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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 52: 1906
   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
     __________________________________________________________________

"His Great Love"

   (No. 2968)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1905.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 15, 1875.

   "His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in
   sins." Ephesians 2:4,5.

   You notice, in this chapter, the remarkable change of subject which
   commences at the 4th verse. Paul had been giving a very sad description
   of what even the saints are by nature and of their conduct before
   conversion. And then, as if he was quite weary of writing upon that
   painful topic, he says, "But God"--and goes on to tell what God has
   done. What a relief it is to turn from ourselves and from our fellow
   men, to God! And I do not know when God, in His rich mercy, ever seems
   so lovely in our eyes as when we have just gazed upon our own abundant
   sins. The diamond shines all the more brilliantly when it has a
   suitable foil to set off its brightness--and man seems to act as a foil
   for the goodness and the mercy of God! Perhaps you remember that the
   Psalmist, when he had said in his haste, "All men are liars," turned
   abruptly from that theme and said, "What shall I render unto the Lord
   for all His benefits toward me?" It is as if he had said, "I will not
   have anything more to do with man. I find him to be only like a broken
   cistern that can hold no water-- but as for my God, He has never failed
   me and He never will--so, 'I will take the cup of salvation and call
   upon the name of the Lord.'"

   I want, at this time, to intertwine these two subjects--ourselves in
   our fall and God in His Grace--ourselves in our sin and God in His
   love--"His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in
   sins." I shall not need so much to preach as just to refresh your
   memories--to revive your recollections of the great tidings which the
   Lord, in His Grace, has done for you. I want you who know the Lord to
   remember what you were--and what God has done for you. Those two themes
   will bring out the greatness of His love, so they shall be our two
   objects for meditation. First, what we were. And secondly, what God did
   for us.

   I. First, then, WHAT WE WERE. The text says that "we were dead in
   sins."

   O Believer, whatever life of a spiritual kind you have in you, today,
   was given to you by God! It was not yours by nature. Before God looked
   upon you in love and pity and said unto you, "Live," you were dead!
   That is to say, as far as spiritual things are concerned, you were
   insensible--insensible alike to the bearers of Divine Wrath and to the
   melodies of Divine Love. You could even lie at the foot of Sinai and
   not shake with fright, although Moses did exceedingly fear and quake.
   And you could lie at the foot of the Cross and yet not be melted by the
   death-cries of Immanuel, although the earth did quake and the rocks
   were rent and the graves were opened at that doleful sound! Do you not
   remember, Beloved, when you passed through such a time as that? I
   do--when utter callousness and coldness of heart reigned supreme within
   us, when the world--painted harlot as she is--could attract us, but we
   were insensible to the inexpressible beauties of Him who is altogether
   lovely, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!

   And as we were insensible to spiritual things, being dead, so we were,
   at that time, without power to do anything. We were preached to, called
   and bid to come, but, as far as all goodness was concerned, we were
   like a corpse--unable to hear the sweetest music, or the crack of doom
   resounding overhead! Do you not remember, dear Friends, when it was so
   with you? You thought then that you could do something good in your own
   strength, but it was a dreadful failure when you attempted it! Your
   resolutions, when you got as far as resolving, all fell to the ground,
   for you were, in the emphatic words of Paul, "without strength." Yes,
   you were insensible and powerless.

   And, what is worse still, we were then without will or desire to come
   to God. We had no disposition to move towards the Lord, no aspirations
   after holiness, no longing after communion with our Creator. We loved
   the world and

   were content to fill our treasury with its paltry pelf. This seemed to
   be the only portion for which we cared. If we could have become rich
   and increased with goods, we would have said, "Soul, take your
   ease--there is nothing more for you to desire."

   That was our state by nature. We were dead. And did the Lord love us
   then, when there was nothing whatever in us to commend us to
   Him--nothing by which we could possibly rise into a condition that
   would be estimable in His sight? Did He love us then? Yes, He did--and
   there must have been surprising Grace in that "great love with which He
   loved us, even when we were dead in sins."

   While we were dead as to spiritual things, there was, alas, a life in
   us of another kind. If you read the chapter from which our text is
   taken, you will find that the dead people are described as walking.
   They were walking corpses--a strange commingling of metaphors, and yet
   most certainly true with regard to all ungodly men. They are dead to
   goodness, but, as for the evil within them, how full of life it is! The
   devil within them and the flesh within them were active and, as the
   corpse gives forth corruption and fills the tomb with putridity, so did
   our sin continually give forth evil emanations which must have been
   most nauseous to God! Yet, notwithstanding all this, "He loved us, even
   when we were dead in sins."

   Let me just mention some of the unlovely and unlovable things which God
   saw in us while we were in that dead state. One of the first was
   this--we were ungrateful. It is very difficult to continue to love
   ungrateful persons. If you seek to do them good and yet you receive no
   thanks from them--if you persevere in doing them good and yet, for all
   that, they are unkind to you--it is not in flesh and blood to continue
   to love them. Yet, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, what ingratitude
   to God was once in our hearts! What favors the Lord bestowed upon
   us--not merely daily bread and temporal blessings, but there were real
   spiritual gifts of His Grace presented to us--yet we turned our backs
   upon them all and, still worse, we turned our backs upon Him who gave
   them to us! How sad it is that many people live year after year without
   ever recognizing the God who gives them so many mercies and blessings!
   Perhaps, now and then, there is a "thank God" uttered in idleness or as
   a compliment--but there is no heart in it. The ingratitude of some of
   us was greater even than that of others, for we were born of godly
   parents, we were nurtured in the home of piety, we heard scarcely a
   sound in our infancy that was not mingled with the name of Jesus and
   yet, as we grew up, these very things we regarded as restraints! And
   sometimes we wished that we could do as other people's children did and
   half regretted that we had godly friends who watched so carefully over
   our conduct. The Lord might have said to us, "I have done so much for
   you, yet you exhibit no gratitude. I will, therefore, leave you and
   give these favors to others." But, in His great mercy, although we were
   so ungrateful, He did not act like that.

   What is even worse, we were complaining and murmuring. Do you not
   remember, in your unconverted state, my Friend, how scarcely anything
   seemed to please you? This thing happened quite contrary to your wishes
   and that was not at all to your liking--and the other was not according
   to your notion of what should be. The Prophet Jeremiah asked, "Why does
   a living man complain?" But we seemed to ask, "Why should we leave off
   complaining?" We murmured against the Lord notwithstanding the great
   mercies that He gave us. We rebelled against Him and waxed worse and
   worse. It is a difficult thing for us to love a murmurer. When you try
   to do a man good and he only grumbles at what you do for him, you are
   very apt to say, "Very well, I will take my favors where they will be
   better appreciated." But God did not act like that towards us--"His
   great love with which He loved us" was not to be turned away from us
   even by our murmuring and complaining!

   And all that while, dear Friends, we were trifling with spiritual
   things. Like those people mentioned in the parable who, when they were
   invited to the marriage feast, "made light of it," so did we. We were
   warned to escape from Hell, but it seemed too like an idle tale! We
   were bid to seek after Heaven, but we loved the things of this world
   too well to barter them for joys unseen and eternal. We were told that
   "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," and it seemed to be
   a story that we had heard so often that we called it "a platitude." We
   were earnestly entreated to lay hold on Christ and to find eternal life
   in Him, but we said, "Perhaps we will tomorrow," proving that we did
   not care about it, but would make God wait at our beck and call when it
   should be convenient for us! You know that if a man is in an ill state
   of health and you, as a doctor, go to help him, but he merely laughs at
   his illness and says that he does not care about it, you are very apt
   to say, "Then, why should I care? You are sick and I am anxious to heal
   you, but you say that you do not care to be healed. Very well, then, I
   will go to some other patient who will entreat me to use my best skills
   on

   his behalf and who will be grateful to me when I have used them." But
   the Lord did not act like that with us. Notwithstanding our trifling,
   He was in earnest. He meant to heal our soul-sickness and He did heal
   it! Determined to save us, He would not heed the rebuff of our
   carelessness and callousness, but still persevered in manifesting
   toward us that "great love with which He loved us, even when we were
   dead in sins."

   To make the deformity of our character still worse--we were all the
   while proud--as proud as Lucifer! We had not any righteousness of our
   own, yet we thought we had. We were far off from God by wicked works,
   yet we stood before Him like the Pharisee in the Temple and thanked Him
   that we were not as other men! We were quite content though we had
   nothing to be content with. We were "wretched, and miserable, and poor,
   and blind, and naked," yet we said that we were "rich, and increased
   with goods, and had need of nothing." As for shedding penitential
   tears, we left that work to those who had sinned more deeply than we
   had, for we imagined that we had kept all the Commandments from our
   youth up! Thus we despised the Savior because we exalted ourselves. We
   thought little of Christ because we thought much of ourselves. And so,
   in our pride, we dared to strut before the eternal Throne of God as if
   we were some great ones, though we were but worms of the dust! I think
   that it is one of the most difficult things in the world to love a
   proud man. You can love a man even though he has a thousand faults if
   he is not proud and boastful--but when he is very proud, human nature
   seems to start back from him. Yet God, in His "great love with which He
   loved us, even when we were dead in sins," loved us although we were
   proud and loved us out of that sinful state.

   If worse could be, there was something even worse than pride in us, for
   we were deceptive as well as proud. "No," says one, "surely you cannot
   truthfully lay that to our charge." Well, I have to confess that it was
   so with myself. I remember that when I was ill, I said that if God
   would only spare my life, I would live differently in the future. But
   my promise was not kept, though God did spare my life. Often, after
   hearing a stirring sermon, I sought a place where I could weep in
   secret and I said, "Now I will be decided for the Lord." But it was not
   so. Oh, how many times have we broken the promises and vows we made to
   the Lord! Child of God, before your conversion, how many vows and
   covenants you made--yet your goodness was like the morning cloud or the
   early dew which soon passes away. Who can love one who is not to be
   trusted? Yet, God, in "His great love with which He loved us, even when
   we were dead in sins," loved us while we so many times deceived Him!

   These things which I have mentioned have appertained to all the
   children of God, but there are some of them whose sins have been even
   greater than these. I ask every converted man here to look through his
   own biography. Some of you were, perhaps, converted while you were
   young and so were kept from the grosser sins into which others fall.
   But there were some who were allowed to go into drunkenness, or into
   uncleanness and all manner of iniquity. God has forgiven you, my
   Brothers and Sisters, and has washed all that evil away in the precious
   blood of Jesus, but you feel that you can never forgive yourself. I
   know that I am bringing some very unhappy memories before you, of which
   you say, "Would God that night had never been, or that day had never
   passed over my head!" The Lord grant that as you look back upon those
   sins of yours, you may feel deeply humbled and, at the same time, may
   be devoutly grateful to God for "His great love" with which He has
   loved you!

   There have been some who seem as if they had gone to the utmost
   extremity of sin--as if they dared and defied the Most High. And yet,
   notwithstanding their atrocious sins, Free Grace has won the day! There
   has seemed, in some cases, to be a stern struggle between sin and
   Grace, as if sin said, "I will provoke God till Grace shall leave Him,"
   but Grace has said, "Provoked as the Lord is, yet still will He stand
   to His purpose of mercy--He will not turn away from the decree of His
   love." Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I ask you to think this
   subject over in your own private meditations. There are some things
   that it would not be right to mention in any ear but the ear of God,
   for it certainly was a horrible pit out of which He took us, and miry
   clay, indeed, out of which He drew us--so we may well praise "His great
   love with which He loved us even when we were dead in sins."

   II. The second subject for our meditation is WHAT GOD DID FOR US "even
   when we were dead in sins."

   Well, first of all, He remained faithful to His choice of us. He had
   chosen His people before the earth was and He did not choose them in
   the dark. He knew right well what their nature would be and also the
   practice which would grow out of their nature--so that nothing that has
   happened has ever surprised the Lord concerning any one of His people.
   He was well aware beforehand of all their corruption and filthiness.
   So, when He saw them acting as I have described, He did

   not turn from His purpose to save them. Blessed be His name for this!
   It is one of the wonders of His Grace that God proves the greatness of
   His love.

   Then, next, as He did not repent of His choice, so neither did He
   repent of His redemption of His people. You will find it recorded in
   Scripture that "it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth,
   and it grieved Him at His heart," but you never read that He repented
   of Redemption! Nowhere in Scripture is there such a passage as this,
   "It grieved the Lord at His heart that He had given His Son to die for
   such unworthy ones." No, my Friends, He had bought us with a price
   beyond all calculation, even the heart's blood of His only-begotten
   Son, so that, although we went from sin to sin and, for a time resisted
   all the calls of the Gospel, He did not turn from His purpose of love
   and mercy, nor make His Atonement for us null and void.

   Then, further, in His great love for us, God would not let us die till
   He had brought us to Christ. We possibly passed through many perils and
   had many escapes. John Bunyan, you will remember, was to have stood as
   sentinel one night, but another soldier took his place, and was shot.
   John Bunyan did not know, at the time, why the exchange was made, but
   God had ordained that he should not die till he had been brought to
   Christ. So fool-hardy was he that on one occasion he plucked the sting
   out of a viper with his bare hand, yet he was unhurt, for God would not
   let him die while he was such a desperado! And what amazing escapes
   from shipwreck, from murder, from fever, from "accidents" in a thousand
   forms some men have had simply because God will not let them perish,
   for He means that they shall yet be brought as sheep into His fold! I
   told you, some time ago, that I once talked with a gentleman who was in
   the famous charge at Balaclava--and I felt moved to say to him, "Surely
   God had some designs of love toward you, or He would not have spared
   you when so many were being taken away." Well, in whatever way our
   lives have been spared, we ascribe it to the great love with which God
   loved us even when we were dead in sins.

   We see that great love also manifested in the way in which God
   restrained us from many sins. There have been times in our history
   when, if it had not been for a mysterious check that was put upon us,
   we would have sinned much worse than we ever did. Something of that
   kind happened in the case of the well-known Colonel Gardiner. He had
   made an appointment for the commission of a very gross sin, but the
   Lord had chosen him unto eternal life--so that night, which he intended
   to spend in sin--became the time of his conversion to God! And you know
   what a devout and earnest Christian he became. The Lord knows the right
   time to say to anyone, "Thus far shall you go, but no farther." He
   makes men's minds and hearts, like the sea, to know His will and to
   move or be still at His Divine command. Cannot some of you, my Brothers
   and Sisters, recollect the way in which God thus restrained you from
   going to an excess of riot?

   And, then, His great love was seen by the way in which He kept on
   calling us by His Grace. Some of us can scarcely tell when we were
   first bid to come to the Savior. A mother's tears and a father's
   prayers are, however, among the fondly-cherished memories of that early
   call. Do not some of you remember that loving Sunday school teacher and
   the earnestness with which she pleaded with you? And that godly
   minister and how he seemed to throw his whole soul into the work of
   entreating you to yield yourself to the Savior? Others of you cannot
   forget how with good books, letters, entreaties and persuasions from
   Christian friends, you have been followed as if the Lord had hunted you
   out of your sins by all the agencies that could possibly be used--yet
   you dodged, twisted and doubled this way and that way, trying to escape
   from your gracious Pursuer! You were like a bird that the fowler cannot
   take for a long while, or like a wandering sheep that the shepherd
   cannot find for many a day!

   But the Good Shepherd never gave up the search--He meant to find you
   and He did. He had determined to save you--and from that determination
   He would not be turned aside, do whatever you might! And, at last,
   there came the blessed day when He subdued you unto Himself! The
   weapons of your rebellion fell from your hands, for Christ had
   conquered you! And how did He do it? By "His great love"--His
   Omnipotent Grace. You were dead in sins when His Spirit came to work
   them upon you, but the Spirit came, in the name of the risen Savior,
   with such almighty force of Irresistible Love that you were carried
   captive--a willing captive--at the chariot wheels of your Divine
   Conqueror! Shall we ever forget that blessed time? We sing "Happy day!
   Happy day!" and well we may, for that conquest is the chief and
   foremost token of "His great love with which He loved us, even when we
   were dead in sins."

   I will not say more about this precious Truth of God, but I will use
   the few minutes still at my disposal in making a practical application
   of my subject.

   If, dear Friends, the Lord loved us with such great love even when we
   were dead in sins, do you think that He will ever leave us to perish?
   Have you indulged the notion that under your present trial, whatever it
   may be, you will be deserted by your God? My dear widowed Sister, do
   you fear that the Lord will forsake you now that your husband is dead?
   My friend over there--you who have had heavy losses in business--do you
   not believe that the Lord will help you through? Did He love you when
   you were dead in sins and is He going to desert you now? Do you think
   you will ever have to ask, with the Psalmist, "Is His mercy clean gone
   forever? Does His promise fail forevermore? Has God forgotten to be
   gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" If you do talk
   like that, then ask yourself why the Lord ever began His work of love
   upon you if He did not mean to finish it, or if He meant, after all, to
   cast you off? Do you think, if that was His intention, He would ever
   have begun with you? He knew all that would happen to you and all that
   you would do, so that nothing comes unexpectedly to Him! Known unto the
   Lord from the beginning, were all your trials and all your sins so
   that, as He still loved you, in the foresight of all that was to happen
   to you, do you think that He will now, or ever, cast you away from Him?
   You know that He will not!

   Again, if He so loved you even when you were dead in sins, will He deny
   you anything that is for His own Glory and for your own and other's
   good You have been praying, but you have feared that the mercy you
   asked would never come. Think for a moment--He that spared not His own
   Son, but delivered Him up for you centuries before you were born-- will
   He not freely give to you all that you ought to ask of Him now that you
   are alive unto Him? George Herbert speaks of the dew that falls upon
   the grass, although the grass cannot call for the dew--but you do call
   upon God to give you His Grace--so shall not His Grace come copiously
   to you as the dew falling when God sends it? Does He water the earth
   when its dumb mouth opens? Does He provide food for the "dumb driven
   cattle?" Then will He not attend to your cries and prayers when you
   call upon Him in the name of His well-beloved Son? If He loved you when
   you were a man of corruption, will He not answer your supplications,
   now that He has made you to be an heir of Heaven and formed you in the
   likeness of His Son? O, Beloved, be of good comfort and let no thought
   of despondency, or of unbelief ever cross your mind!

   Further, if the Lord loved you thus even when you were dead in sins,
   ought you not now love Him very much? Oh, the love of God! The Apostle
   does not say that God pitied us, though that is true. He does not say
   that the Lord had compassion upon us, though that is also true. But
   Paul speaks of "His great love." I can perfectly understand God's
   pitying me. I can perfectly understand God's having compassion on me.
   But I cannot comprehend God's lovingme--nor can you. Think what it
   means--He loves you! Sweet above all other things is love--a mother's
   love, a father's love, a husband's love, a wife's love--but all these
   are only faint images of the love of God! You know how greatly you are
   cheered by the earthly love of one who is dear to you--but Paul says
   that God loves you! He that made the heavens and the earth, before whom
   you are as an ant, has set His heart's affection upon you! He loves you
   so much that He has made great sacrifices for you. He is daily blessing
   you and He will not be in Heaven without you! So dear, so strong is His
   love to you--and it was so even when you were dead in sins! Oh, then,
   will you not love Him much in return for His "great love" to you? Is
   anything too hard for you to bear for His dear sake, or anything too
   difficult for you to do for Him who loved you so? Dear Lord, we give
   ourselvesto You--'tis all that we can do!

   Another reflection for you, my Christian Friend, is this. If God so
   loved you even when you were dead in sins, ought not you to love those
   who treat you badly?. There are many people in this world who seem as
   if they could not do anything but ugly things. They have not a generous
   spot in their nature. They are cross-grained, always quarrelling and he
   who would gladly live peaceably with them sometimes finds it very hard
   work. I know some gentle spirits that are deeply wounded by the hard
   and cruel things that are said or done to them by their relatives or
   companions. Well, dear Friends, if any of us are treated thus, let us
   love these cruel people! Let us cover their unkindness over with our
   love, for, if God loved us even when we were dead in sins--when He
   could not see anything in us to love--we also ought to love others for
   His sake! Even when we see a thousand faults in them, we must, say, "As
   God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us, so do we forgive you." It is a
   grand thing to be able to bury in eternal forgetfulness every unkind
   word or act that has ever caused us pain. If any of you have any
   thought of anger in your heart against anyone--if you have any feeling
   of resentment--if you have any recollection of injuries. If there is
   anythingthat vexes and grieves you, come and bury it all in the grave
   of Jesus--for if He loved you when you were dead in sins--it cannot be
   half so wonderful for you to love your poor fellow sinner whatever ill
   treatment you may have received at his hands!

   My last word is to the unconverted and it is a very sweet and precious
   word. Do you see, unconverted man, that you need never say, "I dare not
   come to God through Jesus Christ because then is nothing good in me"?
   You need never say that, for Paul speaks of "His great love with which
   He loved us, even when we were dead in sins." Now, if all His people
   were loved by Him when they were dead in sins, how can you think that
   God requires anything good in man as the cause or reason for His love?
   Of all the saints in Heaven it may be said that God loved them because
   He would do it, for, by nature, there was nothing more in them for God
   to love than there was in the very devils in Hell! And as to His saints
   on earth, if God loves them--and He does--it is simply because He will
   do it, for there was no goodness whatever in them by nature! God loves
   them in the Infinite Sovereignty of His great loving Nature. Well,
   then, poor Soul, why should not God love you? And since He bids you
   come to Him, however empty you may be of everything that is good, come
   to Him, and welcome! Let the text knock on the head, once and for all,
   all ideas of doinganything to win the love of God! And if you feel
   yourself to be the very worst, lowest and meanest of the human race, I
   rejoice that you feel that, for the Lord loves to look upon those who
   are self-emptied and who have nothing good of their own to plead before
   Him! These are the people who will value His love and upon such people
   as these it is that He bestows His love. "The whole have no need of a
   physician, but they that are sick." The hospital is for the man who is
   diseased, not for the one who is in health. And the Lord Jesus Christ
   has opened a Hospital for incurables--for those who cannot be cured by
   all the medicines of human morality and outward religion! Christ bids
   them come to Him that He may make them whole!

   I wish I had the power to speak of the love of God to the sinner in
   such a way that he would come to the Lord Jesus Christ, but I will try
   to put the brush very plainly and simply--and then I will close my
   discourse. My Hearer, whatever you may have been up to, to this
   moment--if you have been a despiser of God, an infidel, a
   blasphemer--if you have added sin to sin, if you have made yourself
   black as Hell with enormous transgressions--yet all this is no reason
   why God should not have chosen you and loved you! And all this is no
   reason why He should not now forgive you and accept you! No, He puts it
   thus in His Word--"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 then, you blackest of sinners--you who feel yourselves unfit to be
   found in a House of Prayer--you who, like the publican in the Temple,
   scarcely dare to lift up your eyes to Heaven--you condemned ones who
   fear that there is no hope for you--let me assure you that in you there
   is space for God's mercy to be displayed! There is elbowroom for His
   Grace to work! Come to Jesus just as you are! Accept the Atonement made
   by His own blood and be saved here and now, for He waits to be gracious
   and He has said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."

   I recollect the time, many years ago, when I would have given both my
   eyes to hear such Truth as I have preached tonight! It would not have
   mattered to me who had told it to me. If it had been a man of
   stammering tongue and faulty grammar, if he had but said to me,
   "Salvation is of God's Grace, not of your merit. It is of God's
   goodness, not of your holiness--you have nothing to do but to rest on
   what Christ has done, for God loves even you who are dead in sins"--if
   I had known that, I think I would have found peace with God long before
   I did. Does anyone say, "But I need to feeland I need to do, and I need
   to find out this, and that, and the other?" You need nothing of the
   kind, Sinner! Christ has done it all! To take any merit of your own to
   Christ would be worse than carrying coals to Newcastle! Come just as
   you are-- an empty-handed sinner, a bankrupt sinner, a starving sinner,
   you who are at the very gates of Hell, for--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
   moment for thee! Then look, Sinner--look unto Him and be saved-- Unto
   Him who was nailed to the tree."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM30.

   May the Holy Spirit who inspired the writer of this Psalm now lead us
   into its inner meaning! It is entitled, "A Psalm and Song at the
   dedication of the house of David." Or, rather, "A Psalm; a song of
   dedication for the House. By David." It was a song of faith, since
   David did not live to witness the dedication of the Temple for which he
   had planned in his heart and for which he had laid by in store. Though
   he knew that he would not be permitted by God to build it, he took
   delight in writing a Psalm which might be sung at the opening of the
   Temple. Thus it begins--

   Verse 1. I will extol You, O LORD; for You have liftedme up, andhave
   not made my foe to rejoice over me. "I will exalt You, for You have
   exalted me! I will lift up Your praise because You have lifted up my
   spirits. I will bless You, for You have blessed me." Our song of praise
   should be the echo of God's voice of love. "You have not made my foes
   to rejoice over me." You remember that this was one of the three things
   put to David as a chastisement for his great sin in numbering the
   people--"Will You flee three months before your enemies, while they
   pursue you?" He here praises the Lord that such calamity as that did
   not come upon him. "You have not made my foes to rejoice over me."
   Sorrows averted should be the occasion of grateful songs of
   thanksgiving!

   2. O LORD my God, I cried unto You, and You have healed me. The king
   and the people had been sorely smitten with sickness on account of his
   sin, but the Lord, in mercy, bade the destroying angel sheathe his
   sword when he "was by the threshing-place of Araunah the Jebusite"--the
   very place which afterwards became the site on which the Temple was
   built! It was well, therefore, at its opening, to praise the God who
   heals His people. We ought to praise the Lord more than we do for our
   recovery from sickness. Employ the physician if you will, but, when
   healing comes to you, magnify the Lord for it and ascribe the glory of
   it to His holy name!

   3. O LORD, You have brought up my soul from the grave: You have kept me
   alive, that Ishould not go down to the Pit. Here is a double mercy to
   sing of--not dead and not damned! Life spared is something for which to
   praise the Lord, but to have the soul saved from going down to the Pit
   is a cause of still greater thanksgiving! Oh praise the name of the
   Lord, you who love Him and trust in Him, for He has delivered you from
   going down into the Pit!

   4. Sing unto the LORD, Oyou saints of His, and give thanks at the
   remembrance of His holiness. David seems to say to the saints, "Do not
   let me sing alone, but all of you join in the chorus." He does not
   invite reprobates to praise the Lord, but He says, "Sing unto Jehovah.
   O you saintsof His." I think it is very wrong to have the praises of
   God sung in public by ungodly men and women, as they sometimes are. The
   singing should not be left to a godless choir. Oh, no-- "sing unto the
   Lord, all you saintsof His," for you, only, can sing sincerely unto
   Him.

   "Give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness"--at the very memory of
   Him--at the remembrance of the whole of Him, for that is His holiness,
   His wholeness, the entire, perfect Character of God. O saints below,
   sing as they do in Heaven, for their song is "Holy, holy, holy, Lord
   God Almighty."

   5. For His anger endures but a moment Notice that the words, "endures
   but," are inserted by the translators and very properly so. But see how
   the passages reads if you leave them out--"For His anger a moment."
   That is long enough for Him to display it, for it is His strange
   work--and long enough for us to endure it--for it might crush us if it
   lasted longer!

   5. In His favor is life. Life came to Jerusalem, in David's day, as
   soon as God smiled upon it. And life comes to us as soon as we taste of
   His favor, even though we have been ready to die of despair.

   5. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. As the
   dews are appropriate to the night, so is weeping seemly for us when
   Jesus hides His face from us. The children of the bride-chamber may
   well mourn when the heavenly Bridegroom is taken from them, but it is
   only for a night. Morning will end our mourning. Our night-sorrow is
   for the night, but our joys are for a day that will know no evening.

   6. And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. It is a pity to
   say too much. Very few people fall into the opposite fault of saying
   too little. It is always a pity to be counting with certainty upon the
   future and presuming, because of the hopefulness of the present, that
   this state of things will last forever. David was not wise when he
   said, in his prosperity, "I shall never be moved."

   7. LORD, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong: You
   did hide Your face, and I was troubled. When God is at cross purposes
   with His people, they are troubled at once. There is no need for blows,
   no need for angry words--"You did hide Your face, and I was troubled."
   That is enough for a child of God--let him but miss the light of God's
   Countenance and it breaks him down at once.

   8. I cried to You, O LORD; and unto the LORD I made supplication. What
   should the child of God do when he is in trouble, but cry? And to whom
   should he cry but to his Father?

   9. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the Pit? Shall
   the dust praise You? Shall it declare Your truth? So his prayer was an
   argument, and that is the very bone and sinew of prayer--to reason and
   argue with God. He seems to put it thus--"Lord, if I lose my soul, You
   will be a loser, too, for You will lose a singer out of Your choir, one
   who would be glad enough to praise You and whose very life it is to
   magnify You. Oh, do not cut me down! When I am dead, when I am lost,
   there can be no praise to You from me, so spare me, my gracious God!"

   10. Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be You my helper. What
   a handy prayer this is, a prayer to carry about with you wherever you
   go! "Lord, be You my Helper." That is a minister's prayer when he is
   going to preach. That is a Sunday school teacher's prayer when going to
   the class. Is not that a prayer for the sufferer when the pain upon him
   is very severe? "Lord, be You my Helper." Are you working for Him? Are
   you cast down in soul? This prayer will suit you--"Lord, be You my
   Helper."

