough to win the victory for us and forever to
   end the conflicts between Heaven and Hell!

   Mark well our warrior chief as He goes forth to the fight. The son of
   Jesse rejected the weapons with which Saul sought to arm him--he put
   the helmet on his head, the mail about his body and was about to gird
   the sword upon his loins, but he said, "I cannot go with these, for I
   have not proved them." In like manner the Son of David renounced all
   earthly armor. They would have taken our Lord by force and made Him a
   king, but He said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." Swords enough
   would have leaped from their scabbards at His bidding! It was not only
   Peter whose too-hasty sword smote the ear of Malchus, but there were
   many zealots who would have been all too glad to have followed the star
   of Jesus of Nazareth as in former days. And yet more frequently, in
   later days, the Jews followed impostors who declared themselves to be
   commissioned by the Most High for their deliverance. But Jesus said,
   "Put up again your sword into its place: for all they that take the
   sword shall perish with the sword."

   One of the temptations of the desert was not only that He should have
   the kingdoms of the world, but that He should have them by the use of
   such means as Satan would suggest. He must fall down and worship
   Satan--He must use the carnal weapon which would be tantamount to
   worshipping him. Jesus would not have it. To this day the great fight
   of Jesus Christ with the powers of darkness is not with sword and
   helmet, but with the smooth stones of the brook! The simple preaching
   of the Gospel, with the shepherd's crook of the great Head of the
   Church held in our midst--this it is that lays low Goliath and shall
   lay him low to the last day! Vain is it for the Church even to think
   that she shall win the victory by wealth, or by rank, or by civil
   authority! No government will assist her. To the power of God alone she
   must look. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the
   Lord of Hosts. Happy will it be for the Church when she learns that
   lesson! The preaching of the Cross which is "to them that perish
   foolishness," is, nevertheless, to us who believe Christ, "the power of
   God, and the wisdom of God."

   See, then, our glorious champion going forward to the fray with weapons
   of his own choosing--and those such as human wisdom despises because
   they do not appear to be adapted to the work! With great strength and
   power, nevertheless, did he go forth, for he went in the name of God.
   "You come to me," said David, "with a sword, and with a spear, and with
   a shield: but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts." Such,
   too, is the predominating influence which renders the Gospel
   Omnipotent! Christ is God's Propitiation. God has "set Him forth to be
   a propitiation for sin." Christ is appointed of God, anointed of God,
   sent of God. And the Gospel is God's message, attended with God's
   Spirit. If it is not, then it is weak as water--it must fail. But since
   the Lord has sent it and He has promised to bless it, we may rest
   assured it will accomplish the ends for which it was ordained. "I come
   to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts! "These

   words might serve as a slogan for all those who are sent of Christ and
   represent Him in the dread battle for precious souls. This was Christ's
   watchword when, for our sakes and on our behalf, He came to wrestle
   with sin, to bear the wrath of God and to vanquish death and Hell! He
   came in the name of God!

   Mark you well that David did smite Goliath and he smote him effectually
   not in the loins, or on the hand, or on the foot--but in a vital point
   he delivered the stroke that laid him low. He smote him on the brow of
   his presumption, on the forehead of his pride! I suppose he had lifted
   up his visor to take a look at his contemptible adversary, when the
   stone sank in, which let out forever the boastful soul. So, when our
   Lord stood forth to contend with sin, He projected His atoning
   Sacrifice as a stone that has smitten sin and all its powers upon the
   forehead. Thus, Glory be to God, sin is slain. It is not merely
   wounded, but it is slain by the power of Jesus Christ!

   And remember that David cut off Goliath's head with his own sword.
   Augustine, in his comment on this passage, very well brings out the
   thought that the triumph of our Savior Jesus Christ is here set forth
   in the history of David. He, "through death, destroyed him that had the
   power of death, that is, the devil." "He death by dying slew"--cut off
   the giant's head with his own sword. The Cross that was meant to be the
   death of the Savior was the death of sin! The Crucifixion of Jesus,
   which was supposed to be the victory of Satan, was the consummation of
   His victory over Satan! Lo, this day I see, in our conquering Hero's
   hand, the grizzly head of the monster, Sin, all dripping with gouts of
   gore! Look at it, you that once were under its tyranny! Look at the
   terrible lineaments of that hideous and gigantic tyrant! Your Lord has
   slain your foe! Your sins are dead--He has destroyed them! His own arm,
   single-handed and alone, has destroyed your gigantic enemy! "The sting
   of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to
   God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Blessed
   and magnified be His holy name!

   And when David had thus achieved the death of Goliath, he was met by
   the maidens of Israel who came forth and sang in responsive verse,
   accompanied with the music of their timbrels and joyous dancing, "Saul
   has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." So he had his
   triumph. Meanwhile, the hosts of Israel, seeing that the Philistine
   giant was dead, took heart and dashed upon the adversary. The
   Philistines were frightened and fled, and every Israelite that day
   became a victor through the victory of David. They were more than
   conquerors, through him that had loved them and won the victory for
   them. So let us now think ourselves to be victors. Our Lord has won the
   victory. He is gone to His Glory. The angels have met Him on the way.
   They have said, "Lift up your heads, O you gates, even lift them up,
   you everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in." And they
   that have been with Him have answered to the question, "Who is this
   King of Glory?" They have said, "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord
   mighty in battle. The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory."

   And this day the feeblest Believer triumphs in Christ! Though we should
   have been beaten, nor could we have hoped for victory--yet now through
   Jesus Christ our Lord, we chase our enemies! We trample sin under our
   feet and we go from strength to strength through His completed victory.
   There is much for you to think of here. Will you think this over for
   yourselves? It is better I should not do all the thinking for you. You
   will find the analogy capable of much amplification. I have given you
   only, as it were, a sort of charcoal outline--a rough draft. Make a
   picture of it at your leisure and it may prove a beneficial study and a
   profitable meditation.

   II. With much brevity let us now revert to David as AN EXAMPLE FOR
   EVERY BELIEVER IN CHRIST.

   Above all things, it behooves us, dear Brothers and Sisters, to
   consider that if we are ever to do anything for God and for His Church
   we must be anointed with holy oil. Oh, how vain it would be for us to
   grow zealous with a sort of creature carnal fanaticism and to attempt
   great things in sheer presumption which can only issue in utter
   failure! Unless the Spirit of God is upon us, we have no might from
   within and no means from without to rely upon. Wait upon the Lord,
   Beloved, and seek strength from Him alone! There cannot come out of you
   what has not been put into you. You must receive and then give out.
   Remember how the Lord Jesus describes it--"The water that I shall give
   him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
   life." And again, in another place, "He that believes on Me, as the
   Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
   water."

   You cannot do David's work if you have not David's anointing! When you
   remember that your Divine Master tarried for the heavenly anointing,
   you can hardly expect to do without it! Be not so foolish. Christ went
   not to His public ministrations till the Spirit of God rested upon Him.
   The Apostles tarried at Jerusalem and went not forth to preach till
   power were given to them from on high. The point, the pre-requisite,
   the sine quanon with us, is to have that power. Oh,

   to preach in that power--to pray in that power--to look after wandering
   souls in that power! Your Sunday school work, your home missionary
   work, your evening form of ministry for Christ must be done in that
   power! Get to your knees! Get to the Cross! Get to your Master's feet!
   Sit still in faith and hope until He shall have given you the strength
   that shall qualify you to do the Master's work, in the Master's way, to
   the Master's praise!

   David, too, stands before us as an example of the fact that our
   opportunity will come if our efficiency has been bestowed, without our
   being very particular to seek it. David fell into position. The place
   he was fitted to occupy, he was Providentially called to fill as a
   great man in Israel. Little did he guess, when he went with the load of
   bread, and corn, and cheese, that he was, before long, to be
   distinguished beyond all other men in Palestine! Yes it was so.
   Beloved, do not be in a hurry to look out for your sphere. Be ready for
   your sphere--your sphere will come to you. I speak to many dear young
   Brothers who are studying for the ministry. Be prepared for any work
   rather than be looking out for some particular work. God has His niche
   for you. You will land on your feet--depend upon that. Be ready. Your
   business is to be ready. Have your tools well sharpened and know how to
   handle them. The place will come to you, the best place for you, if you
   are not so much looking after that which meets your taste, as after
   that which proves you to be a vessel fit for the Master's use! David
   finds his occasion. He has received the Spirit, first, which is the
   main thing--and then he has found the occasion which calls out his
   credentials.

   I gather from David's example that when we feel a call to do something
   for God and for His Church, we need not wait until those whom we hold
   in respect coincide with us as to the propriety of entering upon the
   service. Had David said--"Well, I shall wait till Eliab, Abinadab and
   Shammah, my elder brothers, are all perfectly agreed that I am the man
   to fight Goliath"--I suspect he would never have fought with Goliath at
   all! Great deference is due to the judgment of our seniors, but greater
   respect is due to the motions of the Spirit of God within our heart. I
   would to God there were more regard shown for those inward monitions
   among Christians than there is known to be in these times. If you have
   a thought put into your heart, or a charge laid upon your conscience,
   obey it, man! Act up to it, though no one else perceives it or
   encourages you. If God has shown you His counsel, at your peril hide
   the presage or shrink from the performance! What? With the fear of God
   in our hearts and a commission from God in our hands, shall we halt and
   hesitate and become the servants of menP. I would rather die than have
   to come into this pulpit to ask your leave, or to get any man's consent
   as to what I shall preach!

   God speaks, by His Spirit, what He has to say to me and, by the help of
   His good Spirit, I will deliver it to you as I hear it from Him. May
   this tongue be silent before it becomes the servant of man! David was
   of that mind. He felt he had something to do and though he could listen
   to what other people had to say, yet they were no masters of his. He
   served the living God and he went about the business entrusted to him
   undaunted by any judgment they might form of him. He that speaks for
   God should speak honestly. Let others criticize and sift the chaff from
   the wheat. He must expect that. But as for himself, let him give out
   that pure wheat as he believes it to be and fear no man, lest he comes
   under the condemnation of the God of Heaven! Go, my Brother, about your
   business, if God gives it to you to do. If I upbraid you, what of that?
   I am but a man. Or if all those in whose good esteem you would gladly
   stand, turn upon you with hard suspicions and cutting censures, they
   are but men and to God alone is your allegiance due! Go about your
   Master's work as David did, with dauntless nerve but modest demeanor.
   He would be an evil servant who, after once getting His Master's
   orders, should leave them unperformed and excuse himself by saying, "I
   met one of my fellow servants and he said he thought I might be too
   bold in my adventure and, therefore, I had better not attempt it." To
   your own Master you will stand or fall! Take care that you stand well
   with Him!