   11. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing: You have put off
   my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. What a transformation scene
   in answer to prayer! Notice that David does not say, "I hope that you
   have," but he puts it thus, "You have--You have." He is quite sure
   about it and, being sure of this great mercy, he gives God all the
   glory of it. What a wonderful change it is! Not merely from mourning
   into peace, but into delight--delight expressed by dancing! Not merely
   from sackcloth into ordinary dress, but from the sackcloth of sorrow to
   the satin of gladness! God does nothing by halves. He not only chases
   away the night and gives us twilight, but He goes on to gladden us with
   the full glory of noontide--and all this He does with a definite end
   and purpose!

   12. To the end that my glory. Or, "my tongue"--

   12. May sing praise to You, and not be silent. God ought to have praise
   from us. It is the quit-rent which we pay as tenants to the great Lord
   of All--let us not rob Him of His revenue. 12. O LORD my God, I will
   give thanks unto You forever.
     __________________________________________________________________

Angelic Protection in Appointed Ways

   (No. 2969)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 22, 1875.

   "For He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your
   ways." Psalm 91:11.

   OUR subject this morning was the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal
   lamb upon the lintel and the two doorposts of the houses of the
   children of Israel and Egypt. As soon as that was done and the lamb had
   been eaten, they had to start upon their journey to Canaan. They knew
   that they had to go and they were prepared to go. They had their loins
   girt and each man had his staff in his hand and his sandals on his
   feet. After being prisoners so long, they were set free in order that
   they might become pilgrims to the land which the Lord their God had
   given to their fathers.

   We who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, are in a similar
   condition to theirs, for the Lord has redeemed us and we can sing the
   new song, "He has brought us up out of the house of bondage and with a
   high hand and an outstretched arm He has made us free." And now we are
   pilgrims and strangers in this world, for we are on our way to a better
   land than the earthly Canaan ever was--a land that flows with something
   richer than milk and honey and where there is an eternal and abounding
   portion appointed for each one of the redeemed! We are pressing on,
   through this great wilderness, towards the land into which the Lord
   will surely bring us in His own good time. Our text is a promise to
   pilgrims. It most appropriately follows the text of this morning--"The
   blood shall be to you for a token." You have set out upon the road to
   Heaven. You have entered the narrow way by Christ, who is the Gate at
   the head of the way, and now you are wondering how you will get on
   while you are on the road, and whether you will be proved in the right
   way so as to endure unto the end. This promise comes to you with much
   of real heart-cheer--"He shall give his angels charge over you, to keep
   you in all your ways."

   I. My first remark is rather by way of implication from the text than
   in direct exposition of it. It is this--THERE

   ARE SOME WAYS WHICH ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS PROMISE because they are
   not our ways and they are

   not God's ways. They are ways into which we may be tempted by
   Satan--and which we are to jealously avoid.

   You know how, when the devil professed to quote this text to our Lord,
   he left out the latter part of it, "to keep you in all your ways,"
   because it would not have suited his purpose to mention that proviso.
   We, however, will begin with the words which the devil omitted since
   the very fact of his omission of them seems to show how essential they
   are to a right understanding of the meaning of the text! O Christian,
   if you keep to the King's Highway, you will be safe! But there are
   byways and, alas, crooked lanes which you must not go down. If you do
   go there, you will go at your own risk. He who travels on the King's
   Highway is under the King's protection--but he who takes to byroads
   must protect himself--and the probability is that he will meet with
   robbers who will make him rue the day that he ever turned to the right
   hand or to the left!

   So first we must take care that we never go in the ways of presumption.
   This is what Satan would have had Christ do. "Cast Yourself down," he
   said, "for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over You, to
   keep You." This temptation to presumption is by no means an uncommon
   one. I have heard of it from the lips of men who were evidently not the
   children of God, or they would have resisted the temptation and not
   have yielded to it as they did. They have said, "Well, we are God's
   children, so we may do as we like. We are saved, therefore we may live
   as we please"--a dreadful inference from what, to other men, might be a
   precious Truth of God. O dear Friends, beware of tempting the devil to
   tempt you! Beware, too, of tempting the Lord, your God, as some do who
   venture a long way into evil company, or into doubtful paths under the
   mistaken notion that they are so prudent that they will not be
   overtaken as others might

   be--that they are so sage and withal so experienced that they may go
   where young people must not venture, and may do a great many things
   which less-instructed Christians had better not do. Where you think you
   are perfectly safe, there you are often most in danger! Horses
   frequently fall just at the bottom of the hill, when the driver thinks
   that it is unnecessary to rein them up any longer. When you are so
   foolish as to say, "Now I am out of the reach of temptation," you are
   in the very midst of temptation! And when you think you are not being
   tempted at all, you are being tempted the most by the very fancy that
   you are not being tempted!

   O beloved Friends, beware of presuming! Some have been so favored in
   the dispensations of Providence, so prosperous in everything they have
   undertaken, that they have thought they might speculate as far as ever
   they pleased and, at last--well, they've had very shady characters at
   the end of their lives. They have done once what they never ought to
   have done and, because it succeeded, they have been tempted to do it
   again and yet again. But, I pray you, Sirs, never gather from the
   success of a wrong action, that God is willing for you to repeat it!
   Rather say, "God was very gracious to me in not punishing me that time,
   but I will never run such a risk as that again." I do not believe that
   Jonah, after having been once thrown into the sea and been cast forth
   upon the shore by the whale, ever wanted to be flung into the sea
   again. He might not have felt certain about another whale coming along
   to carry him to land! If you have been miraculously delivered once from
   the great deep, do not put yourself into such a position again. If you
   do, you may find that the next great fish is a shark--not a whale--and,
   instead of being brought to land, you may be destroyed. In brief,
   beware of all presumptuous ways, for God has not promised to keep you
   there.

   And, Brothers and Sisters, you scarcely need to be told that you cannot
   expect to be preserved if you go into sinful ways. I trust that you
   watch against the more coarse and vulgar sins to which others are prone
   and that you will not be allowed to fall into them, but there is such a
   thing as falling little by little. Mind, I pray you, the little evils.
   A man never falls into the great, unclean sins of lust all at once--it
   is usually by a long series of little familiarities that he reaches
   that terrible end. He is indecorous first, indecent next and then, at
   last, criminal! Oh, keep back, keep back from the beginnings of evil!
   If you keep back at the very first, you will go no further. But if you
   slide just a little, you will find that this world is such a slippery
   place that you will surely fall, and fall frightfully, too. I trust
   that no Christian would practice dishonesty in his business, yet you
   know that it is very easy for one to do a wrong thing because it is
   "the custom of the trade." "They label this 100 yards, though it is
   only 90--but if I label it so, I will not sell it and in the next shop
   it will probably be marked 110--so I must label mine a little more than
   it is."

   Well, if you do, remember that you are a thief! Though it is the custom
   of the trade, you are a liar if you conform to it and you cannot expect
   God's blessing upon you in doing it! Do you think that in the Day of
   Judgment, God will say to men, "You are not guilty, for that deception
   was the custom of the trade"? By no means! What does the Lord care
   about the customs of your trade? Do right, at all costs. If you do
   wrong, you do it at your peril, for you have no promise from God that
   He will keep you in such a way as that. I need not enlarge upon this
   point because you know as much about such things as I do and,
   therefore, you can make the application to your own particular case.
   But, O Christian, do keep altogether clear of every evil way! May God's
   Grace preserve you from straying into Bypath Meadow!

   The man who professes to be a Christian must not expect God's angels to
   keep him if he goes in the way of worldliness. There are hundreds, and
   I fear thousands, of church members who say that they are the people of
   God, yet they appear to live entirely to this world. The great aim is
   moneymaking and personal aggrandizement--just as much as it is the aim
   of altogether ungodly men. The Kingdom of Christ, the needs of His
   Church, the needs of perishing souls, have a very slender place in
   their hearts--they live wholly for themselves--only they try to conceal
   it under the plea of providing for their families. "Seek you first the
   Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be
   added unto you," is a text from which we need to preach to professing
   Christians throughout London, and throughout the whole world.

   There is also the way of pride which many tread. They must be
   "respectable." They must move in "Society"--with a big "S"--and
   everything is ordered with a view to display. To be great, to be
   famous, to be esteemed, to keep up a high repute--it is for this that
   they live! And some grow very strong, in a Christian sort of way, in
   that line. They profess to have attained to a "higher life" than
   ordinary Christians ever reach. I am not at all anxious to get up
   there, for I do not believe there is any higher life in this world than
   the life of God which is given to everyone who believes on the Lord
   Jesus Christ! The highest life I aspire to is to live as Jesus Christ
   lived and to walk as He walked--and that is the lowest kind of

   life with which any Christian ought to be contented! When we get such
   fine feathers as these, they do not make us fine birds.

   There is also the way of willfulness which I have known some follow.
   Very grievous is it to see some whom we really think to be good men,
   shift their quarters apparently without any reason. They were doing
   very well, yet away they rush, for they cannot let well enough alone.
   Some Brothers seem to be afflicted with a kind of perpetual
   fidgetiness. They are rolling stones and gather no moss. They move from
   one position to another, not because there is any need for them to
   move, but just because they cannot stay still! They go away from their
   nest and away from their home--and very often act in direct opposition
   to the order of God's Providence! Oh, beware of that spirit of
   willfulness! We may get to be so very strong-headed that we may have to
   suffer there! It is often wise, as the old saying puts it, to take
   advice of our pillow. He who does not sleep upon a thing may have to
   weep upon it. Better look before you leap. Always follow the cloud of
   God's Providence--don't run before it, for if you run before it, you
   may find it hard work to get back again. Many have acted thus to their
   cost and, of course, have had no blessing resting upon them in doing
   so.

   One other way in which a Christian ought not to go is the way of
   erroneous doctrine. I know some professors who, as soon as a new heresy
   comes up, want to have taste of it. I confess that I never felt much
   temptation in that direction. I do not suppose if you went into a
   chemist's shop, you would say to him, "I have heard of somebody being
   killed at Norwood by taking such-and-such a poison--I would like a
   taste of it." You would not ask him to take down his big bottles and to
   give you a taste of all the deadly poisons he had in stock. "Oh, no!"
   You say, "we are in our right senses. We would not do such a foolish
   thing as that." Yet I know people who as soon as ever there is any
   teaching spoken of as being erroneous, say, "We must have a look at
   that. We must have a taste of that"--never satisfied except when they
   are tasting poison! There is a period in life when a Christian man
   should obey Paul's injunction to the Thessalonians, "Prove all
   things"--but let him get that done as quickly as he can and then let
   him get to the second part of the injunction-- "Hold fast that which is
   good." Never hold anything fast till you have proved it to be good--but
   do not be everlastingly proving it! Some things do not need
   anyproving--they bear upon their forefront their character. But others
   need to be proved, so, having proved the right things to be right, and
   the true things to be true, hold them fast and turn not aside from
   them!

   About every six weeks there is a new doctrine promulgated. Sometimes
   there is a new sect started. It is simply because there is somebody
   away up there in his study who is sorely troubled with bile or
   dyspepsia. He never went out to try to win a soul. He never did any
   practical work for Christ. But he edits a newspaper, or he writes for a
   magazine--and out of that wonderful brain of his, which is full of
   cobwebs, he excogitates a new doctrine! And as there are certain people
   who are always waiting for such novelties, straightway they run off
   with it and spread it wherever they can. These false-doctrine makers
   and their disciples are the curse of the age in which we live! I
   implore you, my Friend, to abide in the good old paths! What you know
   to be true, that hold fast! Forsake not your father's God and your
   mother's God. As for the Truths of God which God has taught you by His
   own Spirit, grapple them to you as with hooks of steel, for, if you go
   in the way of error, you cannot expect Divine protection!

   II. Now, secondly, THERE ARE WAYS IN WHICH SAFETY IS GUARANTEED. I
   shall only have time to mention them very briefly.

   There is, first, the way of humble faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You
   know that way, Brothers and Sisters, so walk in it. Oh, to be nothing
   and to let Christ be everything--to confess our own guilt and to be
   clothed in His righteousness! Keep to that safe road, for it is the
   King's Highway of which it may be said, "No lion shall be there, nor
   any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there;
   but the redeemed shall walk there."

   There is, next, the way of obedience to Divine precepts. Do what God
   tells you, as God tells you and because God tells you, and no hurt can
   come to you. The Lord told Moses to take by the tail the serpent from
   which he fled. He did so and he was not bitten, but the serpent
   stiffened into a wonder-working rod! Obey the Lord in all things. Mind
   the jots and the tittles, for whoever will break one of the least of
   Christ's commandments "and shall teach men so, shall be called the
   least in the Kingdom of Heaven; but whoever shall do and teach them,
   the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven." Oh, to follow
   in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ, step by step, and to keep
   closely to His footprints! It is in such ways that angelic protection
   will be afforded to us.

   There is, also, the way of childlike trust in Providential guidance.
   Happy is that man who always waits upon God to know what he shall
   do--who asks the Lord to always guide him and who dares not lean upon
   his own understanding. Watch the Lord's Providential leadings. Wait for
   Divine guidance. It is far better to stand still than to run in the
   wrong road. Pause a while and pray for direction--and do not move until
   you hear the voice behind you saying, "This is the way; walk you in
   it." In such a road as that, angels will certainly guard you!

   There is, too, the way of strict principle and stern integrity.
   Travelling along that road will often involve a good many losses and
   crosses, much reproach and, sometimes it will even appear to destroy
   your usefulness. But I charge you--young men especially--never violate
   any principle which you profess to hold! I believe that it has been a
   lasting blessing to some whom I know, that they have scorned to trim
   their sails, even in the smallest degree, to please any living soul. Do
   the same. "Be just and fear not." Keep to a cause that is despised if
   you believe it is a right one and love it all the more because it is
   despised! Ask not what it will pay. Care not for the flatterer's smile.
   Pursue Truth even though she may go along very rough roads--she will
   always repay you in the long run. Cling to her and win her smile--then
   the frowns of the whole world need not cause you a moment's thought!
   The way of principle is the way of safety. God's angels will keep you
   if you keep to that road.

   And, dear Brothers and Sisters, I am quite sure that the way of
   consecrated service for God's Glory is another of these safe ways. It
   is well when a man says, "I choose my path by this rule--how can I best
   serve my God? Having judged whether them is any principle involved and
   having a fair choice between this and that, I say to myself, 'In which
   way can I hope to be the more useful? In what course of life can I best
   glorify God?'" That is your way to Heaven, Christian--the way in which
   your Master can get the most glory out of you! And if you walk in that
   way, you may depend upon it that you will be protected by His Sovereign
   Power!

   And once again, there is the way of separation from the world and close
   walking with God. No man ever suffered any real injury through keeping
   himself aloof from the ways of ungodly men and, on the other hand, no
   man ever failed to be a gainer by close and intimate fellowship with
   God. "Enoch walked with God" and he gained not only escape from the
   pangs of death, but also the testimony that "he pleased God." O
   Christian, could not more of us choose this blessed path and walk in it
   continually? If we did so, we "would have the fulfillment, in its
   deepest meaning, of the promise of our text, "He shall give His angels
   charge over you, to keep you in all your ways."

   III. But I must pass on to note briefly, in the third place, that THESE
   RIGHT WAYS WILL LEAD US INTO DIFFERING CIRCUMSTANCES.

   Sometimes the right way wiil lead us into very stony places, positions
   of great difficulty--yet here is the promise to meet that emergency,
   "They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against
   a stone." A way is none the less right because it is rough. Indeed,
   often it is all the more sure to be the right way because it is so
   displeasing to flesh and blood.

   Sometimes, also, the right way may be very terrible with temptation. If
   your path is so beset, do not, therefore, imagine that it is a wrong
   way, because the Psalmist goes on to say, "You shall tread upon the
   lion and adder." Lions and adders will come to you--temptations will
   threaten to devour you even while you are in the right road--but then,
   you are promised that as long as it is the right road that you are in,
   you shall get the victory over the lion and the adder. The temptation
   may be of so mysterious a character that you cannot understand it. It
   may be like a dragon, but, if so, here is your comfort, "the young lion
   and the dragon shall you trample underfoot."

   And remember, beloved Friends, that even if the road is not stony and
   if no lion attacks you, you will be kept from the perils of the smooth
   and easy roads. You will always need Divine and angelic keeping, for
   God would not have charged His angels to keep His people in all their
   ways if they did not need protection in all their ways! Some of you are
   just now prospering in business, but your way is not any safer than the
   way of the man who is losing his all. Indeed, yours may not be as safe
   as his! To you who are in robust health, I venture to say that your
   path is more perilous than the path of the man who is always ailing.
   And to all of you I say, pray for angelic keeping. Ask the Lord to
   guard you with His celestial hosts, or else, in any of your ways, be
   they rough or smooth, you will fall to your serious hurt.

   IV. Now we come to the fourth point which is this--WHILE WALKING IN ALL
   RIGHT WAYS, BELIEVERS

   ARE SECURE. "He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in
   all your ways."

   O Christian, if you have not violated your conscience. If you have not
   forsaken the path of communion with your God, think what high
   privileges are yours! First, God Himself concerns Himself about you. He
   charges His angels to take care of you. David, when his soldiers went
   to battle against his rebellious son, Absalom, specially charged their
   leaders to deal gently with the young man, Absalom, for his sake. But
   he charged them in vain. In a far higher sense God charges His angels
   to guard His saints--but He does not charge them in vain! This is not a
   mere general command. It is a sort of imperative personal charge that
   God lays upon His angels--"Take care of My children. They are on My
   road--the King's high road of rectitude. Watch over them and do not
   allow them to be hurt." So you have God personally charging His angels
   to take care of you!

   Next, you have mysterious agencies to protect you. "He shall give His
   angels charge over you." We speak of dragons, but we do not know much
   about them. And we do not know much about angels, but we feel sure that
   angels can overcome dragons, for they are more than a match for devils!
   And if mysterious temptations come to you, there shall also be
   mysterious defenders to thrust them back. You have more friends, poor
   Christian, than you know of. When you are fighting the battles of God,
   you may hear a rush of angels' wings at your side if you only have your
   ears Divinely opened. If all men forsake you, God can send His angels,
   though you see them not, to strengthen you in some secret manner that I
   cannot fully explain. "Behold, the mountain was full of horses and
   chariots of fire round about Elisha," the Prophet who dared to be true
   to his God and to serve Him faithfully. God would sooner empty Heaven
   of all the angelic host, cherubim and seraphim included, than allow any
   oneof His people who has walked in His ways, to suffer defeat. He
   charges all His angels to take care of His saints and to keep them in
   all right ways.

   And as angels are on our side, so are all things, visible and
   invisible. Why Believers, the very stones of the field are in league
   with you and the beasts of the field are at peace with you! Wherever
   you go, you have friends ready to help you. It is true that you have
   enemies among the wicked, but their weapons shall not prevail against
   you. And wherever there is a messenger of God--be it wind, or storm, or
   lightning, or hail--it is your friend! The very stars in their courses
   fight for you! The forces, terrific and tremendous, which at times
   shake the world, are only your Father's flaming swords unsheathed to
   protect you! If we are walking in the ways of God, we can truthfully
   sing--

   "The God that rules on high, And thunders when He pleases, That rides
   upon the stormy sky, And manages the seas-- This awful God is ours, Our
   Father and our love! He shall send down His heavenly powers To carry us
   above."

   Sing then, you saints of the Lord, for everything is on your side! "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."

   What a very sweet thought is suggested by the word, "you," in our text!
   It teaches us that each one of the saints is personally protected. "He
   shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways."
   God takes a personal interest in every traveler along the right road
   and charges His angels to keep them. Perhaps you say, "I do not read
   the text, Sir, as referring to me." Well, I think you should. When you
   read the precept, "You shall not steal," do you suppose that it refers
   to you? "Oh, yes!" you say, "I would not like to suggest that it did
   not mean me. I would not plead exemption from the precept." Well, then,
   my dear Brother, do not seek to be exempted from the promise! Just as
   you feel sure that the precept applies to you, so, as a child of God,
   feel sure that the promise applies to you--"He shall give His angels
   charge over you, to keep you in all your ways."

   This protection is perpetual as well as personal. God's angels are "to
   keep you in all your ways"--in your ups and your downs, in your
   advancement and your retiring--to keep you when you are asleep and when
   you are awake--to keep you when you are alone and when you are in
   company--to keep you if you have to preach and to keep you if you have
   to hear--to keep you if you have to serve and to keep you if you have
   to suffer. You always need keeping and you shall always have it, for
   the angels are charged "to keep you in all your ways"!

   And how beautiful it is to remember that all this keeping brings honor
   with it "He shall give His angels charge over you." Notice that--"He
   shall give His angels"--the very angels that wait upon God and see His
   face! The very angels that are the bodyguard of the Eternal! "He shall
   give His angels charge over you," "Mark you," says the Lord to Gabriel,
   or Michael, or whatever the angel's name may be, "I charge you to take
   special care of that poor girl, for she is a daughter of Mine. Take
   care of that poor man whom so many despise, for he is a prince of the
   blood imperial. He belongs to Me--he is an heir of God and joint-heir
   with Jesus Christ." Oh, what amazing dignity this promise puts upon the
   very least and lowliest of the followers of the Lamb!

   Note just one more point, that all these privileges come to us by Jesus
   Christ, for Christ is that mystic Ladder which Jacob saw, up-and-down
   whose wondrous rungs the angels came and went! The commerce between the
   saints and Heaven is kept up by way of the Person of the Lord Jesus
   Christ. Oh, what joy is this! If Christ is yours, angels are yours, and
   all the principalities and powers in the heavenly places will delight
   to take care of you!

   Now, if anyone here is going home to a lonely room, I should like you
   to feel that you are not going there alone. Father and mother are away
   in the country, perhaps, and some of you young people feel quite alone
   in London. But, if you are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are
   not alone, for the Lord of all the holy angels is with you and an
   innumerable company of blessed spirits is round about you. Take comfort
   from this glorious Truth of God! God's mysterious angelic agency, which
   you see not and hear not, but which is most true and real, will form a
   cordon round you to protect you in the midst of the temptations of this
   great city! And if you are but faithful to Him and keep in His ways,
   nothing shall hurt you between here and Heaven! There may be many darts
   hurled at you, but the great shield of faith shall turn them all aside
   or quench them forever. You will have to encounter many temptations and
   trials, but you will be preserved amid them all. I heard a Primitive
   Methodist minister speaking last Friday night, make use of a very
   strong expression while describing what a man could do by faith. He
   said, "He can not only overcome a legion of devils, but he could kick
   his way through a lane of devils if he did but rest in God." I have had
   that idea in my mind ever since I heard him use that expression--and I
   am sure that it is true, for some of us have already had to do it.
   Those devils are great cowards. So when God once takes entire
   possession of a man, he need not fear even though all Hell were let
   loose upon him! One butcher is not afraid of a thousand sheep! And one
   man whom God makes strong, can put to route all the hosts of Hell--and
   he need not fear all the trials of life whatever they may be! "If God
   is for us, who can be against us?"

   In closing, there are two or three thoughts which I think are worth
   remembering. The first is this. Dear Brothers and Sisters, we see, from
   this text, that the lowest employment is consistent with the highest
   enjoyment. The angels are our nurses--"they shall bear you up in their
   hands," just as nurses hold up little children who are not able to
   stand by themselves. Those angels continually behold God's face and
   live in the perfect bliss of Heaven, yet they condescend to do such
   humble deeds as these. Dear Brother, be like the angels in this
   respect--teach an infant class in the Sunday school, yet keep your face
   bright with the Light of God's Countenance. Give away tracts, go and
   visit among the poor, look after fallen women, or do any other work for
   the Lord that needs to be done. Never mind what it is, but remember
   that the employment is all the more honorable because it appears to be
   so commonplace. Never was Christ grander, I think, than when He washed
   His disciples' feet. Certainly, never are we more like He than when we,
   also, are willing to wash their feet, or render any lowly service that
   they may need.

   The next thought is as angels watch over us, how cheerfully ought we to
   watch over one another! How gladly you who are older in the Divine
   life, ought to watch over the younger ones of the Lord's family! If God
   enables you to have any of the joy of angels over repenting sinners,
   mind that you take some of the care which angels exercise over those
   who walk in God's ways. What can I, the pastor of this huge church, and
   my brother and all the elders, do by way of watching over 5,000 of you?
   You must pastor yourselves to a large extent! Watch over one another.
   "Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
   Visit each other in their sickness. Seek to bring back to Christ and
   the church all the backsliders whom you can find. Labor for the good of
   one another, for, in only this way can our task be done-- and you shall
   be like the angels if you bear up the feeble ones in your hands lest
   they trip up and fall to their grievous hurt.

   Then next, how safe and happy we ought to feel when we know that God
   has charged the angels to take care of us! Do not be nervous, my dear
   Sister, the next time there is a little storm, or even a great storm.
   Do not be afraid, my dear Friend, when sickness comes into your house.
   Do not be alarmed, as perhaps you are, when you hear that there is
   fever

   next door to you. Remember the promise that precedes our text--"Because
   you have made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, your
   habitation; there shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague
   come near your dwelling." But suppose it should seem right to the Lord
   to let the plague come to you? And suppose you shall die of it? Well,
   you will the sooner be in Heaven! Therefore comfort one another with
   the reflection that all is well with you as long as you keep in the way
   of duty.

   And, lastly, how holy we ought to be with such holy beings watching
   over us If the angels are always hovering round you, mind what you are
   doing! Would you, my dear Friend, have spoken as you did when you were
   coming in at that door, yonder, if you had seen an angel standing by
   your side, listening to what you were saying? Oh, no, you are
   wonderfully decorous when there is somebody near whom you respect! How
   often your glib tongue is checked when there is some Christian man or
   woman whom you highly esteem within hearing! How many a thing is done
   that would not be done under the eyes of one whom you love! It is not
   only true that "a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which
   has wings shall tell the matter," but it is also true that there are
   angels always watching over us. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that a
   woman in the public assembly ought to have her head covered because of
   the angels--a certain decorum was due because of the angels who were
   there. And I am sure that I may use the same argument concerning all
   our actions. Whether we are alone or in company, let us not sin because
   angels are always watching us. And, remember, the angels' Lord is also
   watching us!

   May He graciously keep us in His holy way. And if we are so kept, we
   shall be preserved from all evil while we are here and, at last, we
   shall see His face with joy and live with Him forever! I would to God
   that all who are now present were in that holy way. I remind you once
   more that the entrance to it is by a door that has the blood-mark upon
   the lintel and the two doorposts--"The blood shall be to you for a
   token." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM119:25-32.

   Verse 25. My soul cleaves unto the dust "It sticks to it as though it
   were glued to it. My soul cannot be lifted up, at least by myself, out
   of its sadness and its earthiness." The Psalmist was not one who could
   boast of perfection. He had to lament that the earth which was in him
   by nature made even his soul cleave to Mother Earth. He did not like
   it. He was not content that it should be so and, therefore, he breathed
   this prayer--

   25. Quicken You me according to Your word. "Lord, there is nothing but
   life that can bring me up out of the dust, for death lurks in the dust
   and the dust tends to death. Put life into me, Lord--Your life, the
   Divine life. You have promised to do this, therefore, do it, Lord,
   'according to Your word.'" That is a prayer which is always sure to
   succeed, for it is based upon the promise of God. Has the Lord promised
   anything? Then He will surely perform it! And you cannot use a better
   argument in prayer than to say to Him, "Do as You have said." Or, as
   the Psalmist puts it, "Quicken You me according to Your word."

   26. I have declared my ways, and You heard me. "I have made a full
   confession to You, my God. I have acknowledged my fault wherein I was
   wrong and I have thanked You for your Grace given to me in anything
   wherein I was right."

   26. Teach me Your statutes. "O Lord, let me not have such a sorry tale
   to tell again. If my copy of Your handwriting has been badly written,
   set it afresh for me, I pray You. 'Teach me Your statutes.'"

   27. Make me to understand the way of Your precepts. "Let me know, O
   Lord, what the way of Your precepts are. Get me into that way and then,
   oh help me to keep in it all my life!"

   27. So shall I talk of Your wondrous works. A man never talks rightly
   of God's works till he knows God's ways. And it is idle to talk of them
   if there is no doingat the back of the talking. So the Psalmist prays,
   "Make me to understand the way of Your precepts: so shall I talk of
   Your wondrous works." To preach and not practice is very bad preaching!
   But first to understand the way of the Lord, then to run in it--and
   then to speak of it--this is well!

   28. My soul melts for heaviness. The Hebrew word is, "drops." The
   Psalmist's soul was like water dripping from the eaves of a house in
   time of rain. There are two sorts of sorrow--the sorrow that rushes
   like a mighty torrent and the sorrow which is, perhaps, the worse of
   the two, which goes drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip--like the
   constant dripping which wears away stones--and which makes even the
   boldest heart to feel the attrition. "My soul melts, dissolves, drops,
   drips for heaviness."

   28. Strengthen You me. The Psalmist does not ask to have the trouble
   removed. He prays, "Help me to bear it." Whenever there is a thing that
   is hard, the right way to cut through it is to get something that is
   still harder. If God will give us an adequate supply of His Grace, hard
   times will not wear us away! So the Psalmist prays, "Strengthen You
   me,"

   28. According unto Your word. See how he clings to that expression,
   "according unto Your word"? He knows the power of that argument and,
   therefore, he uses it again and again!

   29. Remove from me the way of lying. "Do not let me fall into any
   untrue habits. Do not let me profess to have had an experience which I
   have never felt, or talk about holy things of which I know nothing
   experimentally. Keep me from everything that has any trace of falsehood
   in it."

   29. And grant me Your Law graciously. "For Your Law is truth, and when
   Your Grace brings Your Law home to my heart, all that is false will be
   banished from me."