   Learn from David, too, to return quiet answers to those who would
   roughly put you aside from your work. Generally it is better to return
   no answer at all. I think David spoke not so well by word as by deed.
   His conduct was more eloquent than his language. As he came back from
   the fight, holding up the giant's head, I could hope that Eliab saw him
   and that Abinadab and Shammah came out to meet him. If they did, he
   might simply have held up the trophy and allowed its ghastly visage to
   reply for him. It is not, they would think, after all, because of his
   pride or the evil of his heart, or from an idle curiosity to see the
   battle that he has come. They would perceive that he had come to do
   God's work in his own way--that God had helped him to gain the victory,
   rout the foe and relieve the fears of Israel--and that through the man
   whom they despised the Lord had made His own name glorious!

   Learn again, from David's example, the prudence of keeping to tried
   weapons. I have often heard it spoken of as an unlikely thing that
   David could kill the giant with a stone. I think those who talk so miss
   the point. What missile could be handier or better suited for the
   occasion? If the fellow was tall, a sling would carry a stone high
   enough to reach him. And if he was strong, very strong, the sling would
   give such impetus to the stone that David could assail his adversary
   without getting within his reach. It was the best weapon he could have
   used. Oriental shepherds, if those of olden time were like those of
   modern days, had practice enough to make them proficient in slinging
   stones. They spend many hours both alone and with their fellows over
   feats of the sling. It is generally their best weapon for the
   protection of their sheep in the vast solitudes. I do not doubt that
   David had learned to sling a stone to a hair's breadth and not miss. As
   for the sword, he had never had one in his life, for there was neither
   sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with
   Saul and Jonathan, save that which was found with Saul and Jonathan,
   his son. We are told as much as that in the 13th Chapter. The
   Philistines had so completely disarmed the whole populace that they had
   not got any such weapons. With the use of them, therefore, David could
   not have been familiar. And as to the coat of mail--a cumbersome,
   uneasy, comfortless equipment--the wonder to me is how the knights of
   old did anything at all in such accoutrements! No marvel that David put
   the thing off. He felt most at ease in his own shepherd's garb.

   Of course we are not going to infer that unsuitable instruments are
   desirable. We teach nothing so romantic or absurd! It well becomes us
   to use the most suitable tools we can find. As for those stones out of
   the brook, David did not pick them up at hazard--he carefully chose
   them, selecting smooth stones that would exactly fit in his sling--the
   kind of stone he thought best fitted for his purpose. Nor did he trust
   in his sling. He tells us he trusted in God, but he went to work with
   his sling as if he felt the responsibility to be his own. To miss the
   mark would prove his own clumsiness--to hit his target would be of
   God's enabling. Such, my Brothers and Sisters, is the true philosophy
   of a Christian's life. You are to do good works as zealously as if you
   were to be saved by your good works--and you are to trust in the merits
   of Christ as though you had done nothing at all! So, too, in the
   service of God, though you are to work for God as if the fulfillment of
   your mission rested with yourselves, you must clearly understand and
   steadfastly believe that, after all, the whole matter, from first to
   last, rests with God! Without Him, all you have ever planned or
   performed is unavailing.

   That was sound philosophy of Mahomet's when the man said, "I have
   turned my camel loose and trusted in Providence." "No," answered he,
   "tie your camel up and then trust in Providence." Do the best you can
   and trust in God. God never meant that faith in Him should be
   synonymous with sloth. Why, for the matter of that, if it is all God's
   work and that is to be the only consideration, there is no need for
   David to have a sling! No, there is not any need for David at all. He
   may go back, lie on his back in the middle of the field, and say, "God
   will do His work--He does not need me." That is how fatalists would
   talk, but not how Believers in God would act! They say, "God wills it,
   therefore I am going to do it"--not, "God does it and, therefore, there
   is nothing for me to do." No, "Because God works by me, therefore I
   will work by His good hand upon me. He is putting strength into His
   feeble servant and making use of me as His instrument, good for nothing
   though I am apart from Him. Now will I run to the battle with
   confidence and I will use my sling with the best skill I have, taking
   quiet, calm, deliberate aim at that monster's brow since I believe that
   God will guide the stone and accomplish His own end."

   When you are bent on serving God, give Him your best. Keep not back
   anything of nerve or muscle, anything of skill or wisdom you can
   dedicate to the enterprise. Say not, "Anything will do. God can bless
   my lack as well as my competency." Doubtless He can, but undoubtedly He
   will not! Be careful to do your best. David in his old age and his
   riper experience would not offer to God that which cost him nothing. Do
   not attempt to render unto God slovenly service and flatter yourselves
   that he will bless it. He can bless it--but that is not the way in
   which He usually deigns to work. Though He often takes rough tools, He
   fashions them and polishes them for His use. He can convert rude men
   into able ministers of the New Testament. Think not, however, that His
   Grace will excuse your presumption. But go with the instruments you
   have proved. When any of you working men attempt to preach the Gospel
   of Jesus Christ, do not try the fine arguments that are often used to
   combat infidels. You will never manage them! They will be sure to
   embarrass you!

   Tell your neighbors and friends what you have felt and handled of the
   Word of Life. Declare to them those things that are written in the
   Scriptures. These texts are the smooth stones that will suit your
   sling. Keep to these things. Why, they tell us nowadays, that we ought
   to take up those arguments which are invented by modern
   philosophers--examine them, study them--and come forward on the Sabbath
   and at other times to answer them--that we should use historical

   research and logical acumen to rebut infidel calumnies! Ah, Saul's
   armor does not fit us. They that like it may wear it, but, after all,
   to preach Christ and Him Crucified--to tell out the old, old story of
   eternal love and of the blood which sealed it, the manner of
   Redemption, the Truth of God's unchangeable Grace--this is to use those
   stones and that sling which will surely find the forehead of the foe!

   Next, observe that from the work which David began, he ceased not till
   he had finished it. He had laid the giant prone upon the soil, but he
   was not satisfied till he had cut off his head. I wish that some who
   work for Christ would be as thorough as this young volunteer was! Have
   you taught a child the way of salvation? Do not leave off till that
   child is enrolled in the fellowship of Believers! Have you faithfully
   preached the Gospel to any congregation of people? Continue to
   instruct, counsel and encourage them until you see them established in
   the faith! Or if you have refuted a heresy, or denounced a vice, follow
   up the assault until the evil is exterminated! Not only kill the giant,
   but have his head off! Never do the work of the Lord imperfectly. Never
   spare, in pity, any device of the devil. Bad habits and besetting sins
   should be leveled with a decisive blow. But let not that be enough!
   Give them no chance of recovering their strength. With humble penitence
   and earnest resolution--in reliance on God and detestation of the
   foe--see to it that the head shall be taken from the sin as well as the
   stone sunk in its forehead! In so doing you may look for help you had
   not reckoned on. You have no sword with you--you have not wanted to
   cumber yourself with one, even as David had no need to carry a sword in
   his hand, for Goliath was carrying a sword with him which might well
   serve for his own execution. Whenever you serve God, you strive against
   error--and remember that every error carries the sword with which it
   will be slain!

   In maintaining the cause of the Truth of God, we need not be surprised
   if the fight is long. But we may always count on the pride of the
   adversary turning to his own hurt. The conflict will be shortened by
   himself. When the invaders, most of all, relied on the alliances they
   had formed, it often happened that Israel won the day through the
   Moabites and the Assyrians falling out among themselves. Very
   frequently it has been God's plan to let His adversaries turn upon each
   other and end the fight to His servants' comfort! Behold the giant's
   head taken off with his own sword! Let it be before your eyes for a
   sign. It matters not, Brothers, though we should be in the minority on
   certain eminent matters, as we undoubtedly are. The question for you
   is, are you right? Are you right? The right is sure to win! Have you
   the Truth of God on your side? Have you the Bible on your side? Have
   you Christ on your side? Well, you may belong to a despised community.
   You may be associated with a very few and a very poor people. Flinch
   not--let not your heart quail. Had you no strength with which to
   overcome the adversary excepting that which is promised by God, you
   have quite enough!

   But there lies in ambush, in the camp of your adversary, an assistance
   and an aid to the Truth of God that you have not, perhaps, thought of.
   The old dragon stings himself to death! As vice consumes the vitals of
   the man who indulges in it, so does error, in the long run, become its
   own destroyer! Full often the Truth of God shines out the more brightly
   from the very fact that an error has beclouded the world with its dense
   shadows. Go on, then! Strive with coolness and courage! Be not daunted
   by the comely face, the princely figure, or the battle array of your
   antagonist! Let not his vaunting words deter you. Call on the name of
   Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, and use, even in God's battles, those
   weapons which you have tested and proved. But take care to go through
   with God's work--do it thoroughly, looking unto Jesus, the Author and
   Finisher of your faith--and so, Beloved, you may expect to go from
   strength to strength and bring glory

   to God!

   I would we were all on the Lord's side--that we were all the soldiers
   of Christ. Do any here confess that they are not? Are there any of you
   who feel sin lying heavily upon you and yet you gladly would be at
   peace with God, in fellowship with Jesus? Beloved, Jesus has never yet
   rejected one that came to Him! It has never yet been said that His
   blood was not able to cleanse the vilest soul! Go to Him! You cannot
   give Him greater joy than by going to Him and confessing your sin and
   seeking His mercy. He wants to be gracious. He slays sin, but He takes
   pity on sinners. He is ready to pardon them. He is the enemy of
   Goliath, but He sits on Zion's hill, glad to welcome the very poorest
   of the poor that come to Him. If you are the worst sinner that ever
   lived, He is still able to save to the uttermost! If you have no hope
   and no con-fidence--if you feel as though sentence had gone forth that
   you should die forever, your fears are not due to God's counsels. He
   has not spoken the bitter things you have imagined against yourself!
   Give ear to what He has said--"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."

   Oh, to be on Christ's side maintains the heart in calm and inflames the
   soul with joy, notwithstanding the pain that now tortures your nerves,
   or the shame that mantles your cheeks! But ah, to be on the other
   side--to be an enemy of Jesus--is a woe that blights all present joy
   and promises all future curses! The future, the future, the future!
   This is the worst of all to be dreaded. "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." The Lord
   give you, every one of you, to be thus timely wise, for His name's
   sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Mournful Defection

   (No. 2914)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN
   THE YEAR 1877.

   "Will you also go away?" John 6:67.

   No mischief that ever befalls our Christian communities is more
   lamentable than that which comes from the defection of the members. The
   heaviest sorrow that can wring a pastor's heart is such as comes from
   the betrayal of his most familiar friend. The direst calamity the
   Church can dread is not such as will arise from the assault of enemies
   outside, but from false brethren and traitors within the camp. My
   eminent predecessor, Benjamin Keach, though arrested, brought before
   the magistrates, imprisoned, pilloried and otherwise made to suffer by
   the Government of the times for the Gospel doctrines that he preached
   and published, found it easier to brook the rough usage of open foes
   than to bear the griefs of wounded love, or sustain the shock of
   outraged confidence. I should not think his experience was very
   exceptional. Other saints would have preferred the rotten eggs of the
   villagers to the rooted animosities of slanderers. Troy could never be
   taken by the assaults of the Greeks outside her walls. Only when, by
   trickery, the enemy had been admitted within the citadel was that brave
   city compelled to yield. The devil himself was not such a subtle foe to
   Christ as was Judas, when, after the Supper, Satan entered into him.
   Judas was a friend of Jesus. Jesus addressed him as such. And Judas
   said, "Hail, Master," and kissed Him. But Judas it was who betrayed
   Him! That is a picture which may well appall you--that is a peril which
   may well admonish you.

   In all our churches, among the many who enlist, there are some who
   desert. They continue awhile and then they go back to the world. The
   radical reason why they retire is an obvious incongruity. "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." The unconverted adherents in
   our fellowship are no loss to the church when they depart. They are not
   a real deficit, any more than the scattering of the chaff from the
   threshing floor is a detriment to the wheat. Christ keeps the winnowing
   fan always going. His own preaching constantly sifted His hearers. Some
   were blown away because they were but chaff. They did not really
   believe. By the ministry of the Gospel, by the order of Providence, by
   all the arrangements of Divine Government, the precious are separated
   from the vile, the dross is purged away from the silver so that the
   Good Seed and the pure metal may remain and be preserved. The process
   is always painful. It causes great searching of heart among those who
   abide faithful--and occasions deep anxiety to gentle spirits of tender,
   sympathetic mold.

   I trust, dear Friends, that you will not think I harbor any ungenerous
   suspicions of your fidelity because my text contains as pointed and so
   personal an appeal to your conscience. There is more of pathos than of
   passion in the question as our Lord puts it--"You will not go away,
   will you?" He addressed the favored twelve. I put it to myself. I put
   it to those who are the officers of the Church. I put it to every
   member without exception--Will you also go away? But should there be
   one to whom it is peculiarly applicable, I do not desire to flinch from
   putting the question most personally to that one--"What? Are you going?
   Do youmean to turn back? Do youmean to go away?"

   I. Let us approach the enquiry sideways. "Will you also go away?"
   "Also" means "as well as other people." WHY DO OTHERS GO? If they have
   any good reason, perhaps we may see cause to follow their example. Look
   narrowly, then, at the various causes or excuses for defection. Why do
   they renounce the religious profession they once espoused? The

   fundamental reason is lack of Grace, a lack of true faith, an absence
   of vital godliness. It is, however, the outward reasons which expose
   the inward apostasy of the heart from Christ of which I am anxious to
   treat.

   Some there are in these days, as there were in our Lord's own day, who
   depart from Christ because they cannot bear His Doctrine. Our Lord had
   more explicitly than on any former occasion declared the necessity of
   the soul's feeding upon Himself. They probably misunderstood His
   language, but they certainly took offense at His statements. Hence
   there were those who said, "This is an hard saying; who can bear it?"
   So they walked no more with Him.

   There are many points and particulars in which the Gospel is offensive
   to human nature and revolting to the pride of the creature. It was not
   intended to please man. How can we attribute such a purpose to God? Why
   should He devise a goal to suit the whims of our poor fallen human
   nature? He intended to save men, but He never intended to gratify their
   depraved tastes. Rather does He lay the axe to the root of the tree and
   cut down human pride. When God's servants are led to set forth some
   humbling Doctrine, there are those who say, "We will never assent to
   that." They kick against any Truth of God which clashes with their
   prejudices. What do you say, Brothers and Sisters, to the claims of the
   Gospel on your allegiance? Should you discover that God's Word rebukes
   your favorite pleasure, or contradicts your cherished convictions, will
   you forthwith take the huff and go away? No, but if your hearts are
   right with Christ, you will be prepared to welcome all His teaching and
   yield obedience to all His precepts. Only prove it to be Christ's
   teaching and the right-minded professor is ready to receive it. That
   which is transparent on the face of Scripture he will cordially accept,
   as he says, "To the Law and to the Testimony: if they speak not
   according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them." As
   far that which is merely inferred and argued from the general drift of
   Scripture, the true heart will not be hasty to reject, but patient to
   investigate, like the Bereans who "were more noble than the Jews of
   Thessalonica, in that they searched the Scriptures daily, whether those
   things were so."

   Oh, that the Word of Christ may dwell in us richly! God forbid that any
   of us should ever turn aside, being offended because of Him, His
   blessed Son, His holy example, or His sacred teaching! May we be always
   ready to believe what He says and prompt to do what He commands!
   Remember, Brothers, that the Gospel commission has three parts to which
   the minister has to attend. We are to first go and preach the Gospel. "
   Go you, and disciple all nations." The second part is, "baptizing
   them." And the third part is, "teaching them to observe all things
   whatever I have commanded you." As willing disciples of Jesus, let us
   press forward, paying attention to His voice, following in His
   footsteps, and counting His revealed will as our supreme law. Far be it
   from us to go back from Him because we are offended at His Doctrine!

   Others there are who desert for the sake of gain. Many have been
   entangled in that snare. Mr. By-Ends originally went on pilgrimage
   because he thought it would pay. There was a silver mine on the road
   and he purposed to survey it and see whether silver might not be
   obtained there as well as at the golden city beyond. He came, if I
   remember rightly, of a family that got its living by the waterman's
   business, looking one way and pulling another. He was apparently
   striving for religion, though all the while he had his eye on the
   world. He was for holding with the hare and running with the hounds!
   So, when he came to a point where he must part with one or the other,
   he considered which would, upon the whole, be the more profitable and
   gave up that which appeared to involve loss and self-sacrifice--and
   kept to that which would, as he called it, "help him in the main
   chance," and assist him to get on in the present life. Sincerely do I
   trust there is no one among us but who despises Mr. By-Ends and all of
   his class! If you would make money--and there need be nothing sinful in
   that--do let it be made honestly. Never let riches be pursued under the
   pretense of religion! Sell your wares and find a market for your
   merchandise, but do not sell Christ, nor barter a heavenly birthright
   for a worthless bribe! Put what goods you please into your shop window,
   but do not put a canting, hypocritical expression on your face, or
   "wear a holy look," with a view of turning godliness into gain.

   Some leave Christ, and go away, terrified by persecution. Nowadays, it
   is supposed that there is no such thing, but that is a mistake, for
   though martyrs are not burned at Smithfield and the Lollards' Tower is
   a place for show (a memorial of times long ago), yet the harassment,
   the cruelty and the oppression are far enough from being obsolete!
   Godless husbands play the part of petty tyrants and will not permit
   their wives the enjoyment of religion, but make their lives bitter with
   a galling bondage! Employers full often wreak malice on servants whose
   piety towards God is their sole cause of offense. Worse still, there
   are working men who consider themselves intelligent who cannot allow
   their fellow workman liberty to go to a place of worship without sneers
   and jeers and cruel mocking! In many cases the mirth of the workshop is
   never louder than when it is turned against a believer in Christ! They
   count it rare fun to hunt a man who cares

   for the salvation of his soul. They call themselves, "Englishmen," but
   certainly they are no credit to their country! Look at the base-born,
   ill-bred cowards--yonder is an atheist--he is raving about his rights
   because the magistrate will not believe him on his oath! He claims
   liberty of conscience to be a heathen, but denies his comrade's right
   to be a Christian! Look at that little party of British workmen--they
   belong to the Sabbath Desecration Society. They are petitioning
   Parliament to open museums and theatres on Sundays and at the same time
   they are hounding to death a poor fellow who prefers going to Chapel!
   They air their own self-respect by the words they utter, while they
   betray their self-abasement by the scorn they vent on those who presume
   to sing a hymn. They hail the drunkard as a chum and rout the sober man
   as a fiend! I wonder that there is not more honorable feeling, more
   good faith and true fellowship among our skilled workmen than to permit
   one man being made the butt of a whole community!

   God give you Grace to bear such persecutions as these! If they cut you
   to the quick, may you learn to bear them with equanimity and even to
   rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer for the Savior's sake!
   Some of us have had to "run the gauntlet" for many years. What we have
   said has been constantly misrepresented. What we have endeavored to do
   has been misjudged and our motives have been misunderstood. Yet here we
   are, as happy as anybody out of Heaven! We have not been injured by any
   or all the calumnies that have been heaped upon us. Our foes would have
   crushed us, but, blessed be God, He cheered us often when we were cast
   down. The Lord give you, in like manner, strength of mind and courage
   of heart to bear the trial manfully! Then you will care no more for the
   laughter and the sneers of men than you do for the noise of those
   migratory birds high overhead which you hear on an autumn evening as
   they are making their weary journey to a distant clime. Take heart,
   Brothers and Sisters! Fear God and face your accusers. True courage
   grows strong on opposition. Never think of deserting the army of
   Christ! Least of all should you play the coward because of the
   insolence of some ill-mannered bully. Let not your faith be vanquished
   by such scoffing. Alas, that so many a cowardly spirit has gone away
   for the sake of carnal ease--and deserted Christ--when he has become
   the drunkard's jest and the derision of fools!

   There are some people who forsake true religion out of sheer
   lightheartedness. I know not how to account for some men's defections.
   If you take up the list of shipwrecks, you will notice some that have
   gone down through collisions and others through striking upon rocks,
   but sometimes you read of a vessel, "Foundered at sea." How it
   happened, no, one knows--the owner himself cannot explain it! There are
   some professors who, concerning faith, have made shipwreck under such
   apparently easy circumstances--so free from trial, so exempt from
   temptation, that we have not seen anything to awaken anxiety on their
   behalf--yet all of a sudden they have foundered. We are startled and
   amazed. I remember one who fell into a gross sin, of whom a Brother
   unwisely said, "If that man is not a Christian, I am not." His prayers
   had certainly been sweet. Many a time they had melted me down before
   the Throne of Grace and yet the life of God could not have been in his
   soul, for he lived and died in flagrant vice and was impenitent to the
   last! Such cases I can only attribute to a sort of lightheadedness
   which can be charmed with a sermon or a play--take a pew at the Chapel
   or a box at the opera with equal nonchalance and eagerly follow the
   excitement of the hour, "everything by turns and nothing long."
   "Unstable as water, they shall not excel."