   30. I have chosen the way of truth. Your judgments have Ilaid before
   me. "I have laid them before me as a man puts his model in front of him
   that he may work to it." It is well for us to have God's way and God's
   judgments always before our eyes, that we may be duly impressed and
   rightly guided by them.

   31. I have stuck unto Your testimonies. Just now the Psalmist said that
   his soul stuck to the earth, yet at the same time he was sticking to
   God's testimonies, for every good man is two men. There is a new-birth
   man who sticks to God's testimonies, and there is that old carnal
   nature in us which cleaves to the dust.

   31, 32. O Lord, put me not to shame. I willrun the way of Your
   commandments, when You shall enlarge my heart. That is, "When You shall
   give me liberty of heart, then I will run in the way of Your
   commandments. When the impediments are removed--when the sin which does
   so easily entangle me, is taken away, then will I run with delight in
   the way of Your commandments!
     __________________________________________________________________

God's Jewels

   (No. 2970)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And they shall be Mine, says the LORD of Hosts, in that day when I
   make up My jewels." Maalachi 3:17.

   THESE words were spoken in a very graceless age, when religion was
   peculiarly distasteful to men, when they scoffed at God's altar and
   said of His service, "What a weariness it is!" and scornfully asked,
   "What profit is it that we have kept His ordinance?" Yet even those
   dark nights were cheered by bright stars. Though the great
   congregations of God's House were but a mockery, yet there were smaller
   assemblies which God gazed upon with delight. Though the house of
   national worship was often deserted, there were secret conventicles of
   those who "feared the Lord" and who "spoke often, one to another," and
   our God, who regards quality more than quantity, had respect to these
   elect twos and threes! He "listened and heard" and He so approved of
   that which He heard that He took note of it and declared that He would
   publish it. "A book of remembrance was written before Him for them that
   feared the Lord and that thought upon His name." Yes, and He valued so
   much these hidden ones, "faithful among the faithless found," that He
   called them His "jewels."And He declared that in the great day when He
   should gather together His "segullah," His regalia--the peculiar
   treasure of kings--He would look upon these hidden ones as being more
   priceless than emeralds, rubies, or pearls! "They shall be Mine," He
   said, "in the day when I gather up My jewels into My casket to be there
   forever."

   We will try to work out this metaphor of jewels. Our first point shall
   be that God's people are compared to jewels. Our second, the making up
   of the jewels. And our third, theprivilege ofbeing foundamong them.

   I. THE LORD COMPARES HIS PEOPLE TO JEWELS.

   From the remotest antiquity, men have thought much of precious stones.
   Almost fabulous prices have been paid for them and there have been
   instances in which most bloody wars have been waged for the possession
   of a certain jewel renowned for its brilliance and size. Men hunt after
   gold, but the diamond they pursue with even greater eagerness. Five
   hundred men will work for a whole year in the diamond mines of Brazil
   when the entire produce of the year might be held in the hollow of your
   hand! And princes will give whole principalities, or barter the estates
   of half a nation in order to possess one peculiar brilliant of rare
   excellence. We wonder not, therefore, that the Lord, who elsewhere
   likens the precious sons of Zion to fine gold, should here compare them
   to jewels. However little they may be esteemed by men, the great
   Jewel-Valuer, the Lord Jesus Christ, esteems them as precious beyond
   all price! His life was as dear to Him as life is to us, and yet all
   that He had, even His life, did He give for His elect ones. He counted
   down the price of His jewels in drops of bloody sweat in the gloomy
   Garden of Gethsemane. His very heart was set astir, streaming with
   priceless blood in order that He might redeem His people. We may
   compare our Lord to that merchant seeking goodly pearls, who, when He
   had found the one pearl of His Church, for the joy thereof went and
   sold all that He had that He might make it His own!

   Our God sets great value upon those whom He calls His jewels, as we may
   gather not only from their costly redemption, but from the fact that
   all Providence is but a wheel upon which to polish and perfect them.
   Those stupendous wheels, which Ezekiel saw, were but a part of the
   machinery of the great Lapidary by which He cuts the facets of His true
   brilliants and makes His diamonds ready for His crown, for is it not
   written that "all things work together for good to them that love God,
   to them who are the called according to His purpose"? The Lord values
   His people very highly--not only the rich among them, not alone the
   most gracious among them--but the very least and most unworthy among
   Believers are Jehovah's jewels! To fear the Lord and think upon His
   name are very simple indications of piety, yet, if we only come up to
   the standard which these evidences indicate, we are dear to God. What
   though we may possess no

   singular gifts or eminent graces. What though our voice may never be
   heard among the crowds of populous cities, yet still, if we "think upon
   His name," and our hearts are set towards the Lord Jesus, we are
   precious to Him!

   Jewels well portray the Christian because they are extremely hard and
   durable. Most jewels will scratch glass. Some of them will cut it while
   they, themselves, will not be cut by the sharpest file. And many of
   them will be uninjured by the most potent acids. The Christian is such
   an one. He has within him a principle which is incorruptible, undefiled
   and destined to endure forever! In Pompeii and Herculaneum, diggers
   have discovered gems in an excellent state of preservation, while
   statuary and implements of iron have been destroyed. Jewels will last
   out the world's lifetime and glitter on as long as the sun shines! Rust
   does not corrupt them, nor does the moth devour them though the thief
   may break through and steal them. The Christian is born of an
   incorruptible Seed which lives and abides forever. The world has often
   tried to crush or destroy God's diamonds, but all the attempts of
   malicious fury have failed. All that enmity has ever accomplished has
   only been, in the hands of God, the means of displaying the
   preciousness and brilliance of His jewels! The sham Christian, who is
   but a paste gem, soon yields to trial--he evaporates into a little
   noxious gas of self-conceit--and it is all over with him. A little heat
   of persecution and the man-made Christian--where is he? But the genuine
   Christian, the true gem, the choice jewel of God will survive the fires
   of time and, when the fast dissolving Day shall arrive, he shall come
   forth from the furnace without a flaw!

   The jewel is prized for its luster. It is the brilliance of the gem
   which, in a great measure, is the evidence and test of its value. It is
   said that the colors of jewels are the brightest known and are the
   nearest approaches to the rays of the solar spectrum that have yet been
   discovered. Certainly there is no light like that which is reflected
   from the sincere Christian! The renewed heart catches the beams of the
   Sun of Righteousness and reflects them--not without some refraction,
   for we are mortal--but still, with much of glory, for we are immortal
   and God dwells in us! Look how the diamond flashes and sparkles! It is
   of the first water when, with certain other conditions, it is also
   without cloudiness and without spots. And oh, when a Christian is truly
   what a saint should be--what a luster, what a brilliance there is about
   him! He is like the Lord Jesus Christ, humble yet bold, teachable yet
   firm, gentle yet courageous! Like his Master, he goes about doing the
   will of Him that sent him. And though the wicked world may not love
   him, it cannot but perceive his brightness!

   Look at Richard Baxter, in Kidderminster--what a flashing diamond he
   was! He had some spots, no doubt, but his brightness was most
   surprising! Even swearers on the ale-bench could not but know that He
   was a Heaven-born spirit! We might quote honored names out of all
   Christian churches which would be at once discerned by you as God's
   flashing brilliants because there is about them so little of the
   cloudiness of Nature--and so much of the brightness of Grace that he
   must be blind, indeed, who does not admire them! Precious stones are
   the flowers of the mineral world, the blossoms of the mines, the roses
   and lilies of earth's caverns. Scarcely has the eye ever seen a more
   beautiful object than the breastplate of the high priest, studded with
   the 12 gems, each with its own separate ray melting into a harmony of
   splendor and, albeit that the trickeries of pomp have but little
   influence over men of sober minds, I scarcely believe that there exists
   a single person who is altogether impervious to the influence of a
   crown set with ruby, pearl, emerald and a bright array of other costly
   gems!

   There is a beauty, a Divine and superhuman beauty, about a Christian.
   He may be humbly clad and miserably housed. He may be poor and his name
   may never be mentioned among the great. But jewelers value a rare
   stone, none the less, because of its ill-setting. Beloved, nothing so
   delights God, next to the Person of His own dear Son, as the sight of
   one of those whom He has made like unto the Lord Jesus! Know you not
   that Christ's delights are with the sons of men and that the holiness,
   the patience, the devotion, the zeal, the love and the faith of His
   people are precious to Him? The whole creation affords no fairer sight
   to the Most High than an assembly of His sanctified people in whom He
   sees the beauty of His own Character reflected. May you and I have much
   of "the beauty of holiness" given to us by the Holy Spirit! May the
   Lord look upon us with Divine satisfaction because He sees in us the
   rays of the solar spectrum of His own ineffable perfection!

   Christians are comparable to jewels because of their rarity. There are
   not many precious stones in the world. Of the smaller sorts, there may
   be many, but of the rarer gems, there are so few that a little child
   might write them. Only six very large diamonds (called paragons) are
   known in the world and God's people are but few compared with the
   unregenerate multitude who are as the pebbles in the brook. The
   Christian belongs, like the ruby, the diamond and the emerald, to the
   choicest of created things. These stones are the aristocracy of
   minerals and Christians are the aristocracy of men. They are

   God's nobles. The roll of Battle Abbey--have you ever looked it
   through? Well, it is of little consequence. There is a better roll by
   far--and if your name is written there, it will be of infinitely more
   consequence to you! In Doomsday Book--is there a name there at all like
   yours? Never mind whether there is or not. There is a Doom's Day Book
   which will be of more value in the day of doom than Doomsday Book has
   ever been among the sons of men. Not many wise men after the flesh, not
   many great and noble have their names inscribed there--but all who are
   written in Heaven are, in another sense, wise, and great, and
   noble--for God has made them so through His own Grace. Not many are the
   gems which enrich the nations and not many are the saints who shine
   among men. The way to Heaven is narrow, and the Savior sorrowfully
   says, "Few there are that find it." There is a city where pearl,
   jasper, carbuncle and emerald are as common things. O fair Jerusalem,
   when shall these eyes behold your turrets and your pinnacles?

   It is worthy of observation, too, that a jewel is the production of
   God. Diamonds have been burned and other jewels have been resolved into
   their elements. But, after the most laborious attempts, no chemist has
   yet been able to make a diamond. Men can cut the Gordian Knot, but they
   cannot tie it again. Lives have been wasted in attempts to produce
   precious stones, but the discovery is still unmade--they are the secret
   productions of God's own skill--and chemists fail to tell how they were
   produced, even though they know their elements. So the world thinks it
   knows what a Christian is, but it cannot make one. All the wit in the
   world put together could not find out the secret of the Heaven-born
   life! And all the so-called "sacraments," vestments, priests, prayers,
   and paraphernalia of Popery cannot create a Christian! "Yes," says one,
   "we take a little water and we make an infant a member of Christ, a
   child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." Sir, you make
   yourself a liar--and nothing better when you so speak--for it is
   neither in your power, nor in the power of any other man to regenerate
   a soul by any performance, either with or without water! You may never
   wash a flint long enough before you can wash it into a diamond. To make
   jewels for Christ's crown is God's work and God's work alone! We might
   preach until our tongues grew dumb and men's ears grew deaf, but not a
   living soul would ever receive Divine Grace by our talk alone--the
   Spirit must go with the Word of God, or it is so much wasted breath!
   The Lord alone can create a child of Grace! And a Christian is as much
   a miracle as was Lazarus where he rose from the tomb. It is as great a
   work of Deity to create a Believer as it is to create a world!

   It is worthy of remark, too, that jewels are of many kinds. Perhaps
   there is not a single ray in the spectrum which is not represented
   among them--from the purest white of the diamond, the red of the ruby,
   the bright green of the emerald, to the blue of the sapphire. So is it
   with God's people. They are not all alike and they never will be! All
   attempts at uniformity must fail and it is very proper that they
   should. We need not wish to be one in the sense of uniformity, but only
   in the sense of unity--not all one jewel, but many set in one crown. It
   little matters whether we shine with the sapphire's blue, or the
   emerald's green, or the ruby's red, or the diamond's white, so long as
   we are the Lord's in the day when He makes up His jewels!

   Jewels are of all sizes, yet they are all jewels. One is a Koh-I-Noor,
   a very mountain of light, but it is not any more a diamond because it
   is large, though it is more precious. The smallest dust of the diamond
   that comes from the lapidary's wheel is made of the same material as
   the richest jewel that sparkles in the monarch's crown and, even so,
   those Christians who have but little faith and little Grace, are still
   as much the Divine workmanship as the brightest and most precious in
   the believing family! And what is more, they shall be in the casket
   when the others are there, for it is said of them all, "They shall be
   Mine in that day when I make up My jewels."

   Once more, jewels are found all over the world. In the most frozen
   regions, on the tops of mountains and in the depths of mines, jewels
   have been discovered, but they are said to be most numerous in tropical
   regions. So, Christians are to be found everywhere. Blessed be the name
   of God, the Eskimos have sung the praises of Immanuel in the regions of
   eternal ice! And the children of the sun have learned to adore the Sun
   of Righteousness in the midst of the torrid zone! But in England, which
   is the tropical region of Divine Grace, the land where the Gospel is
   preached in our streets, we find the most of Believers, as also in a
   few other happy lands which, like our own fair island, lie upon the
   Equinoctial line of Gospel privilege, where the Grace of God has given
   the Gospel in its greatest purity!

   Wherever the jewels have been found, though they differ in some
   respects, yet they are all alike in others. Kings delight in them and
   are glad to use them as regal ornaments. So, wherever the Lord finds
   His precious ones, East or West, or North or South, He sees something
   in them in which they all agree, and He delights in them. Our Lord
   Jesus counts them to be His true ornaments with which He arrays Himself
   as a bridegroom adorns himself with ornaments, and as a bride decks
   herself with jewels. God delights in Christians, come from whatever
   part they may. Although they may be of many tongues and though the
   colors of their skins may vary, yet are they still very, very precious
   in His sight--and they shall be His in that day when He makes up His
   jewels!

   II. In the second place, let us consider THE MAKING UP OF THE JEWELS.

   We have not come to the day of the making up of the jewels, for some of
   them are at this hour hidden and undiscovered. There is no doubt that
   many precious stones will yet be found. Diamond hunters are, at this
   moment, looking for them in the caverns of the earth and washing the
   soil of the mines to find them. Many of the chosen of God are not yet
   manifested. The missionaries in heathen lands are toiling to discover
   them amid the mire of idolatry. My daily business and calling is that
   of a jewel hunter--and this pulpit is the place where I try to separate
   the precious from the vile. Sunday school teachers and other workers
   are also diamond hunters. They deal with gems far more precious than
   millions of gold and silver. Oh, that all Christians were seekers of
   souls, for there is much need of all hands and it is a work which well
   rewards the laborer. All the chosen are not yet saved. Blood-bought
   multitudes remain to be gathered in! Oh, for Grace to seek them
   diligently! Because of the absence of so many of the Lord's gems, the
   "making up" of the jewels has not yet taken place--but the time for
   that is hastening on!

   Many jewels are found, but they are not yet polished. They are precious
   gems, but it is only lately that they have been lifted up from the
   mine. When the diamond is first discovered, it glitters but little. You
   can see that it is a precious gem, but perhaps one half of it will have
   to be cut away before it sparkles with fullest splendor. The lapidary
   must torment it upon his wheel and many hundreds of pounds must be
   spent before perfection is reached. In some cases, thousands of pounds
   have been expended before the diamond has been brought to its full
   excellence. So it will be with many of the Lord's people--they are
   justified, but they are not completely sanctified. Corruption has to be
   subdued, ignorance removed, unbelief cut away, worldliness taken off
   before they can be set in the crown of the great King! For this also
   the King waits and His jewels are not "made up."

   Many of the Lord's gems are but partly polished. Indeed, there are none
   on earth yet perfect. This is not the land of perfection! Some persons
   dream of it--their pretensions are but a dream. We have heard some say
   that they were perfect, but they were not perfect in the virtue of
   humility, or they would not have boasted after so vain-glorious a
   fashion! The saints are still in the Lapidary's hands. The Master is
   taking off first one angle and then another, and rending away much
   which we have foolishly cherished--but through this cutting process we
   shall sparkle gloriously before long, so that those who knew us on
   earth will be amazed to see the difference in Heaven! Perhaps it will
   be part of the joy of Heaven to perceive our conquest over sin, to see
   how the Divine hand has shed a glory and beauty upon the poor dull
   stones of earth!

   The making up is delayed, too, because certain of the gems which have
   been partly polished are missing. "Oh," you say, "does the Lord ever
   lose any of His gems? "No, not forever, but for a time they may be
   missing. A certain blue diamond that was very greatly renowned was, by
   some means, lost at the time of the French Revolution and has never
   been heard of since. It is somewhere, however, and God knows where it
   is--and it is still a diamond. And so there are some of His people who
   go astray and we cannot tell where they are. But still, "the Lord knows
   them that are His" and, "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save
   that which was lost." Backslider, you were once a jewel in the
   church--you were put down in the book as a church member, but from the
   casket of the church, Satan stole you. Ah, but you did not belong to
   him and he cannot keep you! You have agreed to be his, but your
   agreement does not stand for anything. You did not belong to yourself
   and so you could not give yourself away. Christ has the first and only
   valid claim to you and will yet obtain His rights by the Omnipotence of
   His Grace. Because of these missing jewels, the long-suffering of God
   waits. But the day is coming--its axles are hot with speed--when
   sardius, topaz and carbuncle shall glisten in the same crown with
   emerald, sapphire and diamond, nor shall ligure, agate, amethyst,
   beryl, onyx, or jasper be lacking--they shall all be "set in gold in
   their enclosing."

   III. Upon THE HONORABLE PRIVILEGE of being numbered with the crown
   jewels of Jehovah, we will utter hardly more than a few sentences, and
   we will preface them with words of self-examination.

   "They shall be Mine." This does not include all men, but only "those
   that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name." Standing in the
   midst of this immense assembly and remembering that a very large
   proportion of my Hearers are professors of faith in Christ, I am happy
   to be in such a great jewel house! But when I reflect that it is a very
   easy

   thing, indeed, to imitate a jewel so that the counterfeit cannot be
   detected except by the most skillful jeweler, I feel solemnly impressed
   with the desire that none of you may be deceived! It is not very long
   ago that a lady possessed a sapphire supposed to be worth £10,000.
   Without informing her relatives, she sold it and procured an imitation
   of it so cleverly fashioned that when she died, it was valued by a
   jeweler in order that the probate duty might be paid upon it-- and the
   trustees of the estate actually paid probate duty upon it to our
   government on £10,000 for what was not really worth more than a few
   pence--for they imagined that it was the real sapphire.

   Now if in examining material jewels, men well skilled have been thus
   deceived, you will not wonder if, in connection with the jewels of mind
   and spirit, it is so difficult to detect an impostor! You may deceive
   the minister, the deacons and the church--no, you may easily deceive
   yourselvesand even pay the probate duty! You may be making sacrifices
   and discharging duties on account of true religion, as you think, but
   really for something which is not worth the name! Beloved in the Lord,
   be zealous for vital godliness! Hate hypocrisy, shun deception and
   watch against formality! I will make a pause and give you time, in a
   few minutes of silence, to pray that ancient and necessary prayer,
   "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." All paste gems and all the glass imitations will surely
   be detected in the day which will burn as an oven! May we be found
   among the Lord's genuine jewels in that dread testing day!

   If we are the Lord's, then what privileges are ours! Then are we safe.
   If we really pass the scales at the last, there will be no more
   questioning, suspicions, beatings, weighing, or cutting. If the Great
   Valuer accepts us as being genuine, then we shall be secure forever!

   Nor is this all, Beloved. We shall also be honored. Remember where the
   jewels are to shine forever. Jesus Himself shall wear them as His glory
   and joy! Believers will be unrivalled illustrations of the Glory of
   Divine Grace throughout all ages. Can you see our glorious
   Well-Beloved? There He sits--adored of angels and admired of men! But
   what are the ornaments He wears? Worlds were too small to be signets
   upon His fingers and the zodiac too poor a thing to bind the sandals of
   His feet. But, oh, how bright He is, how glorious! And what are the
   jewels which display His beauty? They are souls redeemed by His death
   from going down into the Pit! Blood-washed sinners! Men and women who,
   but for Him, would have been tormented forever in the flames, but who
   now rejoice to sing, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our
   sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and
   His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever." So
   then--once acknowledged to be Christ's, you are not only safe, but you
   will be in the closest communion with Christ throughout eternity! It is
   a bliss, the thought of which may well flash with vehement flame
   through your hearts even now, that you are, one day, to display the
   Glory of Immanuel that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly
   places shall be made known, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of
   God! You are to be His "gold rings set with the beryl." With you as His
   reward, His Person will be "as bright as ivory overlaid with
   sapphires." You are so dear to Him that He bought you with His own
   blood because you could not be "gotten for gold, neither could silver
   be weighed for the price thereof." Your redemption by His death proves
   that your soul could not be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the
   precious onyx or the sapphire! And when the ever-glorious God shall
   exhibit your sanctified spirit as an illustration of His glorious
   Character and work, no mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for
   your worth will be above rubies! The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal
   you, nor shall the precious crystal be compared to you.

   But I hear a mournful voice crying, "All this is concerning the
   precious ones, but there is nothing for me. I was in hopes that there
   would have been something for a sinner like me." Well, what are you,
   then? Are you not a jewel? "No," you cry, "I am not a jewel. I am only
   a common stone. I am not worth the picking up--I am just one of the
   many pebbles on the shore of life--and the tide of death will soon wash
   me into the great ocean of eternity! I am not worthy of God's thoughts.
   I am not even worth His treading upon--I shall, with multitudes of
   others, be swallowed up in the great deep of wrath and never be heard
   of again!"

   Soul, did you never hear this text? "I say unto you that God is able of
   these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." What stones were they?
   They were ordinary loose stones in Jordan's bed. John was standing in
   the river baptizing and pointing to those worthless pebbles not worth
   picking up. He said, "God is able of these stones to raise up children
   unto Abraham." Even so, this night, God is able of these stones around
   me in this vast throng to make gems which shall be His treasure in the
   day when He makes up His jewels! You cannot thus exalt yourselves, nor
   can I do it for you, but there is a secret and mysterious process by
   which, by Divine art, the common stone is transmuted into the diamond!
   And though you are a stone black with sin, or blood-red with
   crime--though you are a flinty stone with jagged edges of
   blasphemy--though you are such a stone as Satan delights to throw at
   the Truth of God, yet God can transform you into a jewel! He can do it
   in an instant!

   Do you know how He can do it? There is a wondrous rod with which He
   works matchless transformations. That rod is the Cross! Jesus Christ
   suffered that sinners might not suffer! Jesus Christ died that sinners
   might not die, but that "whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
   have everlasting life"! Sinner though you are--if you come beneath the
   Cross and trustingly look up to God's dear Son, you shall be saved! And
   that salvation includes a complete change of nature by which you shall
   fear the Lord, think upon His name and mingle with those who speak
   often, one to another, with the certainty of being the Lord's when He
   makes up His jewels!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MALACHI 3; 4.

   Malachi 3:1. Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the
   way before Me. The name Malachi means "my messenger." The reference
   here is, of course, to John the Baptist who was to prepare the way of
   the Lord.

   1. And the lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple. Now,
   the Temple at Jerusalem is utterly destroyed, so how can the Jews still
   think the Lord, whom they profess to seek, will suddenly come to His
   Temple? He must have come there already--so we know He did--for there
   is not one stone of the Temple left standing upon another--"The Lord,
   whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple"

   1. Even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom you delight in: behold, He
   shall come, says the LORD of Hosts. Christ was the great Messenger of
   the Covenant, the Messenger of mercy. And the Lord's own people, even
   in that ancient time, delighted in anticipating the coming of the
   Christ of God, the anointed and appointed Messenger of the Lord of
   Hosts!

   2. But who may abide the day ofHis coming? And who shall stand when He
   appears?For He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap. All
   that only looked like religion, but was not real and genuine was purged
   away at His coming. He was like a refiner's fire, consuming the false
   pretensions of the Pharisees and the vain boastings of the Scribes.
   There is, in the religion of Jesus Christ, a power that is a great
   purgative and a great refiner!

   3. And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. Christ comes
   suddenly, but He comes to stay. "He shall sit." If He comes into our
   heart at this moment--and He may come there suddenly--He will come to
   stay there and He will sit there "as a refiner and purifier of silver."

   3. And He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and
   silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
   Those men called to holy service shall offer unto the Lord offerings in
   righteousness after He has cleansed and purified them. You cannot
   worship God rightly until you have been cleansed by Christ. Till then,
   you are like priests with defiled feet, unfit to come into the
   sanctuary of God. But when Christ has purified you, fail not to draw
   near to God and to present your thanks offering to Him.

   4, 5. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto
   the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will
   come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the
   sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and
   against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and
   the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and
   fear not Me, says the Lord of Hosts. See how hard taskmasters are put,
   by Divine Inspiration, with sorcerers, and adulterers, and false
   swearers? They do not think badly of themselves, but the Lord thinks
   badly of them! And His judgment is always just.

   6. For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not
   consumed. This is their comfort--even the Immutability of God is on the
   side of His people! He is just and always just! He hates sin and always
   hates sin! Yet that unchangeableness of His is always on the side of
   the people of His choice!

   7. Even from the days of your fathers you are gone away from My
   ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return
   unto you, says the LORD of Hosts. You wanderers from God, take this
   invitation home to your hearts and act upon it! Arise and return unto
   your Father, for when you are yet a great way off, He will see you and
   will run to meet you, and have compassion upon you--"Return unto Me,
   and I will return unto you, says the Lord of Hosts."

   7. But you said, Wherein shall we return?God takes notice of what men
   say to Him after He has spoken to them. He will take notice of what you
   say when you go out of this House of Prayer. Erring men usually have
   something to say for themselves. The self-righteous can always invent
   some excuse, or ask some question, as they did here--"Wherein shall we

   return?"

   8. Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. They were always ready
   to deny or question a just accusation, instead of letting it operate
   upon their conscience, so they asked about this charge.

   8. But you say, Wherein have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings.
   They had kept back from God's service the money which was necessary for
   the carrying on of the worship of His house. We read, in Nehemiah
   13:10, that "the Levites and the singers that did the work, were fled,
   everyone, to his field," for they could not live at Jerusalem because
   "the portions of the Levites had not been given them"--their supply of
   provisions having been stopped through the meanness of the people who
   had thus robbed the Lord "in tithes and offerings."

   9. You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed Me, even this whole
   nation. They could not make out why they were so poor and why they
   could not get on! The real reason was that there was a curse resting
   upon all that they did because they had robbed God.

   10. Bringyou all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat
   in My house, andprove Me now herewith, says the LORD of Hosts, if I
   will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing
   that there shall not be room enough to receive it. They had kept
   themselves poor by their own meanness! If they had behaved rightly
   towards God, He would have enriched them with the bounties of His
   Providence. The very windows of Heaven would have been thrown open to
   give them abundance for all their needs.

   11. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not
   destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her
   fruit before the time in the field, says the LORD of Hosts. The locust
   and the caterpillar came up and ate their harvests--all because God was
   angry with them--and He alone could change their miserable
   circumstances.

   12. And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a
   delightsome land, says the LORD of Hosts. God is able, simply with a
   turn of His hand, or a glance of His eyes, to enrich or to impoverish.
   He gives in a thousand ways that we cannot control and He takes from us
   in as many ways which perhaps we cannot understand. It is always best
   to be right with God.

   13-15. Your words have been harsh against Me, says the LORD. Yetyou
   say, What have we spoken so much against You? You have said, It is vain
   to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance,
   and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of Hosts? And now we
   call the proud happy; yes, they that work wickedness are set up;yes,
   they that tempt God are even delivered. Those were indeed bad old times
   when the mass of the people looked only to their own temporal comfort!
   When they saw the wicked become rich, they wished that they were
   wicked, too, in order that they might be rich. They thought that it was
   of no use to serve God! But happily there was another set of people in
   the land, as there always is, more or less. God never leaves Himself
   without witnesses--and when the wicked are proudest, God's people are
   often boldest.

   16. Then. At that very time--

   16. They that feared the LORD spoke often, one to another. They could
   not bear to hear their God thus spoken of, so they went to one
   another's houses. They found one another out and talked to one another.

   16. And the Lord listened. He loves to listen to the holy talk of a
   holy people. "The Lord listened."

   16. And heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for
   them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon His name. That is a
   very precious expression. You cannot, perhaps, speak much for the Lord,
   yet you think the more about Him--and God remembers those who think
   upon His name. Yet, often, thinking leads to speaking and there ought
   to be no speaking without previous thought! God loves to listen to the
   thoughtful conversation of a loving people who stand true to Him in the
   midst of an ungodly crowd--and He thinks very highly of them.

   17. And they shall be Mine, says the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I
   make up Myjewels. "Others, who thought much of themselves, shall be
   thrown away like worthless pebbles, but these faithful ones shall be
   Mine in that day when I am putting My jewels into My crown, for they
   shall be precious in My sight."

   17. And I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.
   When the sword of the enemy is drawn from its sheath. When disease is
   putting down its myriads. When God's vengeance has laid hold upon the
   ungodly He will be a hiding place for His people and will care for them
   as a man would anxiously care, not only for his son, but for his only
   son, one who is obedient and faithful to his father--"his own son that
   serves him."

   18. Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the
   wicked. Not now, but then--by-and-by there shall be a distinguishing
   mark set upon all mankind! "Then shall you return, and discern between
   the righteous and the wicked."

   18. Between him that serves God and he that serves Him not

   Malachi 4:1, 2. For, behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven,
   and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and
   the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of Hosts, that it
   shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you. Here is the
   difference, "But unto you."

   2. That fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise. Not like a
   scorching and burning oven as the sun of the heavens is in the East,
   but He shall arise!

   2. With healing in His wings and you shall go forth, and grow up as
   calves of the stall All is right with those who are right with God!

   3-6. And you shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under
   the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the LORD
   ofHosts. Remember you the Law ofMoses My servant, which I commanded
   unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes andjudgments.
   Behold, I willsendyou Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great
   and dreadful day of the LORD: and He shall turn the heart of the
   fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their father,
   lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. The Old Testament ends
   with the mutterings of a curse, but the New Testament begins with a
   message of blessing concerning the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus
   Christ! What a mercy to come from under the Old Covenant unto the New!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Right Kind of Fear

   (No. 2971)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 2, 1876.

   "Happy is the mam who fears always." Proverbs 28:14.

   BUT did not John say that "fear has torment"? Then how can he be happy
   who has fear--and especially he who has it always?Did not John also say
   that "perfect love casts out fear"? How is it, then, that he is happy
   in whom love is not made perfect, if it true that the fear which John
   meant is left in it? Dear Friends, the explanation is that the word,
   "fear," is used in different senses--and both Solomon and John are
   right! Neither is there any conflict between their two statements.
   There is a fear which perfect love casts out because it has torment.
   That is the slavish fear which trembles before God as a criminal
   trembles before the judge--the fear which mistrusts, suspects and has
   no confidence in God-- the fear which, therefore, keeps us away from
   God, causes us to dread the thought of drawing near to Him and makes us
   say, like the fool to whom the Psalmist refers, "No God." Many of you
   know what this kind of fear is, for you once suffered from it--though I
   trust you are now delivered from it by faith in Christ Jesus and by the
   love which the Spirit of God has worked in your hearts.

   There is also another sort of fear which springs out of this slavish
   fear--and which is to be equally shunned, namely a fear which leads to
   the apprehension that something evil is about to happen. There are many
   persons who have so little faith in God that they fear that the trials
   which will sooner or later overtake them, will also overthrow them.
   They are afraid of a certain form of suffering that threatens
   them--they fear that they will not have patience enough to bear up
   under it. They feel sure that their spirit will sink in their sickness.
   Above all, they are dreadfully afraid to die. They have not yet
   believed that God will be with them when they pass through the Valley
   of Death and, because they cannot trust Him, they are all their
   lifetime subject to bondage! They cannot say that all things work
   together for good to them.And they often say, as poor old Jacob
   mistakenly said, "All these things are against me." And so they go on,
   fearing this and fearing that, and fearing the other, and their life is
   spent, to a great extent, in sorrow and sighing. May the Lord
   graciously deliver any of you who are in that condition!

   That is a kind of fear from which the true Believer is free. He knows
   that whatever happens, God will overrule it for the good of His chosen.
   "He shall not to afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting
   in the Lord." Resignation to the Divine will has made him feel that
   whatever the Lord wills is right--he does not seek to have his own
   will, but he is glad to make God's will his will--and so he is
   perfectly satisfied with all that comes. God save you, my Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ, from all fear of a slavish sort! Above all, no
   Christian ought to have any fear which would bring dishonor upon the
   truthfulness, the goodness, the Immutability, or the power of God. To
   doubt His promise--to suppose that He will not make it good--this is,
   indeed, a fear which has torment. To doubt God's faithfulness--to
   suppose that He can ever forget His children, that His mercy can be
   withdrawn from them, or that He will be favorable to them no more--this
   also is wrong. To doubt the perseverance of the saints, when God's Word
   has so plainly declared that He will keep their feet and will perfect
   the work which He has begun in them--indeed, to doubt anythingthat has
   the Inspired Scriptures to support it--and to tremble in any way when
   your trembling arises out of a suspicion that God may change, or cease
   to be faithful to His promises and faithful to His Son--all that kind
   of fearing is to be cast far from us!

   But, dear Friends, there is another fear that ought to be
   cultivated--the reverential fear which the holy angels feel when they
   worship God and behold His Glory--that gracious fear which makes them
   veil their faces with their wings as they adore the Majesty on high!
   There is also the loving fear which every true, right-hearted child has
   towards its

   father--a fear of grieving so tender a parent--a proper feeling of
   dread which makes it watch its every footstep, lest, in the slightest
   degree, it should deviate from the path of absolute obedience. May God
   graciously grant to us much of this kind of fear!

   Then there is a holy fear of ourselves which makes us shun the very
   thought of self-reliance--which weans us equally from
   self-righteousness and self-confidence--and which makes us feel that we
   shall surely fall unless the Lord shall continually hold us up and that
   we shall certainly die unless He shall sustain our spiritual life. This
   fear of our ourselves--the fear of sinning against God--is a fear which
   we ought always to cherish and, concerning which the text says, "Happy
   is the man who fears always."

   I have taken this topic for a special reason. You know that we have
   recently had a great deal of preaching of "Believe! Believe! Believe!"
   and I have very heartily joined in the evangelistic services which have
   been held. We have also had a great deal of singing about full
   assurance--and we have had a little chattering about perfection, or
   something wonderfully like it. As far as I can make it out and as I put
   all these things together, I cannot help being afraid that there will
   be a great growth of the mushrooms ofpresumption! With warm days and
   damp days, and with everything tending to make vegetation luxurious, we
   may expect to see an abundant crop of poisonous fungi growing
   up--noxious agarics, toadstools and I know not what besides! They will
   come up in a night, but they may not be destroyed in a night. And they
   will be a great nuisance and possibly worse than that. So I want to
   speak in such a way that we may all be led to do some sincere
   heart-searching and to commend to you the cherishing of an anxious fear
   lest, perhaps, all that glitters should not prove to be gold, and lest
   much of that which looks like wheat should, at the last, turn out to be
   tares.

   I. My first observation shall be that THERE IS, AFTER ALL, VERY GRAVE
   CAUSE FOR FEAR. Otherwise,

   Solomon would not have been inspired to write, "Happy is the man who
   fears always."

   There is cause for fear, dear Brothers and Sisters who love the Lord,
   because corruption still remains in us. In the best man or woman here,
   there is still the old flesh that lusts against the Spirit--that flesh
   which is in constant enmity to the Spirit and will never be reconciled
   to it. If that flesh keeps quiet for a time, it is there all the while,
   just as a lion is still a lion even when he is lying hidden in his den.
   He only needs some dark hour to come and he will rush forth from his
   den. So is it with the flesh which still lurks within us. When a man
   imagines that all his corruptions are gone, that is no proof that he is
   rid of them, but only that he does not really know his true condition,
   for, if God were but to lift the veil that covers his eyes and let him
   see the great deeps of sin that are in his nature, he would soon
   discover that he has grave cause for fear--and he would be driven to
   cry out to God, "Oh, keep me, I beseech You, or else I shall commit
   spiritual suicide! I must and shall become like the vilest of apostates
   unless Your Sovereign Grace shall hold me on my way."

   There is also cause for fear, my Brothers and Sisters, if you look
   around at the world in which we live. This vile world has not changed
   its character--it is no more a friend to Divine Grace than it was in
   the days of the early Christians. It was a difficult thing to be a
   Christian in the days of Diocletian and the other persecuting Roman
   emperors, but I sometimes think that it is an even more difficult thing
   to be a Christian now! To be a soldier under Hannibal and to fight
   bravely when crossing the Alps must have been a difficult task, but it
   was far more trying for the soldiers when they reached sunny Italy and
   their holiday amusements destroyed the discipline of the army. The
   Christian camp, at the present time, seems to be pitched in a sunny
   plain where all the surrounding influences bend to relax the sinews of
   the warriors--and to take away their strength. It is hard to keep to
   the narrow way when the broad road runs so near to it that sometimes
   they seem to be one! The time was when the broad road was so distinct
   from the narrow one that we could easily discern who was travelling to
   Heaven and who was going to Hell. But now the devil has engineered the
   broad road so very close up to the side of the narrow way that there
   are many people who manage to walk on both of them--they were never so
   pleased as when they could first take a little turn on the narrow road
   and then, afterwards, take another turn on the broad one.

   Let us never imitate Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, but let us walk only in the
   narrow way that leads unto life, whatever it may cost us to do so. You
   must be in a very singular position if you never have any temptations.
   Indeed, I should not be surprised to learn, if you live where you have
   no temptations, that you are undergoing a worse trial than temptation,
   itself, would be! In such a place as that you are very likely to get
   stagnant. The very pleasantness of the situation may put you off your
   guard and you will not live so near to God as you would have done if
   your surroundings had seemed to be more opposed to your growth in
   Grace. There is cause for fear, then, when all around us there is an
   enemy behind every

   bush, a temptation lurking in every joy and a devil hiding himself
   under every table--when, as old Francis Quarles used to say--

   "The close pursuer's busy hands do plant

   Snares in your substance; snares attend your need;

   Snares in your credit, snares in your disgrace;

   Snares in your high estate, snares in your base.

   Snares tuck your bed and snares surround your board;

   Snares watch your thoughts and snares attach your word.

   Snares in your quiet, snares in your commotion--

   Snares in your diet, snares in your devotion!

   Snares lurk in your resolves, snares in your doubt

   Snares lie within your heart and snares without.

   Snares are above your head, and snares beneath

   Snares in your sickness, snares are in your death." Besides that, dear
   Friends--in addition to having a store of dry tinder within our heart
   and showers of sparks falling near us--besides having a great heap of
   gunpowder within our nature and being constantly exposed to the fires
   that burn all around us--we must remember that there is such a thing as
   self-deception in the world. This is a great and a common danger. Do
   you not yourselves know some who have been self-deceived? I have had a
   wide experience in watching over the souls of others--and many persons
   have come under my notice who have thought themselves Christians--but I
   have often wondered how they could think so! I have seen that in their
   lives which has led me to feel sure--as sure as one man can feel
   concerning another--that the Grace of God could not be in them! Yet
   they have not had any doubt or suspicion concerning their Christianity.
   Now, Brothers and Sisters, do you not know some people like that? Well,
   then, is it not possible that the judgment which you have formed
   concerning them is the very same that others have formed concerning
   you? And perhaps that judgment is true.

   There have been great preachers who have been very eloquent men and God
   has even condescended to use them in His service, yet, afterwards it
   has been discovered that they were living in gross sin all the while
   that they were preaching holiness to others. If that has been the case
   with only one preacher, might it not also be the case with me? Have you
   never heard of church members who have come regularly to the Communion
   Table and been very prominent in the work of the church--and apparently
   leading the way in all good things yet, after all--they were rotten to
   the core? They had made a mistake altogether--unless they had willfully
   deceived others instead of themselves--in professing to be Christ's
   people at all. Well, then, if some have acted like that, may not you do
   the same? I do not wish to say anything unpleasant merely for the sake
   of making you feel uncomfortable, but I want you to remember that my
   text says, "Happy is the man who fears always."

   Sometimes to examine the foundation on which we are building for
   eternity, to look into the profession which we have made, to see
   whether it will stand the wear and tear of daily life and to judge
   whether it will be likely to endure the test of our dying day--and the
   still sterner test of the Day of Judgment--is a wise occupation for
   every one of us. The man who dares not have his ship examined is the
   man who knows that some of the timbers are rotten! And if you do not
   like being examined, you are the very men who ought to put yourself
   through that process without a moment's delay, obeying the injunctions
   of the Apostle, "Examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith;
   prove yourselves. Know you not yourselves, how that Jesus Christ is in
   you, except you be reprobates?"

   There is also great cause for fear, because some Christians have been
   "saved, yet so as by fre" Oh, with what difficulty have some of God's
   ships entered the eternal harbor! They have lost their masts, the deck
   has been swept clear of everything, they have been well-near abandoned
   as derelict! And if it had not been that the eternal Grace of God had
   ensured the safety of the vessels, they would have drifted away to
   destruction and gone to the bottom of the sea. And what tugging there
   has been to get some souls into Heaven! Do you not know some of that
   sort? I saw one, not long ago. I had highly esteemed him at one time
   but, from what I learned afterwards, I saw how little cause there was
   in him for my esteem. He had professed to be a child of God, but he was
   weeping and wailing and asking whether there was any hope for him. As a
   contrast to such a sad case, I may say that I have stood by the
   bedsides of many others and have learned from them lessons that I can
   never forget--for they have told me something of the joys of Heaven by
   the very glances of their eyes and the wondrous words which have fallen
   from their lips--often more full of poetry than poetry itself! They
   have seemed to be Inspired and to be favored with visions of the
   hereafter as they have looked through the veil which had become so thin
   to them.

   But I have also seen some such as the one I mentioned just now, who
   have not lived near to God, who have neglected prayer, who have done
   but little service for Christ--and when they have come to die, they
   have been "saved, yet so as by fire." They have had to come, in their
   last moments, without any comfort or hope, without any joy in the Lord
   and cry, "What must we do to be saved?"--just as though they had never
   known the way of salvation, although they have been professors for
   years! Instead of having an abundant entrance into Heaven, they have
   just been saved and no more.

   Now, you and I do not want to have such an experience as that and,
   therefore, let us always fear lest we should get into such a state of
   heart that this should be our case. Let us fear lest we lose communion
   with God. Let us fear lest we misuse any Grace which the Holy Spirit
   has given to us. Let us fear lest we become fruitless and unprofitable.
   Let us fear lest we lose the light of Jehovah's Countenance. If we do
   so fear, we shall understand what Solomon meant when he wrote, "Blessed
   is the man who fears always."

   II. Now, secondly, I want to prove to you that THE MAN WHO DOES SO FEAR
   IS A HAPPY MAN. I will show you that by a few contrasts.

   The word, "happy," in our text may not exactly mean that the man enjoys
   happiness just now, but that he is really happy. He has the root of
   true happiness in him and he will have the fruit in due time. Now, here
   are two men. One of them says, "I am a child of God. I have had a very
   deep experience. I know all the Doctrines of Grace, blessed be God, and
   I feel that I am thoroughly confirmed in Christian habits. I may be
   tempted to sin, but I shall be able to resist the temptation." Take a
   good look at that man, so that you will know him when you see him
   again. With a formal prayer he leaves his bedroom in the morning and he
   goes forth to his business, perfectly satisfied with himself whatever
   may happen. Here is another man. He says, "I believe I am a child of
   God, for I have trusted in Jesus Christ as my Savior and I know that I
   am safe in His hands. But I dare not trust myself. I feel that unless
   He shall hold me up all through this day, I may, by my words, or my
   actions, bring dishonor upon His holy name and I tremble lest I should
   do so." Look at him kneeling down there by his bedside and hear how
   earnestly he pleads with God. His prayer is something like this, "O
   Lord, I am as helpless as a little child. Hold You me up, or I shall
   surely fall! I am like a lamb going out among wolves. O Lord, preserve
   me!" Now, which of the two do you regard as the really happy man? The
   happiness of the two men may, to a superficial observer, appear to be
   about equal, but which happiness would you prefer to have? I say--and I
   think most of you will agree with me--God save me from the so-called
   happiness which is careless and prayerless--and give me that holy fear
   which often drives me to my knees and makes me cry to God to keep me!

   Well, now, night has come on and the two men have reached their homes.
   Neither of them has fallen into any gross sin during the day. They have
   both been preserved from that evil. One of them retires to his bed
   after a few sentences of formal prayer, with no life or earnestness in
   it, and no expression of his gratitude to God. And he soon falls asleep
   in perfect contentment with himself. The other man looks carefully over
   all that has happened during the day, for he is afraid lest he may have
   sinned against God even unconsciously. And he takes notice of things
   which the other man does not think anything of and he says, "Lord, I
   fear that I erred there, and that I failed there. Forgive Your child
   and help me to do better in the future." Then he says, "I thank You,
   Lord, that You have kept me, by Your Grace, from being surprised by
   sudden temptation and You have enabled me to honor Your name, at least
   in some degree. I give all the glory for this to You and now, my Lord--

   "'Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood, I lay me down to rest, In the
   embraces of my God, Or on my Savor's breast

   Now, which is the happy man of these two? I know which I should like to
   be--the man who is so fearful and so full of trembling that he wonders
   that he has not fallen--and who is sometimes almost afraid that he has
   and who, therefore, walks humbly before his God. Is he not infinitely
   to be preferred to the other man who thinks it is a matter of course
   that he shall always stand and who has no qualms of conscience about
   what he calls little faults? You may rest assured that the seeds of
   untold misery are already sown in that man's heart!

   Think of these two men under another aspect. Imagine that they are
   sailors out at sea. One of them is well aware that a certain course is
   very dangerous. Some captains have been able to take it and have made
   "a short cut" by doing so, and he decides that he will take that
   course. He can see that his vessel is bound to go near some very
   ugly-looking rocks and among a number of sharp ledges where many others
   have been wrecked. But he is a bold, daredevil sort of fellow--he
   believes that all will be right and he has no fear. But here is the
   other captain and he says, "My motto is to keep as far away from danger
   as I possibly can. I know that in fair weather that passage may be
   safe, but then I cannot reckon on fair weather. I may be caught in a
   fog and not know where I am. Or a terrible storm may come on and drive
   me where I do not wish to go. I shall, therefore, take the longer
   course which is also the safer course." Now, in which of these two
   vessels would you like to sail? And which of the two captains do you
   esteem to be that happy man? Of course you say the second one! We
   admire courage, but we do not admire foolhardiness--and the Christian
   who seeks to steer clear of temptation, who endeavors to be precise and
   exact in his mode of living so as not to go near to sin, but to avoid
   it--and keep away from it must be judged to be, in the best sense of
   the word, a happier man than the one who courts temptation and
   heedlessly rushes into a position of peril!

   Look at the difference between what these two men regard as happiness.
   The one who was not afraid said, "Why should I fear? Am I not getting
   to be an old-established Christian? Have I not resisted temptation for
   such a long while that I need not fear it now? I feel that I may do
   what young people may not do--it would too dangerous for them, but it
   will never hurt me." So he talked, but look at him now! He has become
   so fond of the drunkard's cup that he was seen reeling through the
   streets, or else he has been so enchanted by the lusts of the flesh
   that he has committed himself fatally. Or it may be that he was
   strongly tempted to make money very quickly--and quick money-making and
   honesty never go together except by a very extraordinary system of
   circumstances! But this man thought it would end all right and that he
   would make a great haul, so he asked the devil to help him throw the
   net in just that once--and now he has got into the clutches of the law,
   and his name--the name of a man who once made a profession of
   religion--is bracketed with that of other rogues and vagabonds!

   But now look at the timid man--the man who said, "I know that I shall
   never be intoxicated if I never take anything that is intoxicating. I
   know that I shall not be a thief if I never take anybody's money but my
   own. I know that if I never indulge even in indelicate expressions, if
   I never think of or look at anything that is impure, I shall not be
   likely to go in that evil way which I utterly abhor." That is the man
   who is both safe and happy! "The man who fears always." Some people
   call him a milksop and say that he has not spirit enough to do as
   others do--but just look at him. He can go in and out of the House of
   God as an honorable Christian, while the other one, of whom I have told
   you, is a moral wreck and his name is a by-word and a reproach! I can
   bear my testimony that I have seen high professors so act as to become
   a stench in our nostrils and, on the other hand, I have seen poor,
   timid girls who were half afraid they were hypocrites, and poor
   trembling men who used to come to me for comfort and counsel, lest they
   should be deceiving themselves. I have seen many of the latter class
   enter the Port of Glory like ships in full sail coming into the
   harbor--while those other vessels, with their painted hulls that seemed
   to tempt a shot from the enemy--have gone to the bottom and they have
   been lost to us, and lost to themselves!

   Now I will suppose that both these men whom I have been describing,
   have fallen into a certain sin. See what a difference there is between
   them now! The man who has not any fear says, "Well, yes, there is no
   doubt that I did wrong, but then"--and he begins telling all about the
   circumstances under which he says that he was "overtaken." He tries to
   make out that he was an innocent victim who was deceived by somebody
   else. Now listen to "the man who fears always." "Ah," he says, "I have
   sinned." And he hangs his head in shame and then adds, "I have no
   excuse to make and you cannot say anything to me that will be half so
   heavy and so hard as what I say to myself. God will forgive me, I have
   no doubt, for I have truly repented, but I can never forgive myself."
   The first man has dry eyes and a proud, defiant spirit. And it is very
   likely that, having committed that one great sin, he will go on and
   commit another--and yet another--and continually get harder and harder
   in his heart, yet all the while talk about being one of God's elect who
   will be saved at the last.

   Well now, that man is not a happy man. I pray that none of us may ever
   experience the wretchedness of having a seared conscience and get into
   a state of indifference in which we can trifle with sin and yet pretend
   to be the servants of God. But, oh, if we dofall into sin, may the Lord
   make us very tender about it! Let this be our prayer-- "Quick as the
   apple of an eye, O Lord, my conscience make! Wake my soul, when sin is
   near, And keep it still awake."

   Dear Brothers and sisters, may you, by God's Grace, be preserved from
   sin! But if sin should come upon you unawares, may your bones be broken
   by it and may you feel that your very heart is wounded because you have
   wounded your God! To repent of sin is one of the hallmarks of a
   Christian, but to have a hardened, untrembling heart is one of the sure
   marks of the reprobate who is far off from God!

   I might thus continue to show you, by a hundred contrasts, that the man
   who fears always is the really happy man. Suppose that we are fishing
   and that we have cast our lines into the water. There is one fish that
   is altogether afraid of our bait and of all our arrangements--and he
   swims as far as ever he can up or down the stream away from us. But
   here are some fish that are quite charmed with our worm. They say that
   they do not mean to swallow the hook, but we do not believe them. They
   say that they mean to get the worm off without letting the hook catch
   hold of them. They have very clever ways of sucking worms off hooks and
   they are going to show what they can do--and soon they are caught. But
   happy is the fish that fears the bait as well as the hook, and so keeps
   right away from both of them! When some of us were boys, we used to set
   traps for the sparrows and other birds in winter time and we would
   watch to see them go in to eat our crumbs inside the trap. Sometimes
   there would come a bird that had seen our arrangement before and had
   been almost caught in it and knew all about it. Well, as soon as ever
   he looked at it, he made up his mind that he would give our trap a very
   wide berth, so he flew away as far as he could. But there were some
   other birds that would come and look at the trap and even perch on
   it--and presently some of them would get into it. Of course they did
   not mean to be caught! They thought they knew the way to go just far
   enough into the trap to get those grains of wheat and then to fly
   out--but once in, they could not fly out.

   And sinners are just as foolish as those sparrows! Of course they do
   not mean to be caught! They will fly out of the trap all right when
   they have eaten the wheat! Yes, but I say, happy is the bird that fears
   always, and that keeps far off the trap--and unhappy is the bird that
   thinks it can go just so far into the trap, but fully intends to go no
   further. Oh, how many young men and young women have been ruined
   because they have gone just so far into sin, meaning to stop there! But
   they could not stop there--they began to slide and the ice carried them
   along where they never meant to go. The only safe plan is to keep off
   the ice altogether. If you do not take the first wrong step, dear
   Friend, you will not take the second! And if Divine Grace makes you
   fear and tremble before you begin to go down the hill, you are not
   likely to be found among those who have fallen to the bottom. Happy is
   the man, in this sense, who fears always.

   III. But I must pass on to notice, in the third place, that THE MAN WHO
   HAS THIS FEAR IN HIS HEART WILL DO WELL TO HAVE IT THERE
   CONTINUALLY--"Happy is the man who fears ALWAYS."

   Have this fear concerning your holy things. For instance, when you come
   up to God's House to worship, be afraid, as you are coming along, lest
   you should be only a lip-server and get no blessing. If you are afraid
   of that happening, it will not happen. And when you are sitting in your
   pew, say to yourself, "Now, it is possible for me to become a mere
   formalist in worship and I may be listening to the Word of God with my
   ears, yet not receiving it into my heart. I am sorely afraid lest it
   should be so." Brothers and Sisters, it will not be so if you are
   afraid that it will be! And when the service is over, say to yourself,
   "I am afraid that I did not worship God in spirit and in truth as I
   should have done. I fear that I did not praise Him, or pray to Him with
   my whole heart as I ought to have done. O Lord, pardon the iniquity of
   my holy things!"

   I do not think any man ever preached as he ought to have preached if he
   is satisfied with his own efforts. I sometimes feel thankful to God for
   the feeling of dissatisfaction that possesses me every time I preach. I
   often feel, as I am going home, that I should like to go back and try
   to do it so much better--I do not mean better in an oratorical way, but
   pressing the Truth of God home to men's hearts more earnestly and more
   simply. I think that in this sense it is right that we should fear
   always. Ah, my dear young Brother in the College, you are afraid that
   you will become cold-hearted, but you never will as long as you cherish
   such a fear as that! If you are afraid that you will, by-and-by, preach
   in a perfunctory, official manner, you will not fall into that bad
   habit if you live in dread of doing so. If you are afraid that you will
   not set a good example to your people, I believe that you will set them
   a good example. But if you ever feel, "Oh, I can preach and practice,
   too--I am all right," it may happen that God will rebuke your pride and
   let you see--and

   perhaps let your enemies see--what a poor fool you are! Blessed is the
   man who, in his holy things, fears always--the man who is afraid when
   he is alone on his knees, lest he should not pray rightly--the man who
   is afraid lest, either in public or in private, he should act the
   hypocrite before his God!

   And happy is the man who has this holy fear in his own house--the man
   who says, "I am afraid lest I should not act as a Christian father
   ought to act towards his children, or as a Christian husband should act
   towards his wife." Other members of the household may say, "I fear lest
   I should not be such a wife, or such a child, or such a servant, or
   such a master as I ought to be." These are the people who usually are
   what they should be--those who are afraid that they are not! Those who
   are the most anxious lest they should fail are generally those who do
   not fail.

   And I would like you also to be anxious in your business, for fear lest
   you should in any way take advantage of anybody--lest, in the measure,
   or in the weight, or in the price, or in the invoice, these should be
   any mistake which would unjustly benefit you. The man who is afraid of
   anything like that will be an honest tradesman, you may rest assured of
   that! As for the servant or the workman who is afraid that he will not
   give a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, and the employer who is
   afraid that he will not give his servant or workman as much as he ought
   to give him--I can only say that I wish we had many more of that sort
   of men than we already have, though I know a good many of that sort. If
   we are afraid of wronging one another and not loving our neighbor as
   ourselves, that is a healthy kind of fear-- and the more we have of it,
   the more happy we shall be!

   And if, perhaps, there should not seem to be in yourself any special
   cause for this fear just now--though "let him who thinks he stands take
   heed lest he fall"--then begin to be afraid for the church of which you
   are a member. This is a fear which is always resting heavily upon
   me--the fear lest we should lose our earnestness in prayer--lest we
   should not care as much as we ought for the souls of men--lest the
   members of our church should grow worldly--lest we should become cold
   and indifferent towards our dear Lord and Master. Never lose this
   wholesome kind of fear concerning this church and your fellow members,
   or concerning any other church with which you are connected.

   Then, have a solemn fear about your own children,lest, possibly, you
   should not have trained them up as you should have done, or should not
   have prayed for them as you should have done, or lest your own example
   should not have been such as they could safely follow. Be afraid for
   your children, as Job was for his. When they met together to feast, he
   "offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job
   said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their
   hearts." The man who is thus afraid that things may be wrong is the man
   who is most likely to keep everything right. Many a man who becomes a
   bankrupt is so largely because he does not examine his books. He says
   that he does not like looking into his books--they are very unpleasant
   literature to him--and he never sees to the details of his affairs
   himself. He leaves this to John, and that to Thomas, and the other to
   one clerk and something else to another. And then one day he wakes up
   to find that everything has gone to smash! Do not let it be so in your
   household, or in your temporal affairs, or in your spiritual concerns,
   but look into everything yourself and watch everything carefully, for,
   in this way, by fearing always, you will be both safe and happy in the
   hands of God.

   IV. Now, lastly, THERE ARE SOME WHO HAVE, INDEED, VERY GRAVE CAUSE TO
   FEAR.

   There are some of my Hearers at this service--I am glad that they are
   here--who, I am afraid, have cause to fear in a far deeper sense than
   that in which I have used my text. Some of you are not saved--you know
   you are not. You have never had your sins forgiven, you have never
   sought and found mercy through the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ,
   God's only-begotten Son. And some of you are very ill--you were only
   just able to get here tonight. What? So ill as that, yet with no Savior
   to help you? Sick, well-near unto death, yet without a Savior? Likely
   to die soon, for you are consumptive, yet you have no Savior? Let me
   appeal to you, my dear Friend, is this wise? Can you afford to run such
   a terrible risk? Why, the healthy may die at any moment, but as for
   you, death is already at your door! So, surely you cannot afford to
   trifle with eternal things.

   And some of you are getting old, yet you are not saved. Sixty years of
   age, and not saved? Seventy, eighty, and not saved? What are you doing?
   A man told me, the other day, that he would not come to hear me again,
   for, he said, "The last time I came, you called me an old fool." Why
   was that? I asked. "Why," he replied, "you said that an old sinner was
   an old fool." So I said to him, "Are you an old sinner, then? Because
   if you are, you are an old fool!" And he could not deny it, for we are
   all fools till we are saved by Jesus Christ! A man must be a fool to
   run the risk of losing his immortal soul! I have heard that a man once
   went up to the top of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral and stood on his
   head. What do you think he was? "A fool," you say. Yes, so he was--yet
   he only risked his neck--but you are risking your soul's eternal
   welfare, risking the loss of Heaven and running a terrible risk of
   going to Hell forever! O Friend, is this wise? You know it is not and
   that I am only speaking the truth when I tell you that you are a
   fool--and one of the worst of fools!