   On the spur of the moment, they profess Christianity, though they do
   not espouse it. And then, without troubling themselves to renounce it,
   they drop off into infidelity. They are soft and malleable enough to be
   hammered into any shape. Made of wax, they can be molded by any hand
   that is strong enough to grip them. The Lord have mercy upon any of you
   who may happen to be of that type! You spring up soon and suddenly you
   wither. Hardly is the seed sown before the sprout appears! What a
   wonderful harvest you promise! But, ah, no sooner has the sun risen
   with a burning heat than, because there is no depth of soil, the green
   shoot withers away. Pray God that you may be plowed deep, that the iron
   pan of rock underneath may be broken right up, that you may have plenty
   of subsoil and root-hold, that the verdure you produce may be
   permanent. Lack of principles is deadly, but the lack is far too
   common. Never cease to pray that you may be rooted and grounded,
   established and built up in Christ so that when the floods come and the
   winds blow, you may not fall with a great destruction--as that house
   fell which was built upon the sand!

   But, oh, what multitudes are tempted aside from following Christ and
   His Church by evil companions! They do not avoid the society of the
   wicked and as a man is known by the company he keeps, we soon discover
   the direction in which they are drawn. The more intimately we know
   them, the more readily we perceive their propensities. Have a care,
   then, with whom you associate. Never confide in those persons of whose
   principles you have good cause to stand in doubt.

   Above all, let me admonish you young people not to be "unequally yoked
   together." Marriage without the fear of God is a fearful mistake. Those
   ill-assorted unions between Believers and unbelievers rob our churches
   of more members than any other popular delinquency that I know of!
   Seldom--I might almost say never--do I meet with a woman professing
   godliness who becomes joined in wedlock to a man of the world but what
   she goes away. She ceases to follow Jesus and we hear no more of her.
   Absorbed in the pursuits, the pains and the pleasures of the life that
   now is, she is sucked under the stream and drawn into the vortex. In
   the romance of her courtship, she glibly said, "I shall win him," but,
   in the reality of their conjugal bonds, he could coolly say, "I have
   won you." Probably the stronger nature wins the day. In this case,
   however, a precept of the Gospel is violated and the penalty of
   disobedience is incurred. It is much easier for the one who professes
   religion to give up the faith, after laying down the Cross, than for
   another who has no religion to take up the Cross and follow the Savior
   in whom he has never yet believed! I counsel you, young man or woman,
   who contemplate a marriage on the basis of capricious attraction,
   without reference to the sanctity of the relationship before God, to
   communicate your intention to your minister and renounce your
   membership in the Church before you say your vows! Voluntarily give up
   all profession of religion! Do not wait to be excommunicated! Do not
   sneak away without giving an account of yourself. You had better count
   the cost and pay the price of your own presumption. Should your
   unwarranted but sanguine hopes succeed and your earnest endeavors to
   gain the conversion of your helpmeet be successful, that would be an
   uncovenanted mercy! If God chose to give it to you, it would not even
   then excuse you for tempting Him by your waywardness, or provoking Him
   to jealousy by your willfulness! There is an express command, "Be you
   not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." I appeal to every
   Christian man or woman who has been converted since marriage-- Do you
   not find it exceedingly difficult to keep up your courage when one
   pulls one way and one another? And does it not cut you to the quick to
   think that your union is but temporary--that however dear you may be to
   each other now, you will be parted at the Judgment Seat of
   Christ--parted to meet no more? The Lord make us careful about our
   associates, about those among whom we stand, by whom we sit, with whom
   we walk!

   And oh, how many leave Christ for the sake of sensual enjoyments! I
   will not enlarge upon this. Certain, however, is it that the pleasures
   of sin for a season fascinate their minds till they sacrifice their
   souls at the shrine of sordid vanity. For a merry dance, a wanton
   amusement, or a transient joy that would not bear reflection, they have
   renounced the pleasures that never pall, the immortal hopes that never
   fail and turned their backs upon that blessed Savior who gives and
   feeds the taste for unspeakable joy, for joy full of glory!

   In our pastoral oversight of such a huge Church as this, we have
   painful evidence that considerable numbers gradually grow cold. The
   elders' reports on the absentees reiterate the vain excuses for
   non-attendance. One has so many children. The distance is too great for
   another. When they joined the Church, their family was just as large
   and the distance was just the same! But the household cares become more
   irksome when the concern for religion begins to flag--and the fatigue
   of travelling increases when their zeal for the House of God falters.
   The elders fear they are growing cold. No actual transgression can we
   detect, but there is a gradual declension over which we grieve. I dread
   that cold-heartedness--it steals so insensibly yet so surely over the
   entire frame. I do not say that it is worse than open sin. It cannot
   be. Yet it is more insidious. A flagrant delinquency would startle one
   as a fit does a patient, but a slow process of backsliding may steal
   like paralysis over a person without awakening suspicion. Like the
   sleep which comes over men in the frozen regions--if they yield to it
   they will never wake again. You must be awakened or else this
   inactivity will surely end in death! "Gray hairs are here and there
   upon him, yet he knows not." Is it so with any of you, dear Friends?
   Are you going aside by slow degrees? He that loses his substance little
   by little presently becomes a bankrupt--and painful is the discovery
   when the end is precipitated! How miserable must a spiritual bankruptcy
   be to him who wastes by degrees his heavenly estate, if he ever had
   any! No words can describe it. God preserve us from such a catastrophe!

   Some have turned aside who allege so through change of circumstances.
   They were with us when their means of livelihood were competent, if not
   affluent. From reverses in business they have sunk in their social
   position. Hence they do not like to come into fellowship with us as
   they were known to do. Now, from my inmost soul I can say if any of our
   members become poor, I, for one, do not think one atom the less of
   them, or hold them in less esteem, however impoverished they may
   become! Do not tell me that you have no fit clothes to come in, for any
   clothes that you have paid for are creditable. If you have not paid for
   them, I cannot make excuses for you. Be honest. Silk or fustian need
   not shame you, but for fineness or fashion I should certainly blame
   you! I am always glad to see Brothers and Sisters sitting here, as I

   sometimes do, in their smock-frocks. One good friend is rather
   conspicuous in that line. The wholesome whiteness of his rural garb is
   rather attractive. If he has paid for it, he is a far more respectable
   man than anyone that has run into debt for a suit of broadcloth that he
   cannot pay for! And I rejoice to think that I am not merely expressing
   my own feeling, but that which is shared by the whole community! We all
   delight to see our poor Brothers and Sisters. If there are any of you
   suffering from a sensitiveness of your own, or a suspicion of our
   reflections, the sooner you get rid of such foolish pride the happier
   you will be! You want to be thought respectable? Don't you know that a
   man is respectable for his character, not for the money he has in his
   pocket?

   Others forsake Christ when they become rich and increased in goods.
   They did not scorn the little conventicle when they were plain plodding
   people, but since fortune has smiled on them and they have moved their
   residence from a terrace to a mansion--and they have taken to keep a
   carriage--they feel bound to move in another circle. To their parish
   church, or to some Ritualistic church in their neighborhood, they go
   once on the Sunday. They patronize the place by their presence. They
   show themselves among the elite of that locality! They bow, and bend,
   and face about to the East as though they had been born to the manner!
   They are too respectable to go into the little Baptist Chapel. They
   receive visitors in the afternoon, dine late and dissipate Sabbatic
   hours in the frivolous pretence of showing off their gentility. Well, I
   think their departure is not to be lamented. When gone, they are
   certainly no loss to anybody. We sigh for them as we would for Judas or
   Demas. They have fallen foul of what they thought their good fortune,
   but of what has proved to be their ruin! Those who have true
   principles, when they rise in the world, see more reason why they
   should use their wealth and their influence in aiding a good cause.
   Principle would prevail over policy to the end of their lives if in
   their hearts they believed the Truth of God as it is in Jesus. It were
   no dishonor to a prince to go and sit down side by side with a pauper,
   were they both true followers of Jesus Christ!

   In old times, when our grandfathers sought refuge in caves and dens of
   the earth, they met the high and the low, the bond and the free. Or
   when, in earlier ages, the Christians gathered in the catacombs, men
   out of Caesar's household-- now a chief, then a senator, then a prince
   of the blood--came and sat down in those caverns, lighted with the dim
   candle, to listen while some unshod but Heaven-taught man declared the
   Gospel of Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit! That they were
   illiterate, I am quite sure, for, on looking over the monuments that
   are found in the catacombs, it is rare to find one inscription that is
   thoroughly well spelt. Though it is evident enough that the early
   Christians were an uneducated company of men, yet those that were great
   and noble, learned and polished, did not disdain to join with them--
   nor will they in any age if the Light of Heaven shines and the love of
   God burns in their hearts!

   Unsound doctrine induces many to apostatize. There is always plenty of
   that about. Deceivers will beguile the weak. Some have been turned
   aside by modern doubt--and positive infidelity has its partisans. They
   begin cautiously by reading works with a view to answer scientific or
   intellectual skepticism. They read a little more and dive a little
   deeper into the turbid stream because they feel well able to stand
   against the insidious influence! They go on till at last they are
   staggered. They do not repair to them who could help them out, but they
   continue to flounder on till, at last, they have lost their footing and
   he that said he was a Believer has ended in stark atheism--discrediting
   even the evidence of the existence of God! Oh, that those who are well
   taught would be content with Gospel teaching! Why should you be so
   unwise as to go through pools of foul teaching merely because you think
   it easy to cleanse yourself of its pollution? Such trifling is
   dangerous! When you begin to read a book and find it pernicious, put it
   aside. Someone may upbraid you for not reading it all through, but why
   should you?

   If I have a roast on my table of which the smell and the taste at once
   convince me that it is putrid and unwholesome, should I show discretion
   by eating the whole of it before giving my judgment that it is not fit
   for food? One mouthful is quite enough--and one sentence of some books
   ought to suffice for a sensible man to reject the whole mass! Let those
   who can relish such meat feed on it, but I have a taste for better
   food. Keep to the study of the Word of God. If it is your duty to
   expose those evils, encounter them bravely with prayer to God to help
   you. But if not, as a humble Believer in Jesus, what business have you
   to taste and test such noxious fare when it is exposed in the market?

   Can you doubt that there are some who turn aside from Christ and His
   people through sheer laziness. They have nothing whatever to do--and
   what must a Christian be who has no part in the service of Christ?
   Nothing to do for Jesus? A drone in the hive! I do not wonder that you
   go away. My wonder is that the bees do not drive you out. On the other
   hand, I fear others have gone aside through having been too busy--they
   have been so occupied that they have neg-

   lected to feed their own souls. I am always pleased to see our dear
   Brothers and Sisters diligent in the service of Christ. I am glad to
   miss many of you on the Lord's-Day evening when I know how well you are
   engaged. I could spare a few more of you if you were intent upon
   teaching the young, or exhorting those who are out of the way. But I
   earnestly admonish you never to be negligent of your own souls while
   you are vigilant for the souls of others! If you do not get nourished
   with the Bread of Life yourselves, you cannot grow in Grace! This
   caution, I am fully persuaded, is not uncalled for. There are some who
   get so absorbed in Christian work that they never listen to the Word.
   They hardly ever read. They only talk. This is sorry work. If you do
   not take in, you cannot give out. If your own soul is starved, you
   cannot be strong for the Lord's service. Get at least one good
   spiritual meal in the day. Then spend all the strength you have for God
   and rely on Him for frequent renewals. Keep up the fire within and add
   fresh fuel to give a more fervent heat. See to it that you are not
   losing communion with Christ while you think you are getting
   conversions to Christ. That is a peril you good people must not play
   with! It is far too serious. But I will not continue in this strain. It
   is painful to me, if not to you.

   II. Now I want briefly to answer a second enquiry--WHAT BECOMES OF
   THOSE WHO TURN ASIDE?

   Well, if they are God's children, I will tell you what becomes of them,
   for I have seen it scores of times. Though they go aside, they are not
   happy. They cannot rest, for they are miserable even when they try to
   be cheerful. After a while they begin to remember their first Husband,
   for it was better with them, then, than now. They return, but there are
   scores and scores who, to say nothing of the shame they have to carry
   with them to their grave, are never afterwards the men they were
   before. They have to take a second place among their comrades. And even
   should Sovereign Grace so wonderfully bless their painful experience
   that they are fully restored, they can never mention the past without
   bitter regret. Their by-path is serving others' as a beacon--they will
   say to young people, "Never do as we have done! Nothing but mischief
   comes of it."

   In the vast majority of cases, however, they are not the Lord's people.
   So this is what comes of it. Those who prove traitors to a profession
   they once made are the hardest people in the world to impress.
   Doubtless some of you, when you lived in the country, used to always be
   punctual at your usual place of worship. But since you have come to
   London, where your absence from any sanctuary is unnoticed, you rarely
   enter the courts of the Lord's House, nor would you have been here
   tonight but for some special inducement--some country cousin or some
   particular friend having brought you. Though unknown to me, God scans
   your path. Well, here you are, and yet it may be too little profit. You
   have had counsels and cautions in such profusion that it is like
   pouring oil down a slab of marble to admonish you. May God of His
   Omnipotent Mercy break your stone heart or there will be no hope for
   you! Such people frequently lose all conscience. They can go a great
   deal further in talking against religion than anybody else! They will
   sometimes venture to say they know so much about it that they could
   expose it. Their boasts and their threats are alike useless, but as
   boys whistle while they walk through the churchyard to keep their
   courage up, so do their vain talk and their senseless stories betray
   their stifled fear! They speak contemptuously of God while they justify
   themselves in a course for which their own conscience upbraids them.
   They go back--alas, some of them, to prove themselves the most
   abandoned sinners in the world! There could not have been a Judas to
   betray Christ had he not been first distinguished as a disciple who
   ventured to kiss his Master. You must pick from among the Apostles to
   find an apostate! As the ringleaders in riotous transgression, when
   converted, often make the best revivalist preachers, so those that seem
   to be the most loyal subjects of Christ, when they become renegades,
   prove to be the bitterest foes and the blackest sinners!

   Painful reminiscences rush over one's mind. Standing here, now, in the
   midst of a great Church, I call to mind things that have harrowed up my
   soul. God grant I may not see the likes of them again! They go away!
   Ah, me! Full many of them go away to die in blank despair. Did you ever
   read the life of Francis Spira? If you want to sleep tonight, do not
   take up that memoir. Did you ever read the life of John Child, a
   Baptist minister of about 200 years ago? Mr. Keach gives it in one of
   his works. He was a man who knew the Truth of God and, to a great
   extent, had felt its power, but he went aside from it and before he
   came to die, his expressions were too terrible to listen to. The
   remorse and despair of his spirit chafed everyone away. At last he laid
   violent hands upon himself.

   For any man to eat bread at the Lord's Table, to drink of the cup of
   blessing, to mingle with the saints, join in their prayers and their
   hymns, professing to be a disciple of Christ--and then to go back and
   walk no more with Him--is to venture on a course of no ordinary danger!
   When his conscience is again awakened, how he wishes that he had never
   been

   born! Could he annihilate his anguish-smitten soul to terminate his
   existence might be accounted wise. But that is impossible. The relief
   he seeks he cannot find when he takes the dreadful leap from suffering
   here, to an aggravated form of misery hereafter--ten thousand times
   worse to endure! He seals his doom and makes his own damnation sure as
   he raises against himself a murdering hand!

   Do I address anyone here who is bereft of every ray of hope and
   shivering on the brink of despair? To him I say-- While there is life,
   there is hope! Jesus Christ can forgive you! Return to Him! He can wash
   you in His blood. He can make you clean, though your sin is as scarlet.
   But, oh, do not trifle, make no delay! Tarry no longer in your present
   condition else maybe you will fill up the measure of your iniquities
   before you are aware and you may taste, even in this world, some
   beginning of the wrath to come! If not rescued as a trophy of Grace
   right speedily, you may become a monument of God's wrath--a beacon to
   deter others from daring to turn aside! I speak solemnly. I cannot help
   it. So intensely do I feel the terror of that woe and so confident am I
   that some of you are making light of it, that I would go down on my
   knees and entreat you with tears to repent of what you are doing. You
   have got on the inclined place and you are going down, down, down! Your
   feet are even now on the slippery places from which multitudes have
   been cast down into destruction! How they are brought into desolation
   as in a moment! The Lord make haste to deliver you! May He stretch out
   His hand and rescue you! I can only call out to you. You seem to have
   got where I cannot reach you. Do not venture a footstep further on that
   dangerous road! Look to Jesus, look to Jesus! He can redeem your life
   from the Pit by His Sovereign Grace--but He alone can do it! Then, as a
   wandering sheep brought back to the fold, you shall adore His name.

   III. My third enquiry is--WHY SHOULD WE NOT GO AWAY AS THEY HAVE?

   Were we left to ourselves, I cannot tell you any reason why we should
   not go as they have. Nor, indeed, could I tell you why the best man
   here should not be the worst before tomorrow morning if the Grace of
   God left him. John Bradford, you know, as he saw the poor criminals
   taken away to Tyburn to be executed, used to say, "There goes John
   Bradford but for the Grace of God." And everyone of us might say the
   same. To abide with Christ, however, is our only security and we trust
   we shall never depart from Him. But how can we make sure of this? The
   great thing is to have a real foundation on Christ to begin
   with--genuine faith, vital godliness. The foundation is the first
   matter to be attended to in building a house. With a bad foundation,
   there cannot be a substantial house. You require a firm bottom, a sound
   groundwork before you proceed to the superstructure. Do pray God that
   if your religion is a sham, you may find it out now. Unless your hearts
   are deeply plowed with genuine repentance and unless you are thoroughly
   rooted and grounded in the faith, you may have some cause to suspect
   the reality of your conversion and the verity of the Holy Spirit's
   operation in you. May the Lord work in you a good beginning and then
   you may rely upon it, He will carry it on to the day of Jesus Christ!

   Then remember, dear Brothers and Sisters, if you would be preserved
   from falling, you must be schooled in humility and keep very low before
   the Lord. When you are half-an-inch above the ground, you are that
   half-inch too high! Your safety is to be nothing. Trust Christ, but do
   not trust yourself. Rely on the Spirit of God, but do not rely on
   anything that is in yourself--no, not on a Grace you have received, or
   on a gift you possess. Those do not slide who walk humbly with God.
   They are always safe whose entire dependence is upon the dear Redeemer.
   Be jealous of your obedience. Be circumspect. Be careful. Take heed to
   yourselves--your walk and conversation cannot be too cautious. Many are
   lost through being too remiss, but none through being too scrupulous.
   The statutes of the Lord are so right that you cannot neglect them
   without diverging from the path of rectitude. Watch and pray. God help
   you to watch, or else you will get drowsy. Never neglect prayer. That
   is at the root of every defection. Retrogression commonly begins at the
   closet. To restrain prayer is to deaden the very pulse of life. "Watch
   unto prayer."

   And, dear Friends, shun the company which has led other people astray.
   Parley not with those whose jokes are profane. Stay right away from
   them. It is not for you to be seen standing, much less to be found
   sitting down with men of loose manners and lewd talk. They can do you
   no good, but the evil they can bring upon you would not be easy to
   estimate! You may have heard the story--but it is so good it bears
   repeating--of the lady who advertised for a coachman and was waited
   upon by three candidates for the situation. She put to the first one
   this question--"I want a really good coachman to drive my pair of
   horses and, therefore, I ask you how near you can drive to danger and
   yet be safe?" "Well," he said, "I could drive very near, indeed! I
   could go within a foot of a precipice without fear of any accident so
   long as I

   held the reins." She dismissed him with the remark that he would not
   do. To the next one who came she put the same question. "How near could
   you drive to danger?" Being determined to get the job, he said, "I
   could drive within a hair's breadth and yet skillfully avoid any
   mishap." "You will not do," she said. When the third one came in, his
   mind was cast in another mold, so on the question being put to him,
   "How near could you drive to danger?" he said, "Madam, I never tried.
   It has always been a rule with me to drive as far from danger as I
   possibly can." The lady hired him at once! In like manner I believe
   that the man who is careful to run no risks and to refrain from all
   equivocal conduct, having the fear of God in his heart, is most to be
   relied upon! If you are really built upon the Rock of Ages, you may
   meet the question without dismay, "Will you also go away?" and you can
   reply without presumption, "No, Lord, I cannot and I will not leave
   You, for to whom should I go? You have the words of eternal life." So
   be it. "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God
   your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
   coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calls you, who
   also will do it." Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Visit to Bethlehem

   (No. 2915)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1904.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, DECEMBER
   24, 1854.

   "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass,
   which the Lord has made known unto us." Luke 2:15.