   O Sirs, if you are not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are
   standing over the mouth of Hell, upon a single plank and that plank is
   rotten! You are hanging over the jaws of Perdition by a single hair and
   that hair is snapping! I looked down my well, this afternoon, as a man
   was going down it to do some necessary work, and I said to him, "Oh, do
   be careful! Pray be very careful!" I felt such dread upon me lest,
   possibly, the man should fall while he was going down that great depth
   into which I looked till it made me giddy--and I cannot bear to think
   of some of you, who are in far greater danger, for you are hanging over
   the mouth of Hell with only a rotten rope to hold to! Some of you may
   be in Hell within a week. I cannot guarantee that any one of you will
   live ten minutes longer. All the physicians in the world would not be
   able to guarantee to any one individual that he should live even for
   five minutes! You are always liable to death and in danger of the wrath
   to come. Therefore, escape for your lives, I entreat you!

   And meanwhile I would put you in fear about this matter, that, through
   this fear, you may be driven to the only place of safety, even to Jesus
   Christ, who was lifted up upon the Cross and now is exalted on high a
   Prince and a Savior! There is life in Him! There is life for you at
   this moment if you will only trust in Him! There is pardon for you now
   if you will only believe in Him!
     __________________________________________________________________

Forgiveness

   (No. 2972)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 25,1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
   21, 1863.

   "But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." Psalm
   130:4.

   How significant is that word, "but," in our text! It is as if you heard
   Justice clamoring, "Let the sinner die," and the fiends in Hell
   howling, "Cast him down into the fires," and Conscience shrieking, "Let
   him perish," and Nature, itself, groaning beneath his weight, the earth
   weary with carrying him, the sun tired with shining upon the traitor,
   the very air sick with finding breath for one who only spends it in
   disobedience to God! The man is about to be destroyed, to be swallowed
   up, when suddenly there comes this thrice-blessed, "but," which stops
   the reckless course of ruin, puts its strong hand, bearing a golden
   shield, between the sinner and destruction and pronounces these words,
   "But there is forgiveness with God, that He may be feared."

   Suppose the question had been left open--forgiveness or no forgiveness?
   We know that we have offended God, but suppose it had been left a moot
   point for us to find out, if possible, whether there was any
   forgiveness? Where could we find it? We might turn to the works of God
   in Nature, and say, "Well, He is good, who loads the trees with fruit
   and bids the fields yield so plenteous a harvest." But when we remember
   how His lightning sometimes strikes the oak and how His hurricanes
   swallow up whole navies in the deep, we shall be ready to say that He
   is terrible as well as tender--and we might be puzzled to know whether
   He would or would not forgive sin, more especially as we see all
   creatures die and no exception made to that rule. If we knew that death
   was a punishment for sin, we should be led to fear that there was no
   forgiveness to be had from the hand of God! But when we turn to this
   open page which God has so graciously written for our instruction, we
   are left in doubt no longer, for here we have it positively declared,
   "There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." Exclusively in
   the Bible is this Revelation made, but the words of my text are not
   exclusive. The page is but one among a thousand echoes from the Throne
   of God which proclaim His willingness to save sinners!

   In attempting to bring this great doctrine of the possibility of pardon
   before the mind of the sinner tonight, I shall handle it in two or
   three ways. First, I shall try toprove it is so, that he may be sure of
   the fact I shall then try to attract him to accept this doctrine by
   dwelling upon the pardon, itself, hoping that the Spirit of God may
   work with my words. And before I have done, I shall notice what will be
   the sure result of this pardon--whenever a man has been forgiven
   through the mercy of God, he is then enabled to fear the Lord and to
   worship Him in an able manner.

   I. By way of assurance, O MAN, THERE IS FORGIVENESS FOR YOUR SINS,
   WHATEVER THEY MAY HAVE BEEN! However sinful your life may have been up
   until now, there is forgiveness with God even for you! God's bare Word
   ought to be enough for you, but since the Spirit of God and your
   conscience have shown you something of your sins, and since you will be
   desponding and full of doubts, it will be well for me to give you
   something more than the bare Word of God to make you confident there is
   forgiveness with Him.

   Follow me, I pray you, back to the garden where your parents and mine
   first sinned. It was the greatest sin that was ever committed, with the
   exception of the murder of our Lord and Savior--the sin when Adam
   knowingly and wittingly rebelled against the one gentle command which
   his Master had given him as a sign of his obedience. This was the
   mother-sin from which all other sins have sprung--the well from which
   the great river of iniquity, which drowned the world, first streamed.
   What did the Lord say when this sin was committed? Did He lift His
   angry hand and smite the guilty pair at once? Did He visit our first
   parents with a curse that withered them and sent them down to their
   eternal portion in the Pit? He cursed, but it was the ground. He spoke
   in angry terms, but the serpent felt the weight thereof. As for man,

   though God pronounced a sentence upon him that we call a curse, but
   which has been transformed into a blessing, yet He gave that matchless
   promise which is the mother of all promises, "The Seed of the woman
   shall bruise the serpent's head." In that one single promise that God,
   Himself, would provide a Deliverer by whom the tempter would be
   destroyed and all his craft would be foiled, I see written as clearly
   as with a sunbeam that God meant to have mercy upon me! He would not
   talk about the Seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head if He had
   not intended something comforting for you and for me. The fact, I say,
   that though He did drive our first parents out of Eden, He did not
   drive them down to Hell--that though He did banish them from Paradise,
   He did not immediately consign them to the flames of His wrath--that He
   did, then and there, give them a bright promise which for many a
   hundred years was the only one that covered the thick darkness of the
   Fall--that fact alone should make you hope that there is forgiveness
   with God!

   But what, I pray you, do those many altars with lambs and bullocks
   smoking upon them mean--altars whose unhewn stones are dyed crimson
   with gore? Above all, what does that priestly man, wearing that jeweled
   breastplate, who comes forward in obedience to God and offers every
   morning and evening a lamb, mean? Or what does it mean that once in the
   year he produces a scapegoat which carries the sins of the people into
   the wilderness? What do those rivers of blood and those mounds of ashes
   from the altar mean, if God does not forgive sin? There can be no
   meaning whatever in all the long and gorgeous pageant of the Jewish
   religion unless it taught to every onlooker this great and solemn
   lesson--that though God is just and blood must be shed, yet God is
   gracious and accepts a substitute that the sinner may go free! By all
   those smoking altars, the blood of rams, lambs, goats and bullocks,
   believe, O Sinner, that God has found a Ransom and a Sacrifice and that
   He, therefore, can and will pardon sin!

   If you see these things dimly, here, you will see them more clearly in
   another fact. Do you not know, O man, that God has commanded you to
   repent? The times of former ignorance God winked at, but now He
   commands all men everywhere to repent. What for? Surely He would not
   command us to repent and then intend to punish us afterwards! It could
   not be possible that God would woo sinners to return to Him and yet not
   intend to forgive them! I cannot believe a theory so monstrous as that
   God would send His ministers and send His own Book--and earnestly and
   affectionately invite sinners to turn from their evil ways and repent
   of their sins--and yet intend, even if they did repent, to punish them
   on account of their iniquity! It cannot be!

   Do you not know, too, that God has commanded you to pray for
   forgiveness? What is the meaning of that prayer, "Forgive us our sins,
   as we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us"? Would Christ put
   these words into your mouth if there were no pardon? Would He teach you
   to ask for forgiveness if forgiveness were an impossibility? Does God
   mock men? Does He teach beggars to beg when He intends to refuse? Does
   He bring you down on your knees that He may see you mourn--and laugh at
   your despair? Does He intend to see you rolling in the dust, girt with
   sackcloth and ashes, that He may afterwards put His iron heel upon your
   neck and crush you to the lowest Hell? It is not possible! The God who
   commands you to repent is just and merciful to forgive you your
   sins--and He who has bid you seek His face has not said unto the seed
   of Jacob, "Seek you me in vain."

   Moreover, Sinner--and here we come to something still clearer--do you
   not know that Jesus died? Have you not heard the wondrous story how the
   Son of God came down from Heaven and was made in the likeness of sinful
   flesh? Do you not know that after 30 years of holy life, wherein He
   rendered perfect obedience to the Divine Law and made it honorable, He
   took upon Himself the guilt, the crimes, the iniquities of a multitude
   that no man can number, for He bore the sins of many, and now He makes
   intercession for the transgressors? See there, if you can dare to look
   amidst those moonlit olives where upon the ground there kneels a
   Man--no, more, there kneels Incarnate Deity--what does it mean that His
   head, His hair, His garments are saturated with blood? How came it
   that, on yonder ground, I see great clots of gore--where did they come
   from? Came they from His forehead? But what could have forced them from
   Him? What does yonder sight mean? I watch that Man dragged away and
   charged most infamously with crimes He never knew, tied to a pillar and
   there lashed with a Roman scourge until the white bones stand out like
   islands of ivory amidst a sea of coral-- and His whole back has become
   a stream of blood! What does it all mean?

   And yonder sight where He is stretched upon the transverse wood, where
   the nails have pierced His hands and feet, and where His life goes
   oozing from Him in anguish and extreme agony? What does that shriek of
   "Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani" mean? He is a just Man--does God punish
   the just? He is God's dear Son, and has done no ill--does God hate Him
   and punish Him for nothing? Does He pour wrath upon Him without a
   cause? You know how it was. The sin of

   man was imputed to Christ. The iniquity of His people was laid upon
   Him. "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." And
   here is the riddle solved--He dies that we may live--

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

   Then there must be forgiveness! I cannot see a bleeding Savior without
   understanding that there must be pardon! Gethsemane, Gabbatha,
   Golgotha--three sacred words, three irresistible arguments by which it
   is proved beyond controversy that there is forgiveness even for the
   chief of sinners!

   But if this contents you not, O troubled Sinner, here is another fact
   for you to reflect upon--what multitudes have already been pardoned!
   Dare you look up yonder beyond the skies? Have you strength of eyesight
   enough to see that multitude clothed in white, who, today, are standing
   before the Throne of God? If there were no forgiveness, not one of them
   had been there! Were their robes always white? Listen to their
   answer--"We have washed our robes, and made them white in the blood of
   the Lamb, therefore are we before the Throne of God." FORGIVENESS
   brought them there! Not one redeemed soul would ever have seen the
   everlasting Glory unless it had been for the pardoning mercy of God--

   "Round the altar priests confess If their robes are white as snow,
   'Twas the Savior's righteousness, And His blood that made them so! Who
   were these? On earth they dwelt Sinners once of Adam's race-- Guilt,
   and fear, and suffering felt, But were saved by Sovereign Grace!" Here
   are scores and hundreds of us who bear witness that God has pardoned
   us! Whatever I may doubt, I dare not doubt my pardon in Christ Jesus.
   There are moments when one has to look well to one's evidences and come
   to Jesus Christ again--but this one thing I know--that Christ says, "He
   that believes on Me is not condemned." And I do believe on Him! If I
   have an existence, I know that I am trusting the Lord Jesus Christ! And
   if so, then I am pardoned. And oh, how sweet it is to know this! What
   peace it gives! I can look forward to living or to dying with equal
   delight now that I can say, "My sin is forgiven." You can say, as I
   often do, in these sweet words of Kent--

   "Now f-eed from sin, I walk at large, My Savior's blood my full
   discharge. At His dear feet my soul I lay, A sinner saved, and homage
   pay." Do you know what it is to be forgiven, young man? If you do not,
   you have not tasted the sweetest thing out of Heaven! Oh, it is such
   joy! Angels hardly have ever tasted a joy that exceeds the bliss of
   having sins put away. It yields a calm so deep, so profound, that it
   can only be called, "the peace of God which passes all understanding."

   I have thus tried to bring forward the great Truth of God that there is
   forgiveness with Him. And let me say, before I leave this point, that
   you will please remember that we have warrant in God's Word for saying
   that there is forgiveness for you. However great your sins may have
   been, with but one exception--there is the sin against the Holy Spirit
   which, if you have any tenderness left in your conscience, you have not
   committed--but, apart from that, "all manner of sin and blasphemy shall
   be forgiven unto men." I wish I could go round these galleries and to
   these pews, and find out where the aching hearts were. Perhaps I would
   find one who said, "O Sir, I never attended a place of worship for 20
   or 30 years-- can I be pardoned?" I would say, "Yes, there is
   forgiveness for you!" Another might say, "Why, I cursed God to His
   face! I have dared Him to damn my soul! Can I really be forgiven?" I
   will answer, in the words of the text, "There is forgiveness."

   And I might meet another who would say, "But I used to persecute my
   wife. I have ill-treated my children because they would serve God. Can
   I, a hardened wretch such as I am--can I be pardoned?" "There is
   forgiveness." And I might meet another who would say, "Years ago, I was
   a high professor, but I became entangled in the world and I have gone
   bad. Am I not cast out?" And I would say, "There is forgiveness." But
   there would be another who would say, "I cannot tell you what my crime
   is. Will you stoop down and let me whisper it in your ear?" And when I
   heard the awful words,

   which I must not tell again, I would still say, before you all, "There
   is forgiveness." And though it were murder or adultery--whatever it
   might have been and however frequently it might have been
   committed--though the woman were a harlot and the man a practiced
   thief, yet still we have the same Gospel for every creature--"There is
   forgiveness." And though you are 80 or 90 years of age, "There is
   forgiveness." Though you have sinned against light and knowledge,
   against mercy, against God and Christ, His dear Son, yet still--"there
   is forgiveness." You have come to the brink of the precipice--O God, I
   see it! You are just going over--one foot already rests upon nothing
   and you totter to your fall! O man, let me catch you in my arms and
   tell you that "there is forgiveness!" One more step and you may be
   where there is no forgiveness, but where the black and terrible pall of
   despair shall hang over your soul forever! And it shall be said of you,
   "There are no acts of pardon passed in that cold grave to which he has
   gone. He is lost! Lost! Lost forever!" II. And now, secondly, I SHALL
   RECOMMEND THIS GRACIOUS FORGIVENESS TO YOUR NOTICE. I commend it for
   its nature. It is a perfect pardon--every sin is blotted out at
   once--not a few sins, but every sin! Though they are innumerable, they
   are all gone, they are all gone at once! And it is eternalpardon--they
   are all gone forever! Once forgiven, they will never be laid to your
   charge again. They are like the Egyptians in the Red Sea--the depths
   have covered them, there is not one of them left--the pardon is
   complete in every respect. I heard one man say of his friend, the other
   day, when the two had disagreed and I had tried to make it right, "Yes,
   I forgive him, but." That is not how God puts it. He has no "buts" in
   His forgiveness. You sometimes say, "Yes, I forgive him, but I will
   never trust him again." Not so the Lord! You make a clean breast in
   confession and He will give you a clean breast by absolution. He will
   put all the sin you have committed so wholly away that they shall not
   be remembered against you any more forever! And this pardon is
   instantaneous. You know that it takes but a moment to receipt a bill
   when the debt is paid--and Jesus Christ has paid the debt of every
   Believer! And all that is to be done is for God to give you the
   receipt, to write in your heart the word, "JUSTIFIED"--and this He does
   in a moment! When I think of the nature of this pardon-- putting away
   all sin in a moment, and all the consequences of sin, I feel as if I
   wish we had a choir of angels here, that they might sing, "Glory to God
   in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men."

   Consider too, dear Friends, not only the pardon, itself, but the person
   to whom it is sent Remember that it is sent to you. Not to the fallen
   angels--they were greater than you but, when they fell, they fell
   without a hope of being restored to the favor of God. It is not sent to
   the damned in Hell. Oh, what would they not give for it? How would they
   stretch forward--how would they catch every word! Though they have been
   there but one moment, they know more of God's wrath than you and I do
   and oh, how they would prize the presentation of eternal life in Christ
   Jesus! It is not sent to them--it is sent to you. You know what you
   have been. You know something about the hardness of your heart and the
   sinfulness of your past life--yet God sends this message to you, "There
   is forgiveness."

   And I want you to remember who it is that sends the forgiveness. It is
   the God whom you have offended--that very God whom you may have cursed,
   whose Sabbath you have broken, whose Book you have despised, at whose
   ministers you have laughed and whose servants you have persecuted! Yet
   He says, even He, "There is forgiveness." And lest you should doubt it,
   He takes a solemn oath before you all--and God never swears unless
   there is need for it, and thus He swears-- "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." What more can we ask than this? Admire and
   be attracted by the pardon when you think of who it is that sends it!

   Consider, too, how it comes to you, and by what channel It comes
   through the wounds of your best Friend, through the sufferings of Him
   who gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked
   off the hair. "He was 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." O Sinner! Will you not be only too
   glad to lay hold of that which comes to you through so Divine a channel
   which is marked with the heart's blood of One who is the Friend of sin
   even unto death?

   And, then, I pray you to remember that if you do not receive this
   forgiveness which is preached unto you, there is no other way under
   Heaven by which you can be saved. Enter by this door or stand shivering
   outside forever! Bow the knee and kiss the Son, or else He will break
   you in pieces with His rod, as men break potters' vessels. "Turn you,
   turn you from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?"
   But if you reject this pardon of God, you write your own death warrant
   and prepare the noose that is to be your souls' destruction!

   I would to God that I had such powers of persuasion that I might induce
   you to lay hold of this precious pardon that God presents to you. I
   know that my pleading is useless unless the Spirit of God shall be
   pleading, too. But many, many times in this House, while I have been
   talking about the full, rich Grace of God, some poor soul has felt that
   there was a message from God in it and I trust, I hope it may be so
   tonight! Remember that in the message of mercy, I am authorized to
   leave out no one--I am told to preach it to every creature under
   Heaven, and I do. There are no terms but just this-- that you will take
   what God freely gives you! Just as when men enlist for soldiers, the
   soldier does not give the sergeant anything, he takes the shilling. And
   the way in which your souls are saved is by taking what Christ freely
   offers to you, freely presents to you--the finished righteousness which
   He worked out in His life and death! You are to take, not to give! If
   there are terms, they are very simple. They are put so as to suit the
   dead in trespasses and sins! Christ comes to you just where you are.
   You have no power, no spiritual life, no goodness, no tenderness of
   heart--but Jesus, like the good Samaritan, comes just where you are and
   He cries in your ear, "Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead,
   and Christ shall give you light." He bids me say to you, though your
   hand is withered, "Stretch out your hand." Power shall go with the
   command and you shall be made whole!

   I remember the time when if anyone had tried to preach to me full and
   free forgiveness to be had for nothing, and to be had on the spot, I do
   believe I would have leaped almost out of my body to have heard it! I
   have heard, sometimes, of Methodists and Welshmen standing up to dance
   and I do not wonder at it, if they really do but get the full sense of
   this, that the big, black, foul villain of a sinner--the moment he
   trusts Jesus Christ--is forgiven, is a child of God and is accepted!
   Why, it sounds too good to be true! And it could not be true if it came
   only from me, for I am but a man and can only think and act as a man!
   But because it comes from the true God and it is just like Him, because
   it accords with His attributes of loving kindness and truth, therefore
   we know it is true. "I am God, and not man," He says, and He gives that
   as a reason for His mercy. Why, if His love were not as much superior
   to ours as the heavens are above His earth, there would never be mercy
   presented in any shape, much less in a shape like this! There is
   nothing asked of you, only that you will just be nothing and let Christ
   be everything--and take from Christ's hand that which He freely
   presents to you--pardon through His precious blood!

   III. Now, dear Friends, I cannot put this Truth of God more plainly
   than I have done, but I have the last part of the text just to comment
   a little upon--"There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared."

   You see, the only men that ever fear God are those that are forgiven.
   Other men may pretend to do it, but they fail to do it. Why I believe
   that the religion of nine out of ten professing Christians is just
   this, "I go to church, or I go to chapel, regularly, and I then think I
   have done very well." That is what the men think, and the outside world
   believes that religion is this, "If a man is honest, and sober, and
   walks righteously, and so on, he goes to Heaven." But how

   startling must the sermon of this morning [See Sermon No. 515, Volume
   9--THE SINNER'S ADVOCATE] have been to some of these stuck-up Pharisees
   when we told them it was not the righteous who would go there, but the
   sinner! And that the Apostle John did not say, "If any man has done
   good works, he has an Advocate," but, "If any man sins, we have an
   Advocate with the Father." As Martin Luther gloried to put it, "Jesus
   Christ never died for our good works--they were not worth His dying
   for! He gave Himself for our sins, according to the Scriptures." What
   did our Savior, Himself, say, "I came not to call the righteous, but
   sinnersto repentance."

   The Lord never has any who really and acceptably fear Him but those who
   once were sinners and who are led as sinners to accept His pardon--and
   these are the people that fear Him. Do you want to find a warm-hearted
   woman who really loves Jesus Christ and who would break the alabaster
   box for His sake? You will find her in one who may be called "a woman
   who was a sinner." Do you want to find a man who would preach Christ's
   Word with tears running down his cheeks? You must go and find him among
   them who once were foul, of whom the Apostles said, "Such were some of
   you, but you are washed." When the Lord wanted a man to write the next
   best book in the world to the Bible--The Pilgrim's Progress--He did not
   go to Lambeth Palace for him, and He did not go to any of the fine
   streets of this city to pick up some moral person. There was a swearing
   tinker playing at "cat" on Sunday on Elstow-Green, and the Lord said,
   "That is the man." He laid hold of him, washed his heart, made him a
   new man in Christ Jesus--and John Bunyan, the master-dreamer, has given
   us that remarkable book! And when the Lord wanted a man who would stir
   up London from end to end by preaching in St. Mary Woolnoth, where
   should He find him? Why, among the ragamuffins who were conducting

   the slave trade on the coast of Africa among the sweepings and dregs of
   the universe! Almighty Grace picked up John Newton, changed his heart
   and made him one of His mightiest teachers!

   And when the Lord will bring out any that shall really fear Him and do
   anything great for His sake, it will be either from among those who
   have been outwardly great sinners, or else those who have been made in
   their conscience to feel the greatness of their guilt and thus have
   been fitted to deal with others. Oh, how many times I have blessed God
   for the five years of despair that I had to endure! No poor soul was
   ever more racked than I was, nor more hunted of the devil. For five
   years I was a victim to that black thought that God would never forgive
   me and I bless His name for it. I never could have preached to the
   chief of sinners if it had not been for that experience! If I had come
   freely from my mother's apron strings without any deep sense of sin,
   and had found Christ as many and many a young man does, readily and at
   once, I would never have liked to go down and run my hands in the mire
   to get at the foul and the vile. But now I look back upon those times
   of anguish--why, they were days when I thought I was worse than the
   devils in Hell! They were days when if anybody had asked me my
   character, though no one ever knew anything amiss of it, still I would
   have said, and felt it, too, that there did not breathe God's air a
   greater miscreant that more deserved to be in Hell than I did! I wrote
   bitter things against myself and if any had said, "Why, your life is
   moral," I would have said, "Yes, but my heart is a reeking dunghill,
   full of everything that is foul!" And I felt it, too, for though my
   lips never cursed God, yet my heart did with blasphemy so foul that I
   shudder when I think of it. When I was given up as prey to the devil,
   and it seemed as if there was a pandemonium within my heart, then
   indeed I knew what it was to be sorely broken in the place of darkness
   and to be like a ship driven out to sea with the mast gone over the
   side and every timber strained and the hold filling with water--and
   nothing but Omnipotence keeping it from going down into the lowest
   depths! Ah, then I knew that I needed a great Christ for great sinners!
   And I dare not ever preach a little Christ! And I dare not preach Him
   to little sinners either!

   Oh, how great your sin has been, my Hearers! But Jesus Christ is still
   greater! You have gone deeply into sin, but the arm of Mercy can reach
   you! You have wandered far, but the eyes of Love can see you and the
   voice of Love calls to you now, "Come, come, come and welcome, come and
   welcome!" Come just as you are and you will not be cast away, but be
   accepted in the Beloved! "There is forgiveness with You, that You may
   be feared," and none fear, and love, and bless, and praise God as much
   as those who know that there is forgiveness with Him!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 145.

   When you get to the 145th Psalm, you enter the Beulah Land of the
   Psalms. Henceforth the time of the singing of birds is come and you go
   from one Hallelujah to another! In the Hebrew, this is one of the
   alphabetical Psalms, but one letter (nun) is omitted, perhaps, as Dr.
   Bonar suggests, "we must be kept from putting stress on the mere form
   of the composition." Those ancient singers sang their way through the
   alphabet from A to Z, and it is also well for us to begin to praise the
   Lord while we are yet children, and to keep on praising Him till we get
   to the "Z" in the very hour of death, gasping His praises till we get
   into eternity--

   "My God, I'll prase You while I live,

   And praise You when I die!

   And praise You when I rise again,

   And to eternity!"

   Verses. 1-3. I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your
   name forever and ever Every day will I bless You, and I will praise
   Your name forever and ever Great is the LORD, and greatly to be
   praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. Such as the Lord is, such
   should His worship be. If He were a little God, He would deserve little
   praise, but the great God is "greatly to be praised." There is no fear
   of going to any excess in our praises--we will never laud Him too
   highly, however lofty our expressions may be.

   "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is
   unsearchable." David knew what it was to be searched by God and he
   prayed, "Search me, O God." But he could not search the greatness of
   his God. There, he was utterly lost--the utmost range of his faculties
   could not compass the greatness of Jehovah--"His greatness is
   unsearchable."

   4. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare
   Your mighty acts. There is a hallowed tradition of praise. Each
   generation should hand out the praise of God as a precious legacy to
   the next one. Train up your sons and daughters to praise your God so
   that when your voice is silent in death, another voice like your own
   may continue the strain.

   5. I will speak of the glorious honor of Your majesty, and of Your
   wondrous works. "I will speak." What a powerful speaker David was! Note
   how he piles up his golden words. He is not content merely to talk of
   God's majesty, but he speaks of its "glorious honor." When he talked of
   God's works, he calls them "wondrous works."

   6. And men shall speak of the might of Your terrible acts. If they will
   not speak of anything else, they shall be obliged to speak with awe
   when the terrors of the Lord are abroad in the earth. If they were as
   dumb as fishes before, they shall begin to say to one another, with
   bated breath, when earthquakes, famines, war and pestilence are rife,
   "What a terrible God He is!"

   6. And I will declare Your greatness. While other men were talking,
   David did not say, "Now I can be quiet." When they did not speak, he
   did, and when they began to speak, he still added his quota of praise
   to Jehovah.

   7. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great goodness, and
   shall sing of Your righteousness. What a beautiful expression! "They
   shall abundantly utter." The original has in it the idea of bubbling
   up, boiling over, bursting out like a fountain! Men's hearts shall get
   to be so full of gratitude to God that they shall overflow with the
   memory of His great goodness! Then they shall sing. Singing is the
   language ofjubilant nature--"the mountains and the hills shall break
   forth before you into singing." Singing is the language of men when
   they wish to express their highest joys. The saints sing the high
   praises of their God. Singing is the language of the holy angels! Did
   they not, when they came to Bethlehem, sing concerning the newborn
   King? Singing is the language of Heaven and most marvelous of all,
   singing is the highest language that God ever uses! "He will rejoice
   over you with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with
   singing." Oh, for more holy singing!

   8. The LORD is gracious. That alone is enough to make us sinners sing,
   for we need Divine Grace and, "the Lord is gracious."

   8. And full of compassion. There is no "passion" in Him, but there is
   "compassion" in Him. What a mercy that is for us! He is full of
   compassion."

   8. Slow to anger, and of great mercy. Hear that, you great sinners and
   you saints who need great forbearance?

   9. The Lord is good to all Even to His enemies! Does not the dewdrop
   hang upon the thistle as well as upon the rose?

   9. And His tender mercies are over all His works. He cares for the worm
   in the sod and for the fish in the sea as well as for men upon the face
   of the earth.

   10. All Your works shall praise You, O Lord; and Your saints shall
   bless You. Their voices can reach a higher note and a loftier strain
   than God's works can ever reach. "Your saints shall bless You."

   11. They shall speak of the glory of Your Kingdom. For the saints love
   God as their King, and they rejoice to remember what the King's Son
   said to His disciples, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's
   good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." So well may they sing of it!

   11-13. And talk of Your power; to make known to the sons of men His
   mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His Kingdom. Your Kingdom is
   an everlasting Kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all
   generations. What is the use of preaching if it does not glorify God?
   What is the use of a tongue that does not speak or sing of the glory of
   God's Kingdom? Let one of God's bards have this as the theme of his
   song and he feels like a hind let loose, rejoicing in glorious liberty!

   14. The Lord upholds all that fall, and raises up as those that are
   bowed. Does not this seem to be an amazing change in the strain? The
   Lord is a King and His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom--yet what is
   He doing? Why, He is upholding, propping up those that are ready to
   fall and lifting up those that are crushed and oppressed! Earthly kings
   often glory in the terror of their power and the splendor of their
   majesty. What a condescending God is ours, whose Glory is a moral glory
   and whose chief delight consists in blessing the poor and needy! Let us
   bless His name for this. Are any of you ready to fall? Then praise Him
   for this glorious truth, "The Lord upholds all that fall"! Are any of
   you bowed

   down? Daughter of Abraham, have you been bowed down these many years?
   Oh, that you might be made straight this very hour! And you may be, for
   God can lift you up, for He "raises up all those that are bowed down."