   [The accompanying Sermon is substantially the same as I preached on the
   Sunday evening before Christmas day. Some of my members expressed their
   regret that the reporter was not present. I am not myself aware that
   there is any novelty except in the arrangement. As for the Truths of
   God, themselves, they are the simple old facts in which the saints of
   all generations rejoice. Of course it is not in my power to reproduce
   the exact words I then employed, but, with just the differences between
   the effusion of one's pen and the utterance of one's tongue, I now
   publish it and pray God to acknowledge it with His gracious
   blessing.--C. H. S.]

   (Notwithstanding the above note, which is in Mr. Spurgeon's handwriting
   on the manuscript of the sermon, the publishers cannot find any trace
   of its publication. They are very glad to be able to issue it just 50
   years after it was preached).

   NOT to Bethlehem as it now is, but to Bethlehem as it once was, I would
   lead your meditation this evening.

   Were you to visit the site of that ancient city of Judah as it is at
   present, you would find little enough to edify your hearts. About six
   miles south of Jerusalem, on the slope of a hill, lies a small,
   irregular village, never at any time considerable either in its extent
   or because of the wealth of its inhabitants. The only building worthy
   of notice is a convent. Should your fancy paint, as you approach it, a
   courtyard, a stable, or a manger, you would be sorely disappointed on
   your arrival! Tawdry decorations are all that would greet your
   eyes--rather adapted to obliterate than to preserve the sacred interest
   with which a Christian would regard the place. You might walk upon the
   marble floor of a chapel and gaze on walls bedecked with pictures and
   studded with the fantastic dolls and other nicknacks which are usually
   found in Roman Catholic places of worship. Within a small grotto you
   might observe the exact spot that superstition has assigned to the
   nativity of our Lord. There a star, composed of silver and precious
   stones, surrounded by golden lamps, might remind you, but merely as a
   parody, of the simple story of the Evangelists. Truly, Bethlehem was
   always little, if not the least, among the thousands of Judah--and only
   famous for its historic associations.

   So, Beloved, "let us now go to Bethlehem" as it was--let us, if
   possible, bring the wondrous story of that "Child born," that "Son
   given," down to our own times. Imagine the event to be occurring just
   now. I will try to paint the picture for you with vivid colors, that
   you may apprehend afresh the great Truth of God and be impressed, as
   you ought to be, with the facts concerning the birth of our Lord and
   Savior Jesus Christ.

   I propose now to make A VISIT TO BETHLEHEM and I need five companions
   to render the visit instructive. So I would have, first, an aged Jew.
   Next, an ancient Gentile. Then, a convicted sinner Next, a young
   Believer And, last of all, an advanced Christian. Their remarks can
   scarcely fail to please and profit us. Afterwards I should like to take
   a whole family to the manger, let them all look at the Divine Infant
   and hear what each one has to say about Him.

   I. To begin, then, I WOULD GO TO BETHLEHEM WITH AN AGED JEW.

   Come on, my venerable, long-bearded Brother--you are an Israelite,
   indeed, for your name is Simeon. Do you see the Baby "wrapped in
   swaddling clothes, lying in a manger"? Yes, he does and, overpowered by
   the sight, he clasps the

   Child in his arms and exclaims, "Lord, now let Your servant depart in
   peace, according to Your Word: for my eyes have seen Your salvation."
   "Here," says this faithful son of Abraham, "is the fulfillment of a
   thousand prophecies and promises! The hope, the expectation and the joy
   of my noble ancestry! Here is the Antitype of all those mystic symbols
   and typical offerings enjoined in the Laws of Moses. You, O Son of the
   Highest, are Abraham's promised Seed, the Shiloh whose coming Jacob
   foretold, great David's greater Son and Israel's rightful King! Our
   Prophets did herald your coming in each prophetic page. Our bards vied
   with one another who should chant Your praise in sweetest stanzas! And
   now, O happy hour--these poor dim eyes do greet Your beauteous form! It
   is enough--and more than enough--O God! I ask not that I may live any
   longer on earth!" So speaks the aged Jew and, as he speaks, I mark the
   rapturous smile that lights up every feature of his face and listen to
   the deep, mellow tones of his tremulous voice. As he gazes on the
   tender Baby, I hear him quote Isaiah's words, "He shall grow up before
   Him as a tender plant" and then, as he glances aside at the
   virgin-mother, descendant of the royal house of David, he quickly looks
   back to the sinless Baby and says, "A root out of a dry ground."
   Farewell, venerable Jew, your talk sounds sweet in my ears--may the day
   soon dawn when all your brethren shall return to their fatherland and
   there confess our Jesus as their Messiah and their King! II. My next
   companion shall be AN ANCIENT GENTILE.

   He is an intelligent man. Do not ask me any questions concerning his
   creed. Deeply versed in the works of God in Nature, he has glimmering,
   flickering Light of God enough to detect the moral darkness by which he
   is surrounded, albeit the Truth of the Gospel has not yet found an
   entrance into his heart. Call him a skeptic, from the heathen point of
   view, if you please, but his is not a willful perversion of the heart,
   it is rather that transition state of the mind wherein false hopes are
   rejected, but the true hope has not yet been espoused. This Gentile is
   staying at Jerusalem and we walk and talk together as we bend our steps
   toward Bethlehem. He has told me what pleasure he feels in reading the
   Jewish Scriptures and how he has often longed for the dawn of that day
   which their seers predict. Now we enter the house--a star shines
   brightly in the sky and hovers over the stable--we look at the Child
   and my comrade exclaims in ecstasy, "a Light to lighten the Gentiles!"
   "Fair Child of promise," he says, "Your birth shall be a joy to all
   people! Prince of Peace, Yours shall be a peaceful reign! Kings shall
   bring presents to You; all nations shall serve You. The poor shall
   rejoice in Your advent, for justice shall be done to them by You. And
   oppressors shall tremble at Your coming, for judgment upon them shall
   be pronounced by Your lips."

   Then sweetly did he speak of the hopes which had bloomed in that
   birth-chamber. He looked as if, in that same hour, he saw the
   application of many an ancient promise with the letter of which he was
   already acquainted, to the wonderful Child he there saw. It was
   refreshing to hear that entire quote from the evangelical Prophet,
   words like these, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the
   leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion
   and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."

   As I bid adieu to this friend, you must allow me to offer you one or
   two of my own reflections. When God, in His anger, hid His face from
   the house of Jacob, He lifted up the Light of His Countenance on the
   Gentiles. When the fruitful land became a desert, the wilderness, at
   the same time, began to blossom as the garden of the Lord. Moses had
   anticipated both of these events and the Inspired Prophets had foreseen
   one as much as the other. The heart of the Jewish people made gross,
   the heaviness of their eyes and the dullness of their ears are not more
   striking as an exact fulfillment of Divine Judgment, than the extreme
   susceptibility of the Gentile mind to receive the evidence of our
   Lord's Messiahship and to embrace His Gospel! Thus had Jehovah said,
   fifteen hundred years before, "I will move them to jealousy with those
   which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish
   nation." Marvel not, then, but admire the crisis in history when Paul
   and Barnabas were commissioned to say to the Jews who rejected the
   Gospel, "Lo, we turn to the Gentiles."

   I have consulted the map and looked with intense emotion at the route
   which Paul and Barnabas took on their first missionary journey.
   Antioch, the city from which they went forth, is situated directly
   North of Jerusalem--and there, in not very unequal proportions, they
   could find both Jews and Gentiles. "To the Jew first," was according to
   the Divine Injunction and, on their own nation rejecting the Grace of
   God, lo, they turned to the Gentiles with a result immediately
   following that greatly cheered them, for the Gentiles heard with
   gladness and glorified the Word of the Lord! As you follow the various
   journeys of the Apostle Paul, you will see that his course was ever
   Northward, or, rather, in a North-

   Westerly direction--and so the tidings of the Gospel traveled on until
   the Church of the Redeemed found a central point in our highly-favored
   island!

   I think I hear some of you say, "We are not antiquarian enough to
   appreciate the society of your two venerable companions." Well then,
   Beloved, the three that follow shall be drawn from among
   yourselves--and it may be that you will discover your own thoughts
   expressed in the sketches I am about to add.

   III. Next in order is THE AWAKENED SINNER.

   Come here, my Sister, I am glad to see you and I shall have much
   pleasure in your company to Bethlehem. Why do you start back? Do not be
   afraid! There is nothing to terrify you here. Come in! Come in! With
   trembling apprehension my Sister advances to the rough crib where the
   young Child lies. She looks as if she feared to rejoice and is beyond
   measure astonished at herself that she does not faint. She says to me,
   "And is this, Sir, really and truly the great Mystery of godliness? Do
   I, in that manger, behold 'God manifest in the flesh'? I expected to
   see something very different." Looking into her face, I clearly
   perceived that she could scarcely believe for joy. A humble, but not
   uninteresting visitor to the birthplace of my Lord is this trembling
   penitent. I wish I could have many like her out of this congregation
   tonight. You would see how Mystery is dissolved in mercy! No flaming
   sword turning every way obstructs your entrance. No ticket of admission
   is demanded by a surly menial at the door. No favor is shown to rank or
   title--you may go freely in to see the noblest Child of woman born in
   the humblest cot wherein infants ever nestled! Nor does a visible tiara
   of light encircle His brow. Too humble, I assure you, for the fancy of
   the poet to describe, or the pencil of the artist to sketch--like a
   poor man's child, he is wrapped in swaddling clothes and cradled in a
   manger. It needs faith to believe what the eyes of sense never could
   discern as you look upon "the Prince of Life" in such humble guise!

   IV. My fourth companion is A YOUNG BELIEVER.

   Well, my Brother, you and I have often had sweet communion together
   concerning the things of the Kingdom. "Let us now go to Bethlehem and
   see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made known
   unto us." I mark the sacred cheerfulness of my young friend's
   countenance as he approaches the Incarnate Mystery! Often have I heard
   him discussing curious doctrinal subtleties, but now, with calmness of
   spirit, he looks on the face of the Divine Child and says, "Truth is
   sprung out of the earth, for a woman has brought forth her Son and
   righteousness has looked down from Heaven, for God has, of a truth,
   revealed Himself in that Baby." He looks so wistfully at the young
   Child, as if a fresh spring of holy gratitude had been opened in his
   heart. "No vision, no imagination, no myth here," he says, "but a real
   partaker of our flesh and blood! He has not taken on Him the nature of
   angels, but the seed of Abraham. Heaven and earth have united to make
   us blessed. Might and weakness have joined hands here!"

   He pauses to worship, then speaks again, "In what a small, weak,
   slender Tabernacle do You, O glorious God, now deign to dwell! Surely,
   mercy and truth have here met together, righteousness and peace have
   kissed each other! O Jesus, Savior, You are Mercy itself--the tender
   mercy of our God is embodied in You. You are the Truth--the very Truth
   which the Prophets longed to see and into which the angels desire to
   look--the Truth my soul so long sought for, but never found till I
   beheld Your face. Once I thought that the Truth was hidden in some
   profound treatise, or in some learned book, but now I know that it is
   revealed in You, O Jesus, my Kinsman, yet Your Father's equal! And,
   sweet Baby, You are also Righteousness--the only righteousness that God
   can accept. What condescension, yet what patience! Ah, dear Child, how
   still You lie! I wonder that, conscious of your Divine Power, you can
   thus endure the weary, lingering hours of Infancy with humility so
   strange, so rare! I think if You had stood by me and watched over me in
   my infant weakness, that would have been a service that I could well
   admire, but 'tis past imagination's utmost stretch to realize what it
   must be for You to be thus feeble, thus helpless, thus needing to be
   fed and waited upon by an earthly mother! For The Wonderful, The Mighty
   God to stoop thus, is humility profound!"

   So spoke the young Believer and I liked his speech very much, for I saw
   in him how faith could work by love and how the end of controversy and
   argument is reached at Bethlehem, for "without controversy great is the
   mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh."

   V. Now I will go to Bethlehem with AN ADVANCED CHRISTIAN, such an one
   as Paul the Aged, or John the Divine--no, rather with such an one as I
   might find among the circle of my own Church members!

   Calm, peaceful, kind and gracious, he seems as if his training in the
   school of Christ and the sacred anointing of the Holy Spirit have made
   him like a child, himself--his character is ripening and his fitness
   for the Kingdom of Heaven is

   becoming more apparent. Tears glistened in the old man's eyes as he
   looked with expressive fondness on that "Infant of Eternal Days." He
   spoke not much and what he said was not exactly like what any of my
   other companions had spoken. It was his manner to quote short
   sentences, with great exactness, from the Word of God. He uttered them
   slowly, pondered them deeply and there was much spiritual unction in
   the accent with which he spoke. I will just mention a few of the
   profitable sentences that he uttered. First he said, "No man has
   ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from Heaven, even the Son
   of Man which is in Heaven."He really appeared to see more in that
   passage than I had ever seen there. Jesus, the Son of Man, in Heaven
   even while He was on earth! Then he looked at the Child and said, "The
   same was in the beginning with God." After that, he uttered these three
   short sentences in succession, "In the beginning was the Word--"all
   things were made by Him"--"and the Word was made flesh." He looked as
   if he realized what a great mystery it was that our Lord Jesus first
   made all things and afterwards was Himself "made flesh." Then he
   reverently bent his knee, clasped his hands and exclaimed, "My Father's
   gift--'Behold, what manner of love!'"

   As we retire from that manger and stable, that aged Christian puts his
   hand on my shoulder and says, "Young man, I have often been to
   Bethlehem. It was a much-loved haunt of mine before you were born. And
   there is one sweet lesson I have learned there which I should like to
   pass on to you. The Infinite became finite. The Almighty consented to
   become weak. He that upheld all things by the word of His power,
   willingly became helpless. He that spoke all worlds into existence,
   resigned for a while even the power of speech! In all these things, He
   fulfilled the will of His Father, so be not you afraid, nor surprised
   with any amazement if you should be dealt with in like manner, for His
   Father is also your Father. You who have reveled in the ancient
   settlements of the Everlasting Covenant, may yet have to hang feebly on
   the mercies of the hour. You have leaned on your Savior's breast at His
   Table, but you may presently be so weak that you must rely on the
   nursing of a woman. Your tongue has been touched as with a coal from
   the heavenly altar, but your lips may yet be sealed as are those of an
   infant. If you should sink still deeper in humiliation, you will never
   reach the depth to which Jesus descended in this one act of His
   condescension." "True, true," I replied, "my young Brother hinted at
   the wondrous condescension of the Son of God. You have explained it to
   me more fully."

   Thus, Beloved, I have endeavored to carry out my purpose of going to
   Bethlehem with five separate companions-- all representative persons.
   Alas that some of you are not represented by any one of these
   characters! "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?" Care you not
   for this blessed Nativity which marked of old, "the fullness of time"?
   If you die without a knowledge of this Mystery, your lives will indeed
   be a fearful blank and your eternal portion will be truly terrible!

   VI. Give me your earnest attention a little longer while I try to
   change the line of meditation. It may please God that

   while I attempt to CONDUCT A WHOLE FAMILY TO BETHLEHEM, some hearts
   which have thus far resisted all my

   appeals may yet yield to the Lord Jesus Christ!

   A familiar picture will serve my purpose. Imagine this to be Christmas
   Eve and that a Christian father has all his household gathered with him
   around the fire. Desirous of blending instruction with pleasure, he
   proposes that "the birth of Christ" shall be the subject of their
   conversation--that every one of the children shall say something about
   it and he will preach them a short sermon on each of their remarks. He
   calls Mary, their servant, into the room. And when all are comfortably
   seated they commence.

   1. After a simple sketch of the facts, the father turns to his youngest
   boy and asks, "What have you to say, Willy?" The little fellow, who is
   just old enough to go to the Sunday school, repeats two lines that he
   has learned to sing there-- many of you, no doubt, know them--

   "Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior,

   Once became a Child like me." "Good, my dear," says the father--"once
   became a child like me." Yes. Jesus was born into the world as other
   little babies are born. He was as little, as delicate, as weak as other
   infants and needed to be nursed as they do--

   "'Almighty God became a Man,

   A Baby like others seen--

   As small in size, and weak of frame,

   As babies have always been.

   From thence He grew an Infant mild,

   By fair and due degrees

   And then became a bigger Child,

   And sat on Mary's knee.

   'At first held up for need of strength,

   In time alone He ran.

   Then grew a Boy. A Lad--at length

   A Youth--at last, a Man.'

   "It is wrong to draw pictures of the little Jesus and then say that
   they are like Him. Wicked idolaters do that. But we ought to think of
   Jesus Christ as made in all things like unto His brethren. There was
   never a thing in which He was not like us, except that He had no sin.
   He used to eat, drink, sleep, wake, laugh, cry and hold onto His
   mother, just as other children do. So it is quite right for you, Willy,
   to say, 'once became a Child like me.'"

   2. "Now, John," said the father, addressing a lad rather older, "what
   have you to say?" "Well, father," said John, "if Jesus Christ was like
   us in some things, I do not think He could have had so many comforts as
   we have--not such a nice nursery, nor such a snug bed. Was He not
   disturbed by the horses, and cows, and camels? It seems to me shocking
   that He had to live in a stable."

   "That is a very proper remark, John," said his father. "We ought all of
   us to think how our blessed Lord cast in His lot with the poor. When
   those Wise Men came from the East, I daresay they were surprised, at
   first, to find that Jesus was a poor man's Child. Yet they fell down
   and worshipped Him, they opened their treasury and presented to Him
   very costly gifts--gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Ah, when the Son
   of God made that great stoop from Heaven to earth, He passed the
   glittering palaces of kings and the marble halls of the rich and the
   noble--to take up His abode in the lodgings of poverty. Still, He was
   'born King of the Jews.' Now, John, did you ever read of a child being
   born a kngbefore? Of course you never did--children have been born
   princes and heirs to a throne--but no other than Jesus was ever born a
   King. The poverty of our Savior's circumstances is like a foil which
   sets off the glorious dignity of His Person. You have read of good
   kings, such as David, Hezekiah and Josiah, yet, if they had not been
   kings, we would never have heard of them. But it was quite otherwise
   with Jesus Christ. He was possessed of more true greatness in a stable
   than any other king ever possessed in a palace! But do not imagine it
   was only in His Childhood that Jesus was the Kinsman of the poor. When
   He grew up to be a Man, He said, 'The foxes have holes, and the birds
   of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.'
   Do you know, my children, that our comforts were purchased at the
   expense of His sufferings? 'He became poor that we, through His
   poverty, might be rich.' We ought, therefore, to thank and praise the
   blessed Jesus every time we remember how much worse off He was in this
   world than we are."

   3. "It is your turn now," said the father, as he looked at his little
   daughter--an intelligent girl who was just beginning to be of some
   assistance to her mother in the discharge of her daily domestic duties.
   Poor girl, she modestly hung down her head, for she remembered, just
   then, how frequently little acts of carelessness had exposed her to
   tender but faithful rebukes from her parents. At last she said, "Oh,
   Father, how good Jesus Christ was! He never did anything wrong." "Very
   true, my Love," the father replied. "It is a sweet subject for
   meditation that you suggest. His Nature was sinless, His thoughts were
   pure, His heart was transparent and all His actions just and right. You
   have read of the lambs which Moses, in the Law, commanded the Jews to
   offer in sacrifice to God. They were all to be without spot or
   ble-mish--and if there had been one taint of impurity in the Child that
   was born of Mary, He could never have been our Savior. Sometimes we
   think naughty thoughts and nobody knows it but God. And, sometimes, we
   do what is evil, but we are not found out. It was not so with the meek
   and lowly Savior--He never had even one fault! His delight was in the
   Law of the Lord and in that Law did He meditate day and night. Even
   when we do not commit any positive sin, we often forget to do our duty,
   but Jesus never did. He was like a tree planted by the rivers of water
   that brings forth its fruit in its season. He never disappointed any
   hopes that were set upon Him."

   "There now," said the father, "we have already had three beautiful
   thoughts--Jesus Christ took our Nature, He condescended to be very poor
   and He was without sin."

   4. There was, in the room, a big boy who had just come home from
   boarding school to spend his Christmas holidays, so his father turned
   to this son and said, "Fred, we must hear your remark next." Very
   short, very significant was Master Fred's response--"that Child had a
   wonderful mind."

   "Indeed He had," said the father, "and it would be well for all of us
   if that mind were in us which was also in Christ Jesus. His mind was
   Infinite, for He took part in the eternal counsels of God. But I would
   rather suggest to you another line of thought--'In Him was Light.' The
   mind of Jesus was like light for its clearness and purity. We often see
   things

   through a misleading medium. We form wrong impressions which we find it
   trouble enough afterwards to correct. But Jesus was of quick
   understanding to discern between good and evil. His mind was never
   warped by prejudice. He saw things just as they are. Never had He to
   borrow other people's eyes--and the ideas hatched in other people's
   brains never guided His judgment. He had light in Himself and that
   light was the life of men, so capable was He of always instructing the
   ignorant and guiding their feet in the paths of peace. His heart was
   likewise pure and that has more to do with the development of the mind
   and the improvement of the understanding than we are apt to suppose. No
   corrupt imagination ever tarnished the brightness of His vision. He was
   always in harmony with God and always felt good-will toward man. You
   might well say, Fred, that He had a wonderful mind."