   15, 16. The eyes of all wait upon You; and You give them their meat in
   due season. You open Your hands and satisfy the desire of every living
   thing. What a glorious God we have! How easily can He supply the needs
   of His people! He has but to open His hands and it is done! We need not
   be afraid to come to Him, as though our needs would be too great for
   Him to supply. The commissariat of the universe is superintended by
   this truly Universal Provider, who has but to open His hands to satisfy
   "the desire of every living thing."

   17. The LORD is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.
   This is a thing for which many modern divines do not praise God. The
   attribute of righteousness in the Character of God is expelled from a
   good deal of modern theology. But he who loves God rightly, loves the
   righteousness of God! I would not care to have salvation if it were
   unrighteous salvation. The righteousness of God gleams like a sharp
   two-edged sword and it is terrible to those who are at enmity against
   Him. But the true children of the Most High delight to see this sword
   of State carried in the front of the great King of kings! The seraphim
   cry, one to another, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts!" The
   redeemed in Glory sing, "Just and true are Your ways, You King of
   saints!" But the critical critics of the present day care nothing for
   these attributes of Jehovah.

   18. The LORD is near unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call
   upon Him in truth. If you read this Psalm through carefully, you will
   notice the great number of, "alls," with which the latter part of the
   Psalm is studded. And this is appropriate, for God is All-in-All, He is
   the One, the All, so let Him have all praise from all!

   19. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him: He also will hear
   their cry, and will save them. When you have respect to God's will, God
   will have respect to your will. When you fear Him you will have no one
   else to fear, and when you make His service your delight, He will make
   your needs His care.

   20. The LORD preserves all them that love Him: but all the wicked will
   He destroy. As in a state of sanitary perfection, everything that
   breeds pollutants and disease is banished--so must it be in God's great
   universe when He has completed His works--"all the wicked will He
   destroy."

   21. My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh
   bless His holy name forever and ever.
     __________________________________________________________________

Thought Condemned, Yet Commanded

   (No. 2973)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 6, 1876.

   "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall
   we drink? Or, What shall we wear? (For after all these things do the
   Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all
   these things. But seekyou first the Kingdom ofGod, and His
   righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew
   6:31-33.

   THESE are soothing words to read, but difficult words to put into
   practice. Had anyone except the Lord Jesus Christ uttered them, we
   might have quoted to him that ancient saying, "Physician, heal
   yourself," for we shall never find any other teacher who is, himself,
   absolutely free from care. But Jesus Christ not only gives us the
   purest possible precepts, but His own life is the best exposition of
   them. If ever you want to know what Christ means by His teaching, look
   at His life. You may rest assured that He never gave us a command which
   He was not, Himself, prepared to obey. Those of us who have put our
   trust in Christ are His servants and He, Himself, condescended to be a
   Servant for our sakes. Indeed, He is the real model Servant and the
   service which He requires of us, He, Himself, shows us how to perform.
   I do not intend, therefore, so much to expound the text by any words of
   my own, as to illustrate it by the life of Jesus Christ Himself. I
   think that it may be more profitable and certainly it will be more
   unusual, if I take these words of Christ and say to you, "If you would
   know their meaning, look at the life of Him whom you call Master and
   Lord. You can best understand His words by His works."

   I see in the text, first, a precept forbidding thought Secondly, a
   precept commanding thought And then, in the two precepts, if they are
   rightly kept, I see a frame of mind admirably fitted for all Believers
   in coming to the Communion Table.

   I. First, then, we have here A PRECEPT FORBIDDING THOUGHT--a precept
   which says, "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or,
   What shall we drink? Or, What shall we wear?" How are we to understand
   this precept?

   Certainly, we are not to understand it in the sense of the idler, who
   says, "God will provide and, therefore, there is no need for me to
   labor. God's Providence is my inheritance and, therefore, I may fold my
   arms and sit still." The man who talks and acts in that fashion will
   have thistles on his land, emptiness in his cupboard, rags on his back
   and ruin to his character--and all that will serve him right! Paul
   wrote to the Thessalonians, "This we commanded you, that if any would
   not work, neither should he eat." And it would, perhaps, be the best
   way of treating some men if they were never allowed to eat anything
   except what they had themselves earned. Of course, this rule would not
   apply in the case of those who are disabled by old age, or laid aside
   by sickness, but, in every other case, work is the lot of us all and it
   is a benefit to us all--and we ought never, under the pretense of
   piety, to endeavor to shirk it! You have heard, perhaps, of the very
   pious man who entered a monastery in order that he might spend all his
   time in devotion. So, when the time came for the brethren to go into
   the fields to work, he did not leave his cell--he was too spiritual to
   handle a hoe or a spade, so he continued in communion with angels. He
   was very much surprised, however, when the time came for the
   brotherhood to assemble in the refectory, that he was not called! And
   after waiting till the demands of hunger overcame the claims of his
   spiritual being, he went to the prior and asked why he had not been
   called to the meal. And he was informed that as he was so spiritual
   that he could not work, it was thought that he was probably so
   spiritual that he could not eat and, at any rate, the laws of the
   monastery did not permit him to eat until he had earned what he needed.
   There was much

   common sense in that reply and our Lord Jesus Christ was not one of
   your lackadaisical, goody-goody sort of people who have nothing at all
   to do! Point me to a single wasted hour in our Savior's whole life.
   Show me one instance in which He was a sluggard, if you can. There is
   His life record before you, written by four truthful men--put your
   finger, if you can, upon a single spot where He might be rightly
   accused of being sluggish. If he had been so, we might have had a
   warrant for interpreting this text according to the lazy man's version
   of it, but it is not so. His motto was always, "I must work the works
   of Him that sent Me while it is day; the night comes when no man can
   work."

   Neither did our Lord Jesus Christ intend to inculcate prodigality when
   he said, "Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat?" and so on. This
   is what the young spendthrift does when he comes into possession of his
   estate. He gathers all he has with both hands. Take thoughts? Not he!
   As long as the gold will last, he will spend it without reckoning! All
   the proverbs of prudence he despises--he is too free-hearted and
   generous to think of them--and so, by his sinful extravagance, he
   speedily brings himself to poverty. Our Lord Jesus Christ never meant
   that and He never acted like that. With what singular economy did the
   Savior always behave! Generous to the last degree, He fed five thousand
   men, besides women and children, but, equally economical, He said to
   His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be
   lost." Jesus Christ would have us take care of what we have, for we are
   only stewards, and a steward must not waste his Lord's goods.
   Extravagance, waste--the allowing of anything to perish which ought to
   be used--is a wrong thing which cannot be too sternly condemned. And
   the Savior never intended, for a single moment, to justify any such
   action as that!

   Neither did our Lord forbid a certain amount of forethought. One kind
   of forethought He certainly did condemn when He said, "Take therefore
   no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the
   things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." But He,
   Himself--and as I have reminded you, He is His own Expositor and the
   key to His own teaching--often looked forward. For instance, with
   regard to Lazarus, who He might have gone to him at once, He stayed
   away a while, looking forward to the time when Lazarus would have been
   dead and buried four days as the proper period for displaying His
   resurrection power! And as for His own death, He looked forward to that
   from the very opening of His earthly ministry and long before. He had a
   baptism to be baptized with, and He was straitened until it was
   accomplished. He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, not
   merely once, but virtually all His life! He did think of His latter end
   and His whole life was a preparation for that great offering up of
   Himself as a Sacrifice for the sins of men. He did not, therefore,
   forbid us to look to the end of life and to the necessary preparation
   for that end. He did not forbid us to look towards ends and objectives
   which may require futurity to ripen them, for, if we did not do so, our
   life would be altogether confusion and certainly could not be
   well-directed!

   What, then, did the Savior mean when He said, "Take no thought, saying,
   What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, What shall we wear?" I
   think that He meant, first, "Do not let provision for your temporal
   needs be the chief end of your life, for this is what the heathen do.
   The heathen Gentiles live to eat, to drink and to clothe themselves."
   This is what the savage still does--give him "happy hunting grounds"
   where he can get sufficient food, and where the skins of beasts may
   cover him from the inclemency of the weather and you have given him all
   that he needs. Jesus says, "After all these things do the Gentiles
   seek." But you are not to make this search the sole end and aim of your
   life--you were created for something nobler and better than that. For
   such an objective as this, an ox or an ass may live, but not a
   Christian! It is utterly beneath the dignity of your immortal spirit,
   redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, to be living alone, or
   chiefly, for this reason. This is a matter which will require your
   careful thought--God has formed you of the dust of the ground and the
   appetites of animals are shared in by you--they crave and demand your
   attention--but not such attention as would lead you to make these minor
   matters the main business of your life! But, alas, how many men there
   are who are simply great consumers of bread, meat, wine and such like
   things--

   "Like brutes they live--like brutes they die." May God convert them, by
   His Grace, and so lift them up to something higher! As for all of you
   who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, scorn such business as
   satisfies the heathen savage!

   But the Savior must have meant more than that. When He said, "Take no
   thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink," He
   meant, as compared with the service of God, and the honor and glory of
   His name, which should be the great objective of your life--do not give
   any consideration to these other things. Christ elsewhere puts the
   matter thus, "He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates
   his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." He

   means that His disciple is to hate, or to love less, even his own
   life--to be prepared to consider that even that is a mere trifle if it
   should ever be a hindrance to the Glory of Christ. You remember how the
   Apostle Paul said to the Ephesian elders, "Neither count I my life dear
   unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the
   ministry which I received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of
   the Grace of God." Brethren, if it ever comes to this, that you must
   lose your business, your employment, your livelihood, or else do
   wrong--lose everything sooner than commit the smallest sin! And if it
   came to this, that you must lose your liberty and lie in a dungeon, or
   else deny the faith--accept the prison, but reject the opportunity of
   traitorously forsaking your Lord and Master! And if it came even to
   death, itself, remember how bravely the martyrs behaved when they
   refused to accept pardon at the price of recantation! They could die,
   but they could not deny their Lord! They could burn, but they could not
   turn and, therefore, they took no thought as to what they should eat or
   what they should drink, or whether they should live or die! They
   counted all such things as insignificant trifles to those who were
   seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness! And who will
   dare to say that they were unwise? If any should even hint that they
   were not wise, think of them, as they are now within yonder pearly
   portals, amid the white-robed hosts bearing the victor's palm--

   "Foremost of the sons of light, Nearest the eternal Throne of God!"
   These are they who, for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, took no thought
   of minor matters, but followed the Lamb where ever He led the way!

   Still further to open up the meaning of this injunction, let me remind
   you that this is just what our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did. You
   cannot say that Jesus Christ ever troubled His head about what He
   should eat, or what He should drink--His meat and His drink consisted
   in doing His Father's will! Even life itself was as nothing to Him, for
   He cheerfully laid it down for our sakes. When the devil offered Him
   all the kingdoms of the world, you know how He answered him. And when,
   afterwards, Peter began to rebuke Him for talking about dying, He
   seemed to think that He was in the same position as when He was with
   the devil in the wilderness, for He said to Peter, "Get you behind Me,
   Satan; for you savor not the things that are of God, but those that are
   of man." He counted nothing that He had as being worth preserving and,
   in this sense, taking no thought of anything, He surrendered all to God
   to be used for the good of His people!

   And, dear Friends, we shall further see the meaning of the text if we
   note that we are not to take such thought about eating, drinking and so
   on, as to make ourselves slaves to work and worry. I know some
   professing Christians who seem as if they needed to grasp the whole
   world. They already have plenty of business, yet they are craving for
   more. The days are not long enough for them--they would like to be up
   before the larks, or not to go to bed at all if they could do without
   sleep! They stretch out their arms like huge encompassing seas seeking
   to swallow all the shore. They have what ought to be enough--they have
   long had enough and a great deal more than enough for their needs--yet
   they have not enough, nor is it probable that they ever will have
   enough to satisfy their cravings unless the Grace of God should exert
   its gracious influence over their hearts! And see how worried they
   always are! I have seen a poor man with only a crust of dry bread to
   eat, yet he was perfectly happy. And I have seen a rich man with an
   abundance of wealth--and he was utterly miserable! The one could
   rejoice in God, though he had little of this world's goods. But the
   other could not rejoice notwithstanding all that he possessed!

   A Christian should not be one of those who are full of worry, those who
   rise up early, sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness and devote
   all their time to secular and secondary things, so that they have no
   leisure for private devotion, or for the service of God. God ought not
   to have the clippings and the odds and ends of life. He ought not to
   come in for the cheese-parings and the candle ends as He seems to do in
   some men's houses. But the chief part of our time, yes, all our time
   should, in some respects, be consecrated to Him. While it is right for
   you to be diligent in business, yet you should always let everything be
   done for God's Glory--and that cannot be the case if you become the
   slave of Mammon and if the signs of fretting and worrying are plainly
   visible upon your very face! Think for a moment--when did your Lord
   ever fret and worry about gold and silver? Did anyone ever see upon
   that blessed brow of His any cloud because of His lack of these things?
   Enough was given to Him for His daily maintenance and that, He
   entrusted to Judas, the treasurer of His little band of disciples. But
   He made no request for it, nor did He levy any tithe or tax for the
   support of Himself

   and His followers. Nor was He ever anxious about ways and means. He
   took all things calmly and quietly and He would have you do the same.

   And He meant too, dear Friends, that no Christian ought to be very
   anxious about anything. Henever was. I know some Christians and some of
   them are here now, who will not enjoy the service, or the Communion
   because they are so anxious about what is possibly going to happen.
   They say that they believe in Providence, but they really disbelieve in
   it. They say that they are trusting in God, but they do not truly trust
   Him. They know that they ought to cast all their care upon Him who
   cares for them, but they do not do anything of the kind! They continue
   to care for themselves and they are almost worn out with anxiety. Look
   even at the mother of our Lord when the supply of wine at the
   wedding-feast ran short--she was, apparently, all in a fret, so she
   went to Jesus and said, "They have no wine." But Jesus said to her,
   "Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour is not yet come." His time
   would come in due course and then He would give them what they needed
   for that wedding feast. But until the right moment came, He remained
   calm and quiet. And that is how we should be, leaving everything in
   God's hands. Having done all that we can do by honest labor and earnest
   prayer, let us leave the rest with God, for He would not have His
   children cumbered with much serving, nor have them vexed with earthly
   cares.

   And, more than that, dear Friends, we ought never to take such thought
   as to get to murmuring, repining and complaining of our lot, as though
   it had not been fixed by Infinite Love and Wisdom! Some people wish
   that they were almost anything rather than what they are, albeit there
   are others who would be glad enough to be just what those very people
   are! You think, my Brother, that your cross is heavier to bear than
   mine? I would not, however, recommend you change with me, as I
   certainly would not change with you! If we could all lay our crosses
   down in this Tabernacle and each man could take another one's cross
   which he liked better than his own--within 24 hours we should all be
   back here crying for our own crosses to be given to us again--for each
   man's cross fits his shoulders better than anybody else's cross would
   fit them! Besides, we can have Grace given to us to endure the trial
   which God has sent us--but if we had a trial of our own choosing we
   could not expect that Divine Grace would be given to support us under
   that, so what would we do then? Never murmur, my Brothers and Sisters,
   until you find Christ murmuring. Read all the records of His life and
   see when He ever complained. Foxes had holes and the birds of the air
   had nests, but He had nowhere to lay His head. Yet He did not mention
   that fact in any spirit of complaining. He was a poor Man. His garment
   was like the common robe of the country. His food did not consist of
   delicacies and dainties, neither was His drink selected from the
   choicest liquids in the world. Yet He was a joyous man--"a Man of
   Sorrows" for our sakes, but, as far as He, Himself, was personally
   concerned, the noblest, the calmest and the happiest of mankind!

   And, Brothers and Sisters, we must never let thought about temporal
   things drive us to despair. Possibly, in this large audience, there is
   a man who says, "I have struggled very hard and everything seems to go
   against me--I am inclined to throw it all away." But, my Brother, when
   did your Lord throw away all His work, or throw anyof His work away? He
   never did! And if you will take to God that portion of your care which
   you ought not to attempt to carry, you will find that the part of the
   load which you ought to carry is not too heavy for your shoulders when
   the Lord strengthens you with His Grace! The wear and tear of life
   comes not out of the Providential trials which we have to endure, but
   out of the unbelieving cares and burdens which we make for ourselves!
   You can carry easily enough the load that God appoints for you, my
   Brothers and Sisters, but if you let the devil sit on the top of it in
   the form of your own anxieties, doubts and fears, then the burden will
   crush you to the earth! Imitate your blessed Lord and Master, and never
   despair, but hope on, hope always and even if God, Himself, should seem
   to forsake you, yet cry, "My God, my God," even as Jesus did when God
   had forsaken Him!

   I will only say one other thing upon this point, which is that we are
   not to think about temporal things so as to get into the habit of
   hoarding, as some do. They scarcely spend enough to provide for their
   own necessities. The poor ask nothing from them. And God's Church--I
   was about to say gets less than nothing--and I might truly say that
   though it appears to be impossible, for there are some who give a good
   deal less than nothing to the Lord's cause, for they occupy a place in
   the building where services are held which has been erected, and is
   still kept up by others at an expense which these misers never attempt
   to share--so that, as far as God's House is concerned, they absolutely
   take from that House instead of giving to it, albeit that they have
   superabundant substance of their own from which they ought to
   contribute to the work of the Lord! Saving is well, but the first thing
   that a man has to do is to see to the saving of his soul! And

   there are some who always look so much to the saving of their wealth
   that their soul stands very little chance of being saved! To get and to
   holdseems to be the great end-all and be-all of some men's being--but
   it can never be so with a true Christian. He, by Divine Grace, is like
   His Master, who, "though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor."
   His riches consisted in giving and, therefore, He was the richest man
   who ever lived, for He gave more than anyone else when He gave Himself
   that He might redeem His people!

   I have thus explained to you the thought that is forbidden. May God's
   Grace enable us to obey our Lord's injunction. And the secret--the only
   secret by which we can learn how to obey it is this--somebody must
   think and care for us and, as we are not to think and care for
   ourselves, we must cease all sinful caring by believing that our
   Heavenly Father cares for us! If Jesus cares for me, I may get rid of
   care about myself. And I urge all my dear Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, by the wounds that were given Him for our sake, and by all the
   many tokens of His love that He has given to us, never to doubt that He
   cares for us in anything--in the little things as much as in the great
   ones, counting even the hairs of our head and bearing all our
   afflictions, according to that gracious Word of God, "In all their
   affliction He was afflicted." Cast your care, then, on Him, for so you
   may cease to care for yourselves!

   II. But now, secondly, we have in the text A PRECEPT COMMANDING
   THOUGHT--"Seek you first the

   Kingdom of God, and His righteousness."

   Call back your thoughts from the pursuit of the tidings of this life
   and when you have recalled them, send them forth in pursuit of the
   blessings of the life that is to come! What ought a Christian to care
   for? What did Christ care for? Christ's great care was for His Father's
   Glory. For this He lived and for this He died. There is no single
   action of His life that had not God's Glory as its end. O beloved
   Brothers and Sisters who are bought with the blood of Christ, we
   cannot, any of us, say this about our own lives! Yet we ought to be
   able to say it and we ought now to pray God's blessed Spirit to enable
   us to concentrate all our thoughts, powers and energies upon this one
   objective--that we might, in all things, glorify God! This is, as the
   Catechism says, "man's chief end"--especially the chief end of redeemed
   man--to do everything, whether he eats, or drinks, or whatever he does,
   to do all to the Glory of God--to make the most common acts of daily
   life, as well as the higher acts of service and devotion, subservient
   to God's Glory. God help you to attain to this ideal Christian life!

   Next to that, Christ's great care was to do the particular work which
   God had given Him to do. When He had been sitting by the well, talking
   to that poor woman of Samaria, His disciples wondered why He did not
   ask for meat. But He said to them, "My meat is to do the will of Him
   that sent Me, and to finish His work." He was completely absorbed in
   that one thing--the finishing of the work which God had given Him to
   do. And how early He began that work! What a bright example He has set
   before you young lads and lasses! When He was 12 years of ago, after He
   had been "in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both
   hearing them, and asking them questions," and Joseph and Mary had
   sorrowed because they could not find Him, He said to them, in answer to
   His mother's question of reproof, "Did you not know that I must be
   about My Father's business?" And He might have finished His life with
   the same enquiry. When wicked men led Him away to crucify Him and He
   willingly went as a sheep to the slaughter, He might have said, "I am
   still about My Father's business." He never sought to save Himself--He
   always served His Father who had sent Him. There were no by-ends with
   Christ. You never find Him seeking personal honor. On the contrary, He
   hid Himself away from men when they sought to thrust honor upon Him.
   You never find Him seeking personal pleasure--His life was a life of
   self-denial. You never find Him seeking riches. Among all the poor,
   there were none poorer than He was. But He always delighted to do what
   God had given Him to do!

   O Brothers and Sisters, if we were to live as He did, we would make our
   lives to be grand lives, and happy lives, too, albeit that we would
   probably multiply our sorrows, even as Christ did. Yet, as I have
   already reminded you, there was a deep happiness underneath the
   surface, in Christ's inmost soul, which abundantly recompensed Him for
   all the trials He had to endure. Let us labor to do as He did so that
   we shall be able to say, "This one thing I do--the one thing which God
   has given me to do." Short of this, let us never be content. I long to
   be able to say with the Apostle Paul, "For to me to live is Christ." I
   should like to be a thunderbolt, hurled from the right hand of God, and
   to go crashing through every obstacle till it had reached the mark at
   which God had aimed me! I pray that the love of Christ may thus
   constrain me, and drive me on towards the great objective of my
   being--the Glory of my God! So may it be with you too, dear Friends
   and, to that end, "gird up the loins of your mind," "lay aside every
   weight" and the clinging garments which would entangle you and impede
   you in running to the goal which lies before you--the finishing of the
   work which God has given you to do!

   What else did Christ care for? Well, I might truly say that He cared
   for nothing else. For these two things--to glorify God and to finish
   His work--comprehend His whole life. Yet, as a matter of detail, I may
   remind you that Christ lived to care for His people. He was free from
   care about Himself, yet full of care for His people. From the very
   first day when He had disciples around Him, till the hour in which He
   was taken up from them, He was always thinking about them. Read any one
   of the Gospels through, with this thought in your mind, and you will be
   struck with the tender care of Jesus Christ towards those who followed
   Him. There is Peter, for instance. Christ knows that Satan desires to
   have him, that he may sift him as wheat, but He means to be before the
   devil, so He says to Peter, "I have prayed for you, that your faith
   fail not." He did not say, "I will pray for you when you get into
   Satan's sieve" but, "I have prayed for you already. I have anticipated
   the temptation by My supplication for you." When Judas and the band of
   men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees came to arrest
   our Lord in Gethsemane, what did He say? "If, therefore, you seek Me,
   let these go their way." His only thought was about His disciples, not
   about Himself! Just as, after instituting the Last Supper, when He was
   going out to be betrayed and needed all the comfort, humbly speaking,
   that His disciples could give Him, He never asked them for comfort, but
   He began comforting them by saying to them, "Let not your heart be
   troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me! In My Father's house
   are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to
   prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
   will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you
   may be also." You see that all His care was for you, not for Himself!
   And, Brothers and Sisters, let us have something like this care for the
   Church of God! Let us be mindful of the Lord's people and let us watch
   for opportunities of doing good to others. If we hear of any who are
   seeking the Lord, let us try to guide them to Him. If we know any among
   our Brothers and Sisters who have backslidden, let us seek to be the
   means of restoring them. If any are sad at heart, let us endeavor to
   comfort them. Having given up all sinful cares, let the welfare of the
   people of God be our one and only care!

   And then, again, Christ had a care for those who had no care for Him.
   That is a beautiful simile which He used concerning guilty Jerusalem,
   "How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen
   gathers her chickens under her wings, but you would not!" That is a
   beautiful emblem of what Christianity should be. The mother bird seems
   utterly oblivious of herself altogether. If she can but spread her
   wings over those little chicks that nestle down close to her bosom, she
   will give away her own warmth for them and sacrifice her own life in
   their defense. Christ looked upon that city, which He knew would perish
   with an overwhelming destruction, but His big heart was palpitating in
   His bosom and He was longing to cover even those great sinners with His
   wings of love! He manifested His care for the sons of men very
   practically. When a crowd gathers to hear anyone preach, surely it is
   not the preacher's business to feed his congregation as well as teach
   them! Yet Jesus thought it was His duty to do so. They were hungry,
   weary and ready to faint--and the gracious Savior was concerned about
   them, though He had no care about Himself. And He especially cared for
   those poor pale-faced women and children who had come so far, and
   looked so weak. And He said to His disciples, "I have compassion on the
   multitude because they continue with Me now three days and have nothing
   to eat. And I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint on the
   way."

   And then, like a prince who makes a great feast, He fed them all with
   loaves and fishes! And, Christian men and women, if God enables you to
   get rid of care on your own account, you will begin to care for the
   poor and needy, and to care for sinners. Yes, and you will learn to
   love your neighbor as yourself. And when you meet with a case that
   needs your help, you will be careful in attending to it. And if you
   cannot tell whether it is a good case or not, you will be like Job, who
   said, "The cause which I knew not I searched out." That man is like
   Christ who lives, not for himself, but for others. It has been all too
   truly said that there are some people whose first care is for
   themselves, and whose second care is for themselves, and whose third
   care is for themselves, and whose fourth care is for themselves, and so
   on as many times as you like to repeat it! Possibly somewhere down in
   the millions, there is a little care for somebody else, but it is too
   low down ever to come to anything practical. I am afraid it is often so
   with some professing Christians! But let it not be so among you. The
   heathen care for themselves. The brute beasts care for themselves. But
   the Christian should care for others, with a view to the Glory of God.
   For this reason he should live, even as Jesus lived.

   III. Now, thirdly, IN THE SPIRIT OF THESE TWO PRECEPTS, IT WILL BE WELL
   FOR ALL CHRISTIANS TO COME TO THEIR LORD'S TABLE.

   Come first, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, without care about
   temporal things. Did you come in here heavily burdened, my Sister? Then
   you had forgotten that the Lord loved you and that He knew all about
   your needs. Now that I remind you of these facts, leave your burden in
   the pew where you are sitting--it will not bother anybody else--and
   come to the Table without it. "O Sir!" you say, "I have worked very
   hard all week." Then, my dear Sister, do not go on working or worrying
   today. "I have had a crushing burden to carry the last six months,"
   says a Brother. Then, my dear Brother, do not carry it any
   longer--there is no need that you should. The Jews, when they ate the
   Passover, stood with their loins girded and each man had his staff in
   his hand. They were allowed to carry a burden, for they were going on a
   long journey and they were thrust out in haste. So we read that "the
   people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs
   being bound up in their clothes, upon their shoulders." But the
   Christian, at the Lord's Table, does not stand. What ought to be our
   posture at the Communion Table? In Matthew 26:20, we read, "When the
   even was come, He sat down with the twelve." No doubt, according to the
   Oriental custom, they reclined in such a position that John even leaned
   his head upon the bosom of Christ. They sat, or reclined, perfectly at
   their ease, as if to remind us that when we believe in Jesus Christ, we
   enter into rest. What is the teaching of the emblems upon the
   Table--the bread and the wine? What do they mean? They are to remind us
   of the broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ and of His shed blood, of
   which we are, symbolically, to eat and to drink. Paul says, "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?" What? Will He deny you
   bread for your body after He has given you Christ, the Bread of Heaven,
   for your soul? Will He deny you clothes for your body after He has
   clothed your soul with the robe of Christ's perfect righteousness? Will
   He deny you a sufficient store of earthly goods that you may get
   through this world when He has already given you a mansion in the skies
   and a crown of life that fades not? If we should forget our cares
   anywhere--surely we should do so at the Communion Table!

   Now, dear Friends, let me, ask--why do you still carry your caress Have
   they ever done you any good? Which one of you, who has been the most
   full of care, has ever put a sixpence into his pocket thereby? With all
   your fretting and worrying, have you ever obtained any comfort? It is
   sorry music that you make with your moaning over your anxieties! I am
   sure that you have never enjoyed the tune yourself, nor has anyone
   else. And as for you who have been the greatest money-grubbers, I can
   tell you that you will die poorer than you were when you were born!
   "No," you say "that cannot be, for naked came we into this world." But
   you will die poorer than that, for when you came into this world you
   had both soul and body--but when you go out of this world, you will
   have to leave your body behind, so that you will die poorer than you
   were born! You may save as much as you like and you may struggle, and
   wrestle, and fret, and fume, and worry, but it will come to that in the
   end! The man who will carry fifty staves, or a hundred, or who will not
   be satisfied till he gets many hundred staves and tries to travel along
   with all that bundle of sticks--well, he may do it if he likes, but if
   you will give me one good stout stick to walk with, I will be satisfied
   and I think that is the wise thing to do! He who has what he really
   needs and who is content, is the truly rich man!

   So, Brothers and Sisters, put aside all cares about temporal things as
   you come to the Table of your Lord. But come to His Table with your
   heart full of care about your God. Come with this care--that you may
   not come as a mere form! Or with this care--that you may truly discern
   the Lord's body! Or with this care--that, through the outward signs,
   you may behold your Lord and Master crucified for you! Come with this
   care--that you may really feed upon Christ after a spiritual fashion.
   And with this care--that, when you go away from the Table, you may not
   lose what you have gained here, but may show by your life that you have
   really been strengthened by feeding upon Jesus Christ! Concentrate all
   your thoughts into this one desire--

   "Nearer, my God, to You! Nearer to You"--

   and partake of the emblems of His body and His shed blood with this
   sole objective, that you may get nearer and yet nearer to Him and that
   you may afterwards live like He did. Come to the Communion in this
   spirit and God's blessing will surely reap upon you!