   5. The children having each made some observation, the father next
   addressed Mary, the servant. "Do not be timid," he said, "but speak out
   and let us know your thoughts." "I was just a-thinking, Sir," said
   Mary, "how humble it was of Him to take upon Himself the form of a
   Servant." "Right, Mary, quite right. And it is always profitable to
   consider how Jesus came down to our low estate. We may well be
   reconciled to any 'lot' which Jesus voluntarily chose for Himself. But
   there is more in your remark, as applicable to Bethlehem and the
   Nativity, than you perhaps imagined, for, according to Dr. Kitto's
   account of the inn, or Caravanserai, it was the servant's placethat the
   holy family occupied. Imagine now a square pile of strong and lofty
   walls, built of brick upon a basement of stone with one great archway
   entrance. These walls enclose a large open area with a well in the
   middle. In the center is an inner quadrangle consisting of a raised
   platform on all four sides covered with a kind of piazza. And then, in
   the wall behind, there are small doors leading to the little cells
   which form the lodgings. Such we may suppose to have been the 'inn' in
   which there was 'no room' for Mary and Joseph. Now for a description of
   the stable. It is formed of a covered avenue between the back wall of
   the lodging apartments and the outer wall of the whole building--thus
   it is on a level with the court and three or four feet below the raised
   platform. The side walls of those cells, in the inner quadrangle,
   projecting behind into the courtyard, form recesses, or stalls, which
   servants and muleteers used for shelter in bad weather. Joseph and Mary
   seem to have found a retreat in one of these. There, it is supposed,
   the Infant Jesus was born. And if it is so, how literally true is it
   that He took on Him the form of a Servant and occupied the servant's
   apartment!"

   6. Once more the father seeks a fresh text and, looking at his wife, he
   says, "My Dear, you have taken a quiet interest in our conversations
   this evening. Let us now hear your reflection. I am sure you can say
   something we shall all be pleased to hear." The mother looked absorbed
   in thought. She appeared to have a vivid picture of the whole scene
   before her and her eyes kindled as if she could actually see the little
   Darling lying in the manger. She spoke most naturally and most
   maternally, too. "What a lovely Child! And yet," she added with a deep
   sigh, "He who is thus fairer than the children of men in His cradle,
   after a few short years was so overwhelmed with anxiety, suffering and
   anguish, that His visage was more marred than that of any other man!
   And His form more than that of the sons of men."

   A pensive sadness stole over every countenance as that godly mother
   offered her reflections. Woman's tenderness seemed to be sanctified by
   Divine Grace in her heart and to give forth its richest fragrance. The
   father presently broke the stillness as he said, "Ah, my Love, you have
   spoken best of all! His heart was broken with reproach! That humble
   birth was but the prelude to a life still more humble and a death even
   more abased! Your feelings, my Love, are most precious evidence of your
   close relationship to Him--

   "'A faithful friend of grief partakes;

   But union can be none

   Betwixt a heart that melts like wax

   And hearts as hard as stone.

   Betwixt a head diffusing blood

   And members sound and whole,

   Betwixt an agonizing God

   And an unfeeling soul.

   7. "To close up now," said the father, glancing round with animated
   expression upon his household, "I suppose you will expect a few words
   from me. Much as I like your mother's observations, I think it would be
   hardly right, on such an auspicious day, to finish with anything
   melancholy and sad. You know that fathers are generally most thoughtful
   about the prospects of their children. I can look at you boys and
   think, 'Never mind if you have a few hardships so long as you can
   struggle successfully against them.' Well now, I have been picturing to
   myself the manger, the Baby that lay in it, and

   Mary, His mother watching lovingly over Him. And I'll tell you what I
   thought. Those little hands will one day grasp the scepter of universal
   empire! Those little arms will one day grapple with the monster,
   'Death,' and destroy it! Those little feet shall tread on the serpent's
   neck and crush that old deceiver's head! Yes, and that little tongue
   which has not yet learned to articulate a word shall, before long, pour
   from His sweet lips such streams of eloquence as shall fertilize the
   minds of the whole human race and infuse His teaching into the
   literature of the world! And again, a little while, and that tongue
   shall pronounce the judgments of Heaven on the destinies of all
   mankind!

   "We have all thought it wonderful that the God of Glory should stoop so
   low, but we shall one day think it more wonderful that the Man of
   Sorrows should be exalted so high! Earth could find no place too base
   for Him--Heaven will scarcely find a place lofty enough for Him! If
   there is just this one thing to be said about Jesus Christ, He is 'the
   same yesterday, and today, and forever.' We may change with
   circumstances--Jesus never did and never will! When we look at Him in
   the manger, we may say, 'He is The Wonderful, The Counselor, The Mighty
   God.' And when we see Him exalted to His Father's right hand, we may
   exclaim, 'Behold the Man!'--

   "'His human heart He still retains

   Though enthroned in highest bliss

   And feels each tempted member's pains,

   For our affliction's His.'"

   So closed the series of observations by the various members of a
   Christian family around the Christmas fire. The father said it was time
   to retire. And he bade them all, 'good night.'" And as the father said,
   so say I, "Good night and God bless you all!" Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE2:1-19.

   [Remember, the Exposition was before the sermon.]

   We will now read the story of our Savior's birth as it is recorded in
   the Gospel according to Luke.

   Verses 1-6. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a
   decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And
   this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria). And
   all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went
   up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the City
   of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and
   lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great
   with child. Little did any idea enter into Caesar's head that he was
   accomplishing the purpose of God by bringing Mary to Bethlehem at that
   particular time so that her Child might be born there! But God can
   accomplish the purpose of His Providence and of His Grace in any way
   that He pleases! And although Caesar is not aware of all that is
   involved in his action, his decree which he intends to simply be a
   means of registering his subjects and of filling his coffers, is to be
   overruled by God for the fulfillment of the prophecy uttered centuries
   before the event happened--that Christ must be born at Bethlehem! It
   may seem to some of you a strange thing that there should be an
   imperial edict issued from Rome which should have an important
   influence upon the place of birth of the Child, yet I do not doubt that
   in God's esteem, the whole of the great Roman Empire was of very small
   account in comparison with His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
   And today the thrones and dominions of the mightiest monarchs are only
   like the small cogs of the wheels of Divine Providence where the
   welfare of even the least of the Lord's people is concerned. He reckons
   not events according to their apparent importance--the standard of the
   sanctuary is a very different measure from that which worldlings use.
   When any purpose of God is to be accomplished, all other things will be
   subordinated to it!

   6, 7. And so it was, that while they were there, the days were
   accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her
   first-born Son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a
   manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Now has heavenly
   Glory wedded earthly poverty and, henceforth, let no man dare to
   despise the poor and needy since the Son of the Highest is born in a
   stable and cradled in a manger! How low the King of Glory stoops, and
   how gloriously He lifts up the lowly to share His Glory!

   8, 9. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the
   fields, keeping watch over their flock by night And, lo, the angel of
   the Lord came upon them, and the Glory of the Lord shone round about
   them: and they were sorely

   afraid. For such is the condition, even of gracious souls, that the
   near approach of the Divine Glory begets in them trembling and alarm!
   Oh, how wondrously changed shall we be when we are able to bear even
   the glories of Heaven! Have you ever thought of this, dear Friends? The
   beloved Apostle John saw Christ in His Glory and he wrote, "When I saw
   Him, I fell at His feet, as dead." And these shepherds, even at the
   sight of "the angel of the Lord," "were sorely afraid." You and I,
   Beloved, must undergo a marvelous change before we shall be able to be
   at Home with God in His Glory--but that change shall, through His
   abundant Grace, take place before long!

   10-12. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you
   good tidings of great joy, which shall be to allpeople. For unto you is
   born this day in the city ofDavid, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And
   this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the Baby wrapped in
   swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. ' 'This shall be a sign unto
   you," said the angel to the shepherds--and this is the ensign of the
   Christ of God even unto this day. There are some who are constantly
   bringing discredit upon religion by their pompous ritual and gorgeous
   ceremonies buried beneath the weight of their sensuous worship! But the
   living Christ is still found in simple, lowly guise, "wrapped in
   swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

   13. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly
   host They had heard the heavenly herald's proclamation and hurried down
   to join him in publishing the glad tidings! They could not bear that
   only one angel should announce the birth of the Christ, so, "suddenly
   there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host."

   13-19. Praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on
   earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels
   were gone away from them into Heaven, the shepherds said, one to
   another, Let us now go to Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come
   to pass, which the Lord has made known unto us. And they came with
   haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the Baby lying in a manger. And
   when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told
   them concerning this Child. And all they that heard it wondered at
   those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all
   these things, and pondered them in her heart Mary laid these things up
   in store and pondered them, giving them their due weight and value. Oh,
   that we did the same with every Truth of God that we learn!

   --Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages
   Software, 1.800.297.4307

   PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING
   KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.

   END OF VOLUME 50
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [1]3:8-9

   Exodus

   [2]32:26

   1 Samuel

   [3]2:30   [4]12:17   [5]17:50

   2 Samuel

   [6]7:27

   2 Kings

   [7]7:4

   Job

   [8]19:25

   Psalms

   [9]9:18   [10]19:7   [11]21:5   [12]38:4   [13]81:10   [14]108:7
   [15]130:4

   Proverbs

   [16]25:25

   Isaiah

   [17]27:13   [18]43:2-3   [19]45:22   [20]53:5   [21]54:17
   [22]57:20-21

   Jeremiah

   [23]10:23   [24]31:3

   Amos

   [25]7:7-8

   Jonah

   [26]1:5

   Zechariah

   [27]12:10

   Matthew

   [28]9:10

   Mark

   [29]8:22-26   [30]9:24   [31]16:14

   Luke

   [32]2:15   [33]7:41-43   [34]12:29   [35]13:10-13

   John

   [36]4:11   [37]6:64   [38]6:67   [39]12:26   [40]14:23   [41]16:14

   Acts

   [42]13:26

   1 Corinthians

   [43]1:6   [44]10:13   [45]11:26   [46]11:28

   Colossians

   [47]3:11

   Hebrews

   [48]2:18   [49]12:14

   1 John

   [50]1:3

   Revelation

   [51]14:14-20
     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

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