   Before I close my discourse, I have a few words to say to those of you
   who have no part nor lot in the matter of which I have been speaking. I
   am addressing many persons who are not Christians. They are full of
   care about the things of the

   world and, very likely some of them will say to me, "You might let us
   care about the things of the world, for we have nothing else to care
   for." Some persons say, "It is a dreadful thing that these unconverted
   people should have such-and-such amusements." So it is, but there is
   another aspect of the case. Whenever I see a pig in a sty and the
   farmer is going to give him some slop from the house, I say, "Let the
   creature have it. He likes it and it is the proper food for him." I do
   not envy him and if I were to see a man of my acquaintance go and drink
   the hog's food, I would be shocked, indeed! So, when I see a man who
   professes to be a Christian, taking delight in the pleasures of the
   world, I am shocked--but such things are suited to the poor creatures
   that like them. Only remember, my Friend, if you are going to be
   content with this world, you are thereby giving up Heaven and giving up
   the joys of eternity! And in taking the good things, as you call them,
   of sin, and the pleasures of the flesh, you take the devil and all his
   works--and all that involves your being cast away from the Presence of
   God forever!

   Oh, if you only knew your true condition, you who are without God, and
   without Christ, you would want to get away to your houses and to fall
   on your knees and cry unto the Lord to have mercy upon you! And if you
   were wise, you would not even wait till you reached your homes, but in
   this very place you would cry, "What must we do to be saved?" If your
   heart really utters that cry, let me give you the Scriptural answer,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Trust that
   Savior whose teaching I have tried to explain. Trust Him who did more
   than teach, for He lived! Trust Him who did more than live, for He
   died! Trust Him who did more than die, for He rose again and ever lives
   at His Father's right hand on high! Trust Him and you shall be saved
   forever! The Lord bless you, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Wafer of Honey

   (No. 2974)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1863.

   "My Grace is sufficient for you." 2 Corinthians 12:9.

   LET no Christian imagine that he will ever have immunity from trouble
   while he continues in the body. Should you be favored with visions and
   Revelations of the Lord, caught up to the third Heaven, admitted into
   Paradise and privileged to hear things which it were not lawful for a
   man to utter, conclude not that you have escaped the rod-- rather
   expect that such high privilege will need heavy affliction to balance
   it! If God has given you the great sail and the prosperous wind, He
   will also give you the heavy ballast to keep your keel deep in the
   stream. Do not expect, dear Brothers and Sisters, that because you have
   been strengthened in the faith, you will therefore be loosened from the
   burden of the flesh--neither because you may have been the means of
   strengthening others, that, therefore, trouble will be light for you.
   Even into your ship the deep waters may come. Think not that it is so
   water-tight that the billows will only dash against it. You may be
   called to feel heaviness--your faith may be all but staggered and your
   soul may have to cry out from the depths because of the slender
   strength you possess.

   The Lord has such ways of chastising His children as to make them feel.
   We think, some of us, after we have suffered a certain amount of
   trouble, that we have been so conditioned to it we shall no longer be
   moved as we used to be. The Apostle Paul had been beaten with rods,
   tossed about in shipwrecks, yet he had suffered hunger and thirst and
   nakedness till he felt that, if any man had a right to glory after the
   flesh, he had. Still, even he found that the Lord had a way of getting
   at his heart and making it smart. He had thorns in the flesh,
   messengers of Satan that did most effectually buffet him. We, too, must
   have trials--briars of a kind that shall come right home to us and
   touch us in our bones and in our flesh.

   Neither let us think, dear Friends, that even the privilege of the
   Mercy Seat will shield us from the rod. When chastened we run to
   prayer, but we shall not, therefore, escape the chastisement! Paul, an
   Apostle, prays. He who certainly must have understood "the effectual
   fervent prayer of a righteous man," beseeches the Lord three times, yet
   the thorn in the flesh was not blunted, much less removed! He still had
   to suffer as he had done before. Oh, how often we think we can use the
   Mercy Seat for our own lust! Is not prayer too sacred a thing for us to
   make a selfish use of it? When God gives us the key of His storehouse
   and bids us take what we will, shall we use even a single promise of
   His Word merely to pander to our own desires and to enable us to escape
   from enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ? If we thus
   misuse prayer, we may be excused for it, but we shall not be accepted
   in it. Even Paul is non-suited when he asks ease for the flesh. He gets
   no release from trouble. He gets something better, however, for the
   Lord says to Him, "My Grace is sufficient for you; for My strength is
   made perfect in weakness." Thus, Beloved, we must reckon upon the
   adversities that are sure to befall us. "In the world you shall have
   tribulation." This is one of the Divine shalls and wills. The Lord will
   chasten those whom He loves and His children shall suffer--you can be
   sure of that. It is as sure as any other thing in the world, "You
   shallhave tribulation."

   I. To those who have proved the truth of this declaration, the text
   will be peculiarly sweet. THERE ARE CERTAIN SORE VEXATIONS OF SPIRIT
   FOR WHICH GRACE IS THE ONLY BALM. The Lord does not say, "My Providence
   shall protect you." Nothing of the kind--Divine Grace is the remedy in
   this case and, I take it, this was because the Apostle was suffering in
   the very core and center of his being. There are many trials, the grief
   of which may be fully

   relieved by ordinary Providences--but these that come and wound a man
   to the quick--require Grace as their only effectual balm.

   Past experience of Grace is of no availin such a case. It is
   presentGrace that is promised in the text and it is present Grace that
   is required. When we have sometimes been bowed down and walked in
   darkness, and seen no light, we have called to remembrance our song in
   the night and our spirit has made diligent search--but that very song
   has been turned into howling in the remembrance and all that we thought
   we felt, and thought we knew has vanished from before our eyes! I do
   not know how it has been with you, but there have been times with me
   when I could set no value upon my past experience. The devil has said
   it was all a delusion, my faith mere presumption, my hope mere
   excitement--and all my joys but the effusion of animal spirits. There
   will be a time when he will bid you look back and all the way will look
   like the Valley of the Shadow of Death. You cannot see one hopeful sign
   in it! And you turn over the books of experience and read them, and you
   think, "Well, my spot is not the spot of God's children, and my
   footprints do not seem to be at all like the footprints of the flock."
   I tell you, if you have ever done business in deep waters, you have
   found that anchors at home are of no use in a storm--and that the
   anchor which stood so well a year ago, if it is left at home on
   shore--is of no use to you now in the storm! It is present Grace,
   nothing but present Grace, that will do now! You have eaten all the
   cold meats and you have brought out from the cupboard every moldy crust
   you can find--and now your soul is reduced to the very last and faints
   within you. And now you must cry to your God in your trouble and get
   present Grace in this, your time of need!

   And if past experience is of no use, much less is past success.
   Somebody might have touched the Apostle on the shoulder and have said,
   "Paul, Paul, Paul! Why must you feel the buffetings of Satan? Did you
   not establish the Church at Corinth, and plant churches throughout all
   Asia Minor? Who has served his God as faithfully as you have? Have you
   not been on many journeys, in perils by waters, in perils of robbers,
   in perils by the sword, in watches and fasts? Have you not had the care
   of all the Churches? Has not your Master highly distinguished you and
   made you not a whit behind the very chief of the Apostles? What
   multitudes of spirits are now before the Throne of God that were born,
   under God, through your ministry! And what thousands are still on the
   road who call you their spiritual father and to whom you have been as a
   nursing mother in the faith!" If you had said this to the Apostle, he
   would have replied, "Yes, sometimes this might have comforted me. If it
   had been a question of my Apostleship, this would have been
   satisfactory. If the point in hand had been a question as to whether my
   ministry has been acknowledged of God, this would have been decisive.
   But I am touched in another place, now, and the wound is so deep, my
   sore is grievous. And my heart is so exceedingly heavy that no kindly
   thought of others, and no pleasant musings of my own bring me the
   slightest relief. O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me!" The Lord
   knows how to succor him and, therefore, He gave him that gracious
   assurance, "My Grace is sufficient for you."

   I think it is well, dear Friends, to remember the Lord's past goodness,
   but we must not live on that-- we must go and get fresh supplies from
   Heaven. Old manna, to this day, though it came from Heaven, will always
   breed worms and stink, if it is kept. There is no alteration in it from
   the days of Moses and it is the same at this moment. You must eat the
   manna as you get it and constantly go for more! The old manna will be
   of very little use to you. It is only on Sundays, when your soul is
   perfectly at rest and quiet--it is only at those sweet resting seasons,
   which the soul sometimes enjoys, that the remembrance of the past
   becomes very sweet. You must have daily present dispensations of manna
   from the Throne of God.

   In such a case as this, to which the Apostle was brought, we feel sure
   that the fact of his high office and eminent attainments of Gracewould
   not have been a sufficient consideration. Paul, who shall match you? So
   deep in knowledge and so ardent in zeal, you seem to have a seraph's
   spirit. So mighty in words and yet, so humble in your own esteem, you
   are surely a prince in Israel! Paul was not one of the young men, much
   less one of the babes in Grace. He says, "There are not many fathers,"
   though certainly he, himself, was worthy to be called a Patriarch. Yet
   that fact would not comfort him. And, Brothers and Sisters, you may
   come to such hard pinches that your growth in Grace and the flourishing
   of your virtues will not afford so much as a drop of comfort to
   you--you will have to go to the Eternal Fountain to drink, for even
   these marble cisterns will have been broken and will hold no water.

   Observe, further, Brothers and Sisters, that the Lord does not say, "
   The consolation of your brethren shall be sufficient for you.''" Oh,
   how sweet it is to be comforted by our fellow Christians! Let those who
   will, walk in isolation--

   give me sweet communion, for to tell one's trial to a true Brother in
   Christ is often to lighten the weight, as if half of it were removed!
   Sometimes it is to be wholly relieved, for the words of some wise men
   in our Israel are, indeed, as balm that brings speedy healing to the
   wound. But there are wounds which the stranger intermeddles not with,
   no, that even the dearest friend cannot touch! There are certain
   vexations of spirit and disquietudes of soul that mock human agency. I
   have had, sometimes, to converse with some members of the Church and I
   have never felt so much the littleness of my own power as when I have
   tried be comfort them and failed. I thought it was because I was but as
   a little child in experience and could not talk with them as a father
   in Israel might have done, whose years might have given him more
   wisdom. But I have found that even the fathers have failed and that
   years have not always sufficed to give sufficient knowledge to comfort
   the troubled conscience, or to remove the burden from the galled
   shoulder. No, there are cases that mock the ordinary practitioner and
   must be taken straight to the Great Physician, for the only thing that
   will survive the purpose is the Grace, the presentGrace of an
   all-sufficient God!

   I might prolong this catalog, but you who experimentally know the Truth
   of God will know from your own experience that there are trials and
   there are points in affliction where nothing can possibly console but
   the immediate outpouring and receiving of the Grace of God.

   II. And now, Beloved, in the second place, let me say that SUFFICIENT
   GRACE IS A SURE BALM--that even for the most acute disorder, the most
   chronic disease--"Grace" is"sufficient."

   Do you not perceive that it just meets the fear which trial excites?
   What is the Christian's fear when he is buffeted, tried and afflicted?
   I know him in his sober senses--he has a fear of sin. Listen to him. "I
   am afraid of being poor," says he, "not because I dislike poverty, but
   I am afraid of my faith, lest I should murmur against God. I am not
   afraid of suffering," he says, "if God sends it to me, I am willing to
   receive it. But I am afraid of my faith, lest the pangs should be too
   severe and I should doubt my God. I am not," he says, "afraid of
   slander or of persecution. I have learned to rejoice in this, for so am
   I made a member of the goodly fellowship of the martyrs--but I am
   afraid lest I should deny my Lord, or be ashamed of Him, or prove an
   apostate, after all. As I look forward to the temptations of the world,
   the suggestions of Satan and the corruptions of the flesh which shall
   yet assail me, I am not afraid of their coming if I can but be
   guaranteed that they shall not cause me to sin"--for the only real
   wound the Christian gets is when he has sinned! Sufferings are only
   scars, flesh wounds--sins are the real wounds! We are never trampled on
   by Satan, however low our spirits may sink. It is only when we give
   way--capitulate in very terror and begin to be afraid--that Satan is
   really victorious. The battle of sin is the battle in which Satan gains
   the victory! But suffering, shame, distress, peril, nakedness and sword
   are no triumphs to Satan, for, "in all these things we are more than
   conquerors through Him that loved us."

   You see then, Brothers and Sisters, that Grace meets the danger because
   it deals with sin. You are afraid that your patience will give out, so
   the Lord says, "My Grace shall operate upon your patience and make you
   endure." You think your faith will fail, so the Lord says, "My Grace
   gave you your faith and My Grace, like oil secretly applied to the fire
   by One standing behind the wall, shall keep your faith burning while
   the devil pours on his floods to quench it. It was My Grace that first
   taught you to love My great name so, when persecuted, My Grace shall
   make you love Me more. I have kept you from apostasy until now and, let
   what will come, My Grace, by which I guaranteed your final
   perseverance, shall be sufficient for you and you shall come out of all
   your trials and troubles like silver out of the furnace--not
   defiled--but cleansed and purified by the flames." You see then,
   Brothers and Sisters, that this assurance does actually touch the fear
   which the Christian may ever have before his eyes--no, it does not
   merely touch the fear, but it absolutely touches all the real danger!
   It is as though the Lord should say to one of His servants who was
   standing alone, while thousands of his enemies were shooting at him
   with their arrows, "They shall shoot at you, but I have covered you
   with armor from head to foot." Or it is as if you or I trembled at the
   thought of crossing the deep sea and the Lord had said, "The sea is
   deep, and you must cross it--but I will be by you and you shall go
   through it dry shod." Or it is as if He said, "The fire is hot and you
   must walk through the midst of it. Those glowing coals your feet must
   know, but I will so cover you by My power that the flames nor coals
   shall not hurt you--you shall walk through the fire and not so much as
   the smell of it shall pass upon you."

   What does it matter how much we suffer if we have Grace to endure it?
   Put a Believer where you will, if his Master gives him Grace, he is in
   the best place he can be for security! I have heard Brethren sometimes
   say, "Such a minister is in great danger! His position is lofty, his
   head will be turned." Ah, Brothers and Sisters, if he had had the
   keeping of his own head, it would have been turned long ago! And your
   head will turn even if you are on the ground if you have the keeping of
   it! But if God sets a man as high as the stars and if He kept him
   there, he would be able to sing, "You make my feet like hinds' feet,
   and make me to stand on high places." It is the Grace we have, not the
   position we occupy, that is the important matter! If a man had Grace
   enough, you might put him in the worst haunts of sin and he would be
   the better for being there!

   Now, do not think I say what I do not know. Solomon saw hyssops grow on
   walls and cedars on Lebanon. However, I have seen cedars grow on walls
   and hyssops on Lebanon! I have seen the smallest Christians in the best
   places and the best Christians in the worst positions. I have seen, in
   the midst of the haunts of the harlot, Grace shining in all the purity
   and chastity of lovely womanhood. And in the haunt of the thief and of
   the burglar, God has been pleased to have some choice saint, that, for
   honesty, integrity and holy living might have been worthy to have
   walked in a bishop's palace, or to have adorned the best Evangelical
   drawing room in England! Brethren, it is not the position that is the
   main thing! The best of men may grow in the worst places and some of
   the meekest of Believers may be found where there ought to have been
   the bravest. I will leave this point, therein, by repeating that
   whatever may be the trial of heart which a man may have to endure, this
   assurance just meets the case--"My Grace is sufficient for you."

   III. And, lastly, SHOULD NOT THE ASSURANCE THAT WE SHALL RECEIVE
   SUFFICIENT GRACE MAKE US EXCEEDINGLY GLAD?

   "My Grace is sufficient for you"--what then? "Most gladly, therefore,
   will I rather glory in my infirmities"--not only gladly, but, "most
   gladly." Nothing else will make you happy The Grace of God comes to
   meet your case and now how happy you should be! Think about the
   sureness of this fact, that sufficient Grace will be ours! My dear
   Brothers and Sisters, I am not careful about preachingtonight, I merely
   talk right on about some things that you know and can testify. It has
   been so, has it not, in your experience? If there is one saint here who
   has an accusation to make against his Lord, let him speak! He might
   well say to you, "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? Which of you
   have I failed to succor? When have I violated My promise? You have been
   in the waters--were you drowned? You have passed through the fire--were
   you burned? What loss have you ever sustained by your troubles? Did I
   ever refuse to hear your cry when you called upon Me? When was it that,
   in the day of battle, I did not cover your head and that I left you as
   a prey to the destroyer?" My answer is--O Lord, You know all things and
   You know that Your servant's witness is--

   "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!" And is not that your case, my Brother, my Sister in the Lord? I
   am sure it is! Well then, this ought to make you glad. "My Grace is
   sufficient for you," says the Lord. Your past experience proves it.
   Gladly, therefore, rejoice that you have an opportunity yet again of
   testing and trying the good Word of the Lord!

   Again, is not God's Grace sufficient for you in your present
   emergency?. Have you had some trouble today? I suppose you have had
   quite enough, too, for I never did find a day yet that had not enough
   trouble in it, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof--well,
   but have you not had sufficient Grace today? Do you feel dull, heavy
   and gloomy in God's House of Prayer? Well, but there is Grace to be had
   and, therefore, looking to Him before you go to bed, you may still have
   another day to sing of the sufficient Grace which was given in the
   necessary hour! "Oh, but," you say, "it is not now! I can trust God for
   today, but there are clouds looming before me and I fear to enter
   them." Well, my dear Friend, if He is faithful to you today, add that
   to the fact that He was faithful yesterday! Is He not the same
   yesterday, today and forever? And ought you not at once to rejoice in
   Him? Furthermore, ask your Father and He shall tell you to turn to the
   records of Inspiration and they shall teach you! Were the righteous
   ever forsaken? And when did the Lord cast off His chosen? They have
   certainly been in quite as deep waters as you have ever known--you have
   not yet been brought to lose all that you have, to lose every
   child--not yet do you sit among the ashes and scrape yourself with a
   potsherd as Job did. And can you say, to the fullest extent, "They that
   walked in the streets did condemn me"? Not yet have you drunk of that
   cup and been baptized with the baptism of Him who said, "My God, My
   God, why have You forsaken Me?"--

   "His way was much rougher and darker than yours"--

   and yet your Lord triumphed! And all His people, in all ages, and under
   every circumstance, have triumphed in Him! If you could find one child
   of God who has been left, and if you could find one instance in which
   God has been untrue to you, then it would be fair for you to be
   depressed in spirit--but until then, you should be most joyful!

   Remember also, Brothers and Sisters, that we would never know how
   sufficient Grace was if it were not for these troubles--therefore we
   ought to be glad of all the lessons that assure us how ample and
   sufficient this Grace is! I know not whether all soldiers love the
   thought of war, but there are many who plead for a campaign. How many
   an officer of low rank has said, "There is no promotion, no hope of
   rising, no honors unless we have to fight. If we could run to the
   cannon's mouth, there would be some hope that we might gain a
   promotion." Men get few medals to hang upon their breasts who never
   know the smell of gunpowder. The brave days, as men call them, of
   Nelson and Trafalgar, have gone by--and we thank God for it--but still
   we do not expect to see such brave old veterans, the offspring of this
   age, as they who are still to be found lingering in our hospitals--the
   relics of our old campaigns. No, Brothers and Sisters, we must have
   trials if we are to get on. Young men do not become midshipmen
   altogether through going to the school at Greenwich and climbing the
   mast on dry land--they must go out to sea and be on deck in the storm!
   And if we are to be among the worthies, we must have stood side by side
   with King David! We must have gone down into the pit to slay the lion,
   or have lifted up the spear against the eight hundred as Adino did.
   Conflicts bring experience and experience brings that growth in Grace
   which is not to be attained by any other means!

   Besides, Brothers and Sisters, how is God's Grace to be seen by other
   men in the world except by our trials Grace is given to keep us from
   sin, which is a great blessing. But what is the good of Grace except it
   is in the time when the trial comes? Certainly, the Grace that will not
   stand in the hour of temptation or affliction is a very spurious sort
   of Grace and we had better get rid of it, if we have it. When a godly
   woman's child dies, the infidel husband sees the mother's faith. When
   the ship goes down and is lost in the sea, the ungodly merchant
   understands the resignation of his fellow man. When pangs shows through
   our body and ghastly death appears in view, people see the patience of
   the dying Christian. Our infirmities become the black velvet on which
   the diamond of God's love glitters all the more brightly! Thank God I
   can suffer! Thank God I can be made the object of shame and contempt
   for, in this way, God shall be glorified! This shall be the wonder of
   many and to the praise of His own Grace--that so mean and so
   contemptible a thing was made the instrument of effecting His purpose!

   I will say no more except to commend this assurance to you and ask you
   to take it home and lay it on your tongue. It will be like a wafer made
   with honey. Mind you have it for your breakfast tomorrow morning and
   let it be your constant daily meal--live on it--"My Grace is sufficient
   for you." Let the word, "you," come home to your heart, as though God
   spoke it to youand as if He had never spoken it to anyone else!

   There are some of you to whom the text does not apply, except in this
   light--you have many sins--but if you trust Christ, His Grace is
   sufficient for you. You have been head over heels in the kennel of sin,
   but the power of His blood is sufficient to make you white. And even if
   you have become a very prince and peer in the dominions of evil, the
   Grace of Christ is sufficient to wash you whiter than the driven snow!
   May the Lord add His blessing on these feeble rambling remarks, for
   Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 3:9-27; 5:6-11; 8:1-32.

   Romans 3:9. What then? Are we better than they?The first chapter of the
   Epistle to the Romans contains so horrible an account of the manners of
   the Gentiles, the heathen of Paul's day, that it is one of the most
   painful chapters in Scripture to read. Not long ago, one of our
   missionaries out in China was attacked concerning the Bible on this
   very ground. One of the learned men said to him, "This Bible of yours
   cannot be as ancient as you say that it is, for it is quite clear that
   the next chapter of the Epistle to the Nomads must have been written by
   somebody who had been in China and who had seen the habits and ways of
   the people here." So accurate is the Holy Spirit, who knew right well
   what the ways and manners and secret vices of the heathen were, and
   still are! But the Jews said, "Ah, but this is a description of the
   Gentiles." So Paul replies, "What then? Are we better than they?"

   9. 10. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentile,
   that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous,
   no, not one. Then he selects passages out of different parts of
   Scripture to show what man is by nature.

   11-18. There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after
   God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
   unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one. Their throat
   is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the
   poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and
   bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery
   are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is
   no fear of God before their eyes.These are all quotations from Old
   Testament Scriptures, from their own Psalmists and Prophets from whom
   Paul quotes to the Jews so that they might see what their own character
   was by nature.

   19. Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to them
   who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the
   world may become guilty before God. The Law of God was given to the
   Jews and the descriptions which it gives must be descriptions of the
   Jews. "Therefore," says Paul, "as Gentile mouths have been already
   stopped by the descriptions of their vices, you also, the favored
   people of God, have your mouths stopped by the descriptions of
   yourselves taken from your own Prophets."

   20. Therefore by the deeds ofthe law there shallno flesh. Whether Jew
   or Gentile--

   20, 21. Be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of
   sin. But now. Since man is lost, since man is

   guilty--

   21-27. The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
   witnessed by the law and the Prophets: even the righteousness of God
   which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
   believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come
   short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His Grace through
   the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a
   propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness
   for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God,
   to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be
   just, and the justifer of him which believes in Jesus. Where is
   boasting then?If salvation is given to the guilty and if all are
   guilty--if no one can claim exemption, and yet salvation is freely
   given--what then? Why, salvation must be purely by the Grace of God! So
   let Grace have all the honor. "Where is boasting then?"

   27. It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No: but by the law of faith.
   The law of works sometimes aids boasting, for a man rejoices and
   glories in what he has done. Yet the law of works ought to stop our
   boasting because we are guilty in God's sight. The law of faith stops
   our mouth because we are under obligation to God and do not dare to
   boast, seeing that we have nothing of good but what we have received
   from Him!

   Romans 5:6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
   died for the ungodly. What a wonderful sentence that is! Not, "Christ
   died for the saints, "not, "Christ died for righteous men," but, "when
   we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

   7-9. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yetperhaps for a
   goodman some would even dare to die. But God commends His love toward
   us, in that, 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. What an argument this is for the final safety of
   Believers! If Christ died for us when we were enemies, surely He will
   give us, now that He has died for us and made us His friends, His
   reconciled subject--"Much more then, being now justified by His blood,
   we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

   10. 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.
   There is a threefold argument here. We were enemies, yet God blessed us
   even then, so will He not bless us even more, now that we are
   reconciled to Him? When we were enemies, He reconciled us unto Himself.
   Having done that, will He not certainly save us? We were reconciled to
   God by the death of His Son--so much more shall we be saved by the life
   of the risen and glorified Jesus, which has almighty, irresistible
   power!

   11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus
   Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

   Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in
   Christ Jesus. Observe that Paul writes "There is therefore," for he is
   stating a Truth of God which is founded upon solid argument. "There is
   therefore now"-- at this very day, at this very moment--"no
   condemnation"--none of any sort--none that will lie in the Court of
   Conscience or in the Court of King's Bench above! "There is therefore
   now no condemnation to them who are in Christ

   Jesus." Our forefathers used to read this verse, "There is therefore
   now no damnation." One of the martyrs, being brought before a Popish
   bishop, heard the bishop say to him, "Dying in your heresy, you will be
   damned." "That I never shall be," answered the good man, "for there is
   therefore now no damnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.'" He had
   sought the very spirit of the text, for there is nothing that can
   condemn the man who is in Christ Jesus!

   1. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. This is the
   distinctive mark of a man in Christ Jesus. He does not let the flesh
   govern him, but the Spirit. The spiritual nature has come to the front
   and the flesh must go to the back. The Spirit of the living God has
   entered into him and become the master-power of his life. He walks "not
   after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

   2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
   from the law of sin and death. And nothing else can do that. Every man
   is, by nature, under bondage to that which Paul describes as "the law
   of sin and death." There is a law in our nature which is so powerful
   that even when we would do good, evil is present with us, and we cannot
   get away from that law except by introducing another, which is "the law
   of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Dr. Chalmers has a remarkable
   sermon upon it--The Expulsive Power of a New Afection--and it is this
   new affection for Christ which is the accompaniment of the new life in
   Christ, which expels the old forces that used to hold us under bondage
   to sin and death.

   3. 4. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
   flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for
   sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law
   might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the
   Spirit. The Law of God never made anybody holy and it never will do so.
   The Law says to a man, "This is what you ought to do and you will be
   condemned if you do not do it." That is quite true, but the Law
   supplies no power to enable us to do this! It says to the lame man,
   "You must walk," and to the blind man, "You must see," but it does not
   enable them either to walk or to see! On the contrary, our nature is
   such that when the Law issues its commands, there is a tendency in us
   at once to disobeythem. There are some sins which we never would have
   thought of committing if we had not been commanded not to do them, so
   that the Law of God--not because of its own nature, but because of the
   wickedness of our nature, is weak and ineffectual for the producing of
   righteousness. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come, has lived and has
   died--died for us who are His people, and has put away our sins. Now we
   love Him! Now, being delivered from all condemnation, we love Him who
   has delivered us and this becomes the force by which we are inclined to
   holiness and led on further and further in a course, not merely of
   morality, but of holiness before God! What a blessed system this is,
   which saves the sinner from the love of sin, delivers a man from
   sinning, gives him a new nature and puts a right spirit within him!

   5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.
   Flesh cares for flesh. The man who is all body cares only for the body.
   The man whose mind is under subjection to his body, minds "the things
   of the flesh."

   5. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Where
   the Holy Spirit is supreme. Where the spiritual world has become
   predominant over the heart and life. There, men live for something
   nobler than the worldly man's trinity, "What shall we eat, and what
   shall we drink, and how shall we be clothed?" The carnal life is only
   becoming to a beast, or a bird, or an insect. But when a man cares for
   his immortal spirit and lives for Divine and spiritual things, he has
   attained to the life that is life, indeed!

   6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded
   is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for
   it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. As long as
   a man lives only for this present evil world, lives for self, lives
   under the domination of the flesh, he cannot really know God, or truly
   serve Him. Such a mind as his "is not subject to the Law of God,
   neither indeed can be."

   8. So then they that are in the flesh. That is, those who are under its
   condemnation and power-- 8-10. Cannotplease God. But you are not in the
   flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in
   you. Now if any men have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
   And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the
   Spirit is life because of righteousness. So that although Christ dwells
   in a man, he must not reckon that he will be free from suffering, pain
   and sickness, for the body has not yet risen from the dead and does not
   yet feel the full effect of regeneration. The soul is risen from the
   dead by regeneration and it, therefore, "is life because of
   righteousness." The body will, in due time, also share in the power of
   Christ's Spirit. The day draws near when we "shall be delivered from
   the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of
   God."

   11, 12. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead
   dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
   quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. Therefore,
   brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. We
   have got nothing good out of the flesh at present, for it is not yet
   "delivered from the bondage of corruption," though it is to be
   delivered.

   13. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. For the flesh is to
   die.

   13. But if you, through the Spirit do mortify. Or, kill--

   13. The deeds of the body, you shall live. Shall a dying body, then, be
   my master? Shall the appetite for eating and drinking, or anything else
   that comes of the flesh, dominate my spirit? God forbid! Let death go
   to death--and the flesh is such. But the newly-given Spirit of God, the
   Spirit who has quickened us with immortal life shall rule and reign in
   us forevermore!

   14-21. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
   of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear,
   but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba,
   Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are
   the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and
   joint-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may
   also be glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of the
   present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall
   be revealed anew. For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for
   the manifestation of the Son of God. For the creature was made subject
   to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him 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. We are part and parcel of creation and we shall draw it along with
   us. There shall be new heavens and a new earth. The curse shall be
   taken from the garden, thorns and thistles shall no longer grow there,
   and there shall be no killing or devouring in all God's holy mountain.
   The galling yoke, which we have laid on the whole of creation by our
   sin, shall be taken off it by our Redeemer!

   22, 23. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain
   together until now. 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.
   We groan in unison with a groaning creation and we shall not, at
   present, get altogether rid of our aches, pains and sicknesses.

   24-32. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for
   what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we
   see not, then do we with patience wait for it. 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. And He that searches the heart knows what is
   the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints
   according to the will of God. 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 firstborn 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 shall we say, then, to these things? If God is
   for us, who can be against us? 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?
     __________________________________________________________________

Forgetting God

   (No. 2975)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY MORNING,
   SEPTEMBER 9, 1876.

   "Therefore have they forgotten Me." Hosea 13:6.

   Our text reminds us that God does take notice of what men do, or of
   what they do not do. Here He complains--and there is a kind of mournful
   plaintiveness about His words--"Therefore have they forgotten Me." It
   is not a matter of indifference to God whether men remember Him or not.
   It seemed to be a subject of surprise to David that God should think of
   man, for He wrote, "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your
   fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man,
   that You are mindful of him?" Yet God is mindful of man and it grieves
   Him that man is not mindful of Him! It would not disturb our minds if
   one tiny ant should forget or ignore us, yet we did not create it, and
   we have not the claims upon it that God has upon us. Yet, little though
   we are--and so insignificant that the ant, itself, is a great thing in
   comparison with us if we reckon what we are in comparison with God--it
   seems that He does want us to remember Him, to think of Him and to
   trust, love and serve Him. And when we do not, He is vexed and grieved.
   At least, speaking after the manner of men, we are taught to believe
   that it pains Him at His heart, so that He cries out by the mouth of
   His servant, the Prophet, "They have forgotten Me--their Maker, their
   best Friend and their greatest Helper."

   I am afraid, dear Friends, that the accusation in our text may be
   brought against a very large number of us. Certainly it can be laid to
   the charge of all those who have lived without thinking of God and who
   have never turned to Him with repentance and faith and who,
   consequently, are still strangers to Him. How many such people there
   are, God alone can accurately compute! The great mass of our fellow
   creatures would come under that category. But, worst of all, among the
   Lord's own people there are, alas, some against whom this accusation
   can be brought! They have forgotten their God--not absolutely, so as to
   be utterly and altogether like the thoughtless sinner--yet very sadly
   and grievously, so that God, Himself, complains of them, "They have
   forgotten Me." For, mark you, if God observes what ordinary men do,
   much more does He take notice of what His own people do! An unkind word
   from a stranger may have a very slight effect upon us, but if such a
   word should come from the lips of one whom we love it would cut us to
   the quick! We could put up with a thousand things from those who are
   mere acquaintances, but from a beloved child, or from the wife of our
   bosom--such a thing would be very hard to bear. Remember, O Christian,
   that ancient declaration, "The Lord your God is a jealous God." Because
   He loves us so much, He is in that very proportion, jealous, for the
   greatest jealousy grows out of limitless love. And the Lord our God who
   bought us with the heart's blood of His dear Son, counts us so dear to
   Him that a wandering thought in our mind becomes a crime against
   Him--and the giving up of any part of our heart to love of the world,
   or of self, or sin, or Satan, or any other of His rivals--becomes to
   Him a cause of grief and sadness. If there are any children of God
   here--and I fear there may be many--who have grown cold in heart and
   who have wandered from the Lord, I hope the text will come like a
   lament from Him who hung upon the Cross of Calvary, "Therefore have
   they forgotten Me. Therefore have they forgotten Me."

   I. I am going to call your attention, first, to THE TIME WHEN THIS SIN
   WAS COMMITTED. "Therefore," says the Lord, "have they forgotten Me."
   When was that? If we ascertain that, we shall also find out when we
   ought to be most upon our guard against falling into a similar sin.

   It appears, dear Friends, to have been when the Israelites had come out
   of the wilderness into Canaan--when they had escaped from troubles and
   had come into an easy condition, for so the context reads--"I did know
   you in the

   wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture,
   so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted;
   therefore have they forgotten Me." It is a very sorrowful fact that in
   this case the greater God's goodness was to His people, the less was
   their gratitude to Him--just in proportion as He was kind to them, they
   were cold to Him. These people had been delivered from excessive toil.
   In Egypt they had been a nation of slaves. And in the wilderness they
   had been for 40 years pilgrims with weary feet. They seldom tarried
   long in any place, but backwards and forwards across that "waste
   howling wilderness" they marched almost continuously. And concerning
   all that time, God says, "I did know you in the wilderness." He knew
   them, morning by morning, as the manna fell. He knew them when the
   quails came on swift wings to bring them flesh to eat. He knew them
   when the morning and evening lambs were offered in sacrifice for them,
   sinners as they were all the while they were in the wilderness, and He
   says, "I did know you then." So, Brothers and Sisters, it has happened
   to some men that when they have had hard times, long hours and stern
   labor, they have managed to be up in the morning early to get a quiet
   season of communion with God and, though they scarcely could have been
   thought capable of doing it, for they worked so hard, yet they could
   find leisure to teach a few children in the Sunday school, or to
   distribute tracts, or to speak a word for Christ at an open-air
   service! They had very hard bondage in their daily occupation, yet
   whenever there was a weeknight service, they always managed to get
   there. They were very apt out of sheer weariness because they had been
   toiling so hard during the day, to fall asleep when they sat down in
   the pew--still, they said that half a loaf was better than no
   bread--and they were glad to get a message from any of the Lord's
   servants in those trying days.

   But, dear Friends, you remember that in due time the children of Israel
   came to Canaan. Then there was no more marching to and fro in the
   wilderness for them! They found houses built ready for them to occupy
   and they could sit, every man, under his own vine and under his own fig
   tree--and then it was that the Lord said, "They were filled, and their
   heart was exalted, thereforehave they forgotten Me." It is just the
   same with the man who used to come to the House of God Sundays and
   weeknights, though he was sorely weary with his heavy work. He now has
   what men call, "an easy berth," and has very little to do, so, being no
   longer a poor galley slave tugging at the oar, you might have thought
   that he would have given more time to God's service and have become one
   of the most industrious Christians living! But instead he does not do
   as much, now, as he used to do with the little bits of time which his
   hard toil allowed him! Ah, Brothers, when you get into smooth and easy
   places, then is the time when you should be most anxious, lest of you,
   as of the Israelites, the Lord should have to say, "Therefore have they
   forgotten Me." I would gladly wish for every one of you that you may be
   able to earn your daily bread without any excessive labor. I would that
   every man who has to toil beyond due and reasonable hours, were
   delivered from such semi-slavery. Yet I know that there are many who
   make an ill use of any leisure that they get and some who are not
   nearly as fervent in the cause of God, now that they have leisure, as
   they used to be before they were so privileged!

   These Israelites, also, were now delivered from the pressure of urgent
   needs. At the very beginning of their wilderness journey, they had to
   go for three days without water. "And when they came to Marah, they
   could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter." They
   cried to Moses, "What shall we drink?" And he cried to the Lord and
   soon the bitter waters were made sweet. Before long, they had eaten up
   all that they had brought with them out of the land of Egypt--and they
   murmured, again, and then the Lord gave them a daily supply of
   manna--their bread dropped from the sky morning by morning! But now
   that they have got into Canaan, that have broad fields that are very
   fruitful, they reap abundant harvests, their barns are full to bursting
   and the hillsides are clad with vines, olive trees, fig trees and all
   manner of dainties! Instead of having to gather one day's food at a
   time, they have many months' supplies laid up in store. Some of them
   became very rich but, alas, it was of them that the Lord had to say,
   "According to their pasture, so were they filled...therefore have they
   forgotten Me." You surely have known or heard of men and women who have
   loved the Lord when in poverty--or, at least, who have seemed to do
   so--and who were very fervent and active while they had to look up to
   the Lord from day to day and pray, "Give us this day our daily bread."
   But, in the order of God's Providential dealings, they have been lifted
   up into another station in life. You would naturally have supposed that
   they would have loved the Lord more and have done more for His
   cause--and laid themselves out with a greater willingness for His
   service--but, instead of that, it has been the very reverse with them!
   When they were financially poor, they were spiritually rich--but now
   that they are financially rich, they are spiritually poor! As they have
   gone up temporally, they have gone down spiritually. Their barn has
   become full, but their heart has become empty! Their wine press has

   overflowed, but the joy of the Lord has departed from them. It is a
   sad, sad thing wherever this happens. Sadly, some of us know that it
   often happens. Let it not be so with any of you, Beloved.

   Then, again, these Israelites had become very self-indulgent They
   enjoyed themselves and lived only for pleasure. And they despised
   everybody who would not or could not do the same. Being "rich and
   increased with goods," they looked down upon those who were not rich
   and, worse than that, they began to forget their God. O my Brothers and
   Sisters, I have often looked upon them who have been in sore trouble
   and I have wished that, by some magic touch, I could lift the daughters
   of sorrow out of their sad state! But I have lived long enough to feel
   that if I could do it, I would deliberately stay my hand until I had
   consulted with Infinite Wisdom to know whether it would be for their
   good or not. If it were in my power to lift the cross from every
   Brother and every Sister's shoulders here and to give all of you your
   heart's desire, I would not do so, however much I might feel prompted
   to do it! As I often see how the plant that bloomed in the shade is
   burnt up in the sunshine--and how some natures have never yielded the
   sweetest perfume except in grief's sad dripping-well--when I perceive
   that some of God's saints never seem to honor Him when they are lifted
   up into high places--I feel that you and I had better be satisfied to
   let the Lord put His people wherever He pleases and keep them on "short
   commons," sometimes, and even chasten them every morning, as the
   Psalmist says was done to him. Perhaps some of them, if the Lord did
   not make them cry every morning, would make themselves cry twice as
   much before night--and if He did not afflict them, they would very soon
   bring far worse afflictions upon themselves by falling into some great
   sin.

   I think I know the reason why God does not trust some of us with the
   bright eyes and the elastic step which He bestows upon others. I think
   I can see why He does not give some of us more prominent positions in
   His Church and greater influence among the works for Him. I think I can
   tell why that Sister is lame and that Brother is blind--why that one
   hangs her harp upon the willows and that other toils amid continual
   poverty. It is because God will not risk all His ships on the roughest
   sea. He has constructed some of His vessels so that they can stand the
   storm--and these He sends away into the thick of the tempest--but His
   little ships He keeps nearer the shore. Some of His seamen see less of
   His wonders in the deep because they are not able to bear the sight as
   others can. I think it is so and, certainly, this is true-- that
   seasons of prosperity, of any sort, are seasons of great trial to
   Christians. According to our text, it was at the time of their
   prosperity that the Israelites forgot their God.

   II. Now, secondly, let me indicate THE PROGRESS OF THIS EVIL WHENEVER
   IT HAPPENS TO A MAN.

   It has happened that some men have lived all their lives forgetting
   God. It may be that some of you who are here at this service have never
   really thought of God--you have forgotten all about Him. A gentleman
   was walking down a country road one Sabbath morning and he met a man
   with a cartload of hay. He was asked by the man who was driving the
   cart whether he had seen two lads on in front. "Yes," said the
   gentleman, "I have, and I think they are the boys of a father with a
   short memory, are they not?" He said he did not know whether it was so
   or not, but they were his lads. "Well," said the gentleman, "I thought
   that you were their father and that you had a short memory, for you do
   not seem to have recollected that there is a text of Scripture which
   says, 'Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.'" That short memory
   concerning the Sabbath affects a great many people concerning
   everything else that is good. Some of you, I fear, have such short
   memories that you have never even recollected the God who made you. You
   have eaten just as the cattle eat and you have drunk as they drink--but
   you have never blessed the Giver of the unnumbered mercies that you
   have received--any more than the cattle have done! Some of you go on
   from morning to night without any recognition of God. There are
   hundreds of men who might be compared--as Rowland Hill did once compare
   them--to hogs under an oak. "They eat the acorns," he said, "but they
   never look up and thank the oak." They live in this world and feed upon
   the bounties which God has provided for them, yet they have no thought
   of Him! It is His air that they breathe and it is by His power that
   they exhale the air--they could not exist for a single moment if it
   were not for Him--yet He is not in any of their thoughts! If God were
   blotted out of the universe--if such a thing could be, that He should
   no longer exist, but that they could still exist--they certainly would
   not be grieved. Possibly they would feel all the easier in their mind
   because there would be no judgment to come and no punishment for all
   their evil.

   Ah, my Friend, you must be in a very bad plight if you think you can
   get on better without God than with Him! If your boy were to say
   concerning you, "I wish I might never see my father again"--if that
   little child who eats at your table every day, whom you clothed but the
   other day with new garments--if he were to say, "I never want to speak
   to my father again--I wish he were dead!"--there must be something
   radically wrong in that child! His morals must be thoroughly bad. Even
   if nobody has ever found him out in deceiving or lying, I am sure, from
   that one fact, that he is a bad boy. Now, my Friend, even if I cannot
   point to any sinful act of yours, I am sure that there must be
   something very wrong with you if you have lived in this world all these
   years without thinking of God!

   If I am invited to go and stay with a friend in the country and I
   simply see his beautiful park and his fine gardens, and indoors I have
   all that I need in the way of refreshment during the day and a
   comfortable bed at night, but my host never puts in an appearance--and
   I do not know whether he is anywhere about the premises--I do not enjoy
   my visit. I came down to see him, so I cannot be content with seeing
   his park and his gardens, and so on. I say to the servants, "Where is
   your master? I came down here to pay a visit to him and I cannot find
   any pleasure here unless I see him." And, dear Friends, I feel just
   like that with regard to my God. When I look at this beautiful world
   which He has made--and it is a beautiful world, after all, let who will
   speak against it--I always feel that I need to see Him who made it.
   Even our lovely gardens which seem to me to be a thousand times more
   beautiful than all the vineyards of the Continent, would give me no
   pleasure in looking at them unless I could always realize that God is
   there. The sea itself--the wide and open sea-- what is it if there is
   no God to rule its waves and to speak in its storms? I must see traces
   of God in everything that happens! But some of you have lived all this
   while and God's cry concerning you--over hill and dale, up and down the
   street, in the house where you live, across the table at which you eat,
   and over the pillow on which you sleep--is, "They have forgotten Me. I
   have made them, kept them alive and blessed them in a thousand ways,
   yet they have forgotten Me!--Me, of whom they ought first to have
   thought, for it was essential with them that they should first have
   thought of Me--and through not thinking of Me, they have bred within
   themselves all manner of evil." O unconverted people, I wish you could
   put yourselves in God's place for a few minutes and just think how you
   would feel if others had treated you as you have treated Him! Let the
   sharp arrows of conviction stick fast in your conscience as you realize
   that you have acted in a mean, dastardly, ungenerous, ungrateful way
   towards your God--the tender, loving, gracious Creator, Preserver and
   Friend of men!

   But, now, turning to you Christian people, I want to ask of the
   progress of this evil in you. I will show you how it often works. When
   God prospers you in business, takes away sickness and removes causes of
   sorrow, it sometimes happens that the evil of forgetting God begins
   with an almost imperceptible alienation of heart from Him. You do not
   notice it. You would be very grieved if you did, but your heart begins
   to grow cold and the love to your Lord that once burned in your soul is
   not as fervent as it used to be. And this condition of spirit very
   speedily shows itself in increasing fondness for worldly things. To
   have riches may be a blessing to you, but for the riches to have
   youwill be a great curse to you. There are some who have abundance of
   temporal things given to them and they make a good use of them, so they
   may be thankful for them. But there are others who are carried away by
   these temporal things which thus become the source of all sorts of
   calamities. A man may have a fine house and a beautiful garden and he
   may be thankful for them-- so far, so good--but he may fall into the
   sin of making a Heaven of that house and garden--and so they will be
   the cause of sin. He may be wealthy and that will be a good thing if he
   uses his money rightly. But, by-and-by, he may begin to feel that the
   one thing worth living for is to have money--and that will be an evil.
   If you have acquired a certain amount of money and you feel that you
   are a person of importance simply because you have so much wealth, you
   are putting earthly things into the place which God alone should
   occupy. As old Master Brooks says, it is as when a husband, whose wife
   used to dote upon him, has given her rings, chains and other
   ornaments--and now that she has them, she dotes over them and forgets
   him! It is very sad when this is the case and it is often so with some
   who profess to be the Lord's. If we accept His gifts as tokens of love
   from Him and see Him in them, than they are helpful and not hurtful.
   But when we get to thinking of them, and not of Him, then they become
   mischievous to us.

   This is an evil which continually grows, for this man who is beginning
   to mind earthly things, keeps on indulging himself. He takes more of
   what he calls pleasure than he used to do and, indulging himself thus,
   he gets into a wrong state for prayer, for searching the Bible, for
   attending the means of Grace. And the more he enjoys this world, the
   less does he think of the next world. As the things that are seen eat
   like a canker into him, the things that are unseen seem to lose their
   power over him. If he still attends the place where he went before to
   hear the Gospel, he says that the minister does not preach as he used
   to do, and the singing is not as lively as it used to be. Other
   Christian people say that they cannot see any difference at all, but he
   can. You know, dear Friends, what is very often the difference between
   one dinner and another. It is not the fault of the cook--it is the need
   of an appetite. Here are some Brothers and Sisters who have lost

   their spiritual appetite. They cannot eat this and they cannot eat
   that, and they cannot eat the other. They have lost their appetite,
   that is the reason. "To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet,"
   says Solomon, but this man, who has prospered in the world and has had
   much enjoyment in it, is now beginning to lose all relish even for
   those very spiritual things that were once the delight of his soul! So
   he begins to drop off coming to the House of God and gradually
   declines, first a little in this way, and then in that. He has more
   money, now, than he used to have, so it takes him a longer time to
   count it. He has more business than he used to have and it takes more
   time to look after it. He cannot come to weeknight services and if, on
   the Lord's-Day, for appearance sake, he does not cease going to the
   place of prayer, he carries his ledger with him in his
   carriage--metaphorically, if not literally! There is many a man who
   comes into his pew with acres of land hanging to his boots. And there
   is many a woman who sits there in a fine new dress--not only the one
   she has on, but the other one that is to be made up on Monday!

   It is sad when worldly things then get into the soul and come right
   into God's House. Why, the preacher himself knows what it is to find a
   thousand distracting thoughts come to his mind while he is addressing
   you! And, therefore, he knows that they must come to your minds while
   you are listening to the Word of the Lord. Thus it happens that in one
   thing after another, the love of God and His Word withers--and the love
   of the world grows. By-and-by, family prayer gets pushed into a
   corner--very short and not very sweet. And private prayer hardly knows
   where to find a place for the sole of its feet. Private prayer, as
   there are none but yourselves to note its observance, is a very
   convenient place for retrenchment. You want to save time, as you have
   so much to do and, therefore, you snip off a piece here, and another
   piece there, and who but God is the wiser? You do not perceive any very
   great difference, for your conscience is getting seared. So, by
   degrees, a Christian who is declining in spiritual things, gives up
   private prayer--not altogether, perhaps, but the sweetness and the
   enjoyment of it depart as he trifles with it, instead of entering into
   the holy exercise with all his heart and soul.

   In some professing Christians, this declension goes still further. At
   last they give up all religious profession. I wonder whether there are
   any here who once declared and probably believed that he was a
   Christian, but who has now given up even the name of Christian? If so,
   my Friend, one of two things is true concerning you--either you never
   were converted at all, and so have been a mere professor, or else, if
   you ever were truly converted, you will have to come back. As surely as
   ever the Lord looked upon you with an eye of love, you must come back
   to Him, for, after He has once set His seal upon you, He cannot and
   will not let you go! Oh, that you would come back to Him now! You will
   have to come back, poor wandering sheep, for you belong to the Good
   Shepherd who will not lose one of His flock! Wayward as you are, He
   will have you with Him and if you will not come back to Him when He
   calls you, He has some rough dogs that will worry you back! But back
   from the paths of sin you must come--and I pray God that you may come
   back right speedily and so once more enjoy the blessings of peace with
   Him! I sometimes pass persons who used to sit in these pews and who
   were, I thought, ardent Christians. Even now some of them have respect
   for me, but I fear that they have none for my Master. If I get anywhere
   near them, they slink away, for fear I should speak to them. I wish
   they had as much anxiety about the grief they have caused my Lord as
   they have about any grief they may have caused me. May God grant,
   through His Sovereign Grace, that all of us who have professed to be
   His, may be preserved, lest--

   "When any turn from Zion's way (Alas, what numbers do!)"-- we also
   should turn away, as we shall certainly do unless His Grace shall hold
   us fast!

   III. Now, thirdly, and very briefly, a few words about THE PECULIAR
   EVIL OF THIS SAD CONDITION--

   "They have forgotten Me"

   It is so grossly ungratefulthat every Christian who realizes that he is
   apt to slide into such a condition should, at once bestir himself and
   watch against it. What? Shall I love the Lord less because He gives me
   more? Shall I set the gifts which His goodness bestows upon me, upon
   His Throne and let them be idols to deprive Him of my heart's love and
   worship? If I do this, surely I shall be worse than the brute beasts!
   God grant, dear Brothers and Sisters, that we may be ashamed of such a
   condition as this and flee from it!

   Remember that if any of us do begin to set our hearts upon the things
   of this world, whatever we gain, we must be losers. The man who has
   scarcely a rag to cover him, but who delights in God, may be the beau
   idealof a happy man. But the man who is robed in purple and who calls
   an empire his own--and who has forgotten his God--is to me the model

   of misery mocked by majesty! God save you from being able to delight
   yourselves in anything but your God! May He put so much bitterness into
   every other cup that you will be compelled to take the cup of salvation
   and, calling upon the name of the Lord, to drink only of that! You will
   be dreadful and eternal losers, whatever else you gain, if you lose the

   Lord!

   If you forget God, you who are indeed His children--and I am speaking
   only to such people just now--it is a terrible thing for you to be led
   into a condition in which you forget your Heavenly Father. If there
   were a wife who was very poor, but who, as long as she was poor, clung
   to her husband and found all her delight in his love, but who, when
   they became rich, no longer cared for him, it would be wretched riches
   that could burn away her heart from him who ought to possess it all! If
   I love my brother and find great comfort in fellowship with him, but I
   should suddenly get to be so great that I should not know my
   brother--what a miserable being I would be! Many a man does not know
   his own relations when he begins to get rich. He thinks he is somebody
   of importance, but really he is a big nobody--a very great and dreadful
   nobody! And when a man, just because God prospers him, does not know
   Jesus Christ, his great elder Brother, and gets to be ashamed of mixing
   with God's poor people who go to the little Ebenezer Chapel or of being
   seen with those poor commonplace sort of Christians who try to follow
   the Lamb where ever He goes--he is a poor, poor specimen of a man, much
   less of a Christian! God give us minds and hearts quickened by His
   Grace, that will enable us to live above all such meanness as that!

   A sad part of the wretchedness of this condition is that it involves so
   much trifling with God. If we have forgotten God, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, we have forgotten the many deliverances we have had in the
   days that are past. We have forgotten the wiping away of our tears of
   sorrow. Worse still, we have forgotten the precious blood of Jesus that
   spoke peace to our soul. And we have forgotten the Holy Spirit who came
   into our hearts and gave us joy and rest in Jesus Christ. And if we
   have forgotten God, we have forgotten His gracious promises which are
   yet to be fulfilled, and the glorious Covenant of His Grace, ordered in
   all things and sure, on which our hopes of Heaven are based! We have
   also forgotten His claims upon us--forgotten that we are His children,
   His beloved, His elect, His redeemed! We have forgotten all that and we
   are living in such a condition that we are trifling even with His
   threats! He has threatened that He will chasten us and we seem to make
   light of His threats and to defy His chastisements. We must have gotten
   into a state that is piteous and lamentable to the last degree if we
   can live from day to day in forgetfulness of God!

   IV. I will say no more about this sad decline, but finish my discourse
   by telling you HOW THIS EVIL CAN BE CURED.

   If any of us, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, are suffering from this
   dreadful decline, it is a good help towards its being cured when we see
   the mischief of it. When a man has this sad condition pointed out to
   him and the Spirit of God enables him to see it, that is a great help
   towards lifting him out of it. But I think that the best thing for us
   all to do is, just for the moment, to sink all differences and not ask
   any questions about whether we are saints or sinners--whether we ever
   did love the Lord, or whether we did not--and let us all go straight
   away to the Cross, just as if we had never gone there before. By
   nature, and by practice, too, we are all guilty and we all deserve to
   be cast into Hell--the best of us as well as the worst. So let us all
   go where the Savior carried the great load of sin upon Himself and bore
   the consequences that He might set us free from it forever. Let us look
   up to Him and, by faith, view the flowing of the blood from those many
   wounds that He received on our behalf. Let us look into that dear face
   of His--the image of matchless misery and majesty combined! Let us note
   the crown of thorns and the marks of ignominy and shame that cruel men
   put upon Him. Let us hear Him cry, "My God, My God, why have You
   forsaken Me?" And, as we see Him die, let us believe in Him again, or
   believe in Him for the first time.

   My Savior, my Redeemer, wherever I may have wandered, I come back to
   You. My soul believes in You, trusts You, hangs all her hopes for time
   and eternity upon You. Will You not speak peace and pardon to my guilty
   spirit? Ah, if you come to Him with such a confession and cry as this,
   you will get your love back. The best place to get it back is the place
   where it was born. It was born at the Cross and you will get it back if
   you go to the Cross, just as you went at first, and stand there, with
   this as your soul's confession of faith--

   "I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."

   I cannot say more except just this--if God is prospering you, keep very
   close to the Cross. Do you not see that if the richer you get and the
   more often you go to the Cross, it will be safe for you to be trusted
   with wealth? Take care to sanctify everything that God gives you by
   giving Him His proper portion and do not use your own portion till you
   have given Him His. Then, if you look at every blessing as coming to
   you by the way of the Cross, and say, "Jesus Christ has sent me this,
   for--

   "'There's never a gift His hand bestows But cost His heart a groan'"--

   if you receive everything as throughHim and then desire to use
   everything forHim, you may be as rich as the Rothschilds and yet you
   may be as gracious as the Apostle Paul! You might have all the world
   given you, and yet, for all that, it would not hurt you. If you had as
   much of God as you had of gold, God would see that the gold was safe in
   your hands. He would trust us with prosperity if He saw that all our
   prosperity only bound us more closely and more completely to the Cross
   of His dear Son. So, if any of you have forgotten Him, conclude this
   evening's service by coming to the Cross. And thus Father, Son and Holy
   Spirit shall get glory from you. May it be so, for Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HOSEA 13:1-9.

   Hosea was full of complaints against the people of God, for in his day
   they had very sadly wandered from the Lord. They had even forgotten
   Him. In Hosea's prophecy we have the plaintive voice of a loving God
   chiding His backsliding children.

   Hosea 13:1. When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel,
   but when he offended in Baal, he died. A modest, humble, trembling
   heart is often by far the sounder heart, but when we begin to sin and
   to sin boastfully, and to wrap ourselves about with the robe of
   self-complacency, then is death very near to us! "When Ephraim spoke
   trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal,
   he died."

   2. And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of
   their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it
   the word of the craftsmen: they say of them, let the men that sacrifice
   kiss the calves. When Jeroboam became king of the new Kingdom of
   Israel--in order to prevent his subjects from going to Jerusalem to
   worship God in Solomon's temple--he started two shrines at Dan and
   Bethel and there he set up what Holy Scripture calls in derision,
   "calves." I suppose that his idea was to make images of a bull, the
   emblem of power, intending them to be the symbol of the Divine Being
   and that the people still intended to worship God, but to worship Him
   under the image of a bull. It is the same in Roman Catholicism to this
   day--the worship of God, the worship of Christ, by means of crucifixes,
   and emblems and symbols of various kinds. But when men once begin that
   kind of idolatry, there is no knowing where they will stop, for the
   worship of God through the medium of symbols soon grows into the
   worship of other gods, saints, "blessed virgins" and I know not what
   besides! They are pretty sure to be set up when once people begin to
   make use of outward and visible emblems of the Deity. So it was with
   these ancient Israelites. From worshipping the bull, which was meant to
   be a type of the Omnipotent God, they went on to the worshipping of
   "molten images of their silver and idols according to their own
   understanding." Brothers and Sisters, let us take warning from these
   idolaters and always keep to the simplicity of worship ordained by God
   in His Word. However comely and beautiful, or grand and imposing and,
   consequently, fascinating, any form of idolatry may be to some minds,
   let us utterly despise it if it is not according to the mind of God and
   the teaching of His Spirit as revealed in His Word.

   3. Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew
   that passes away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of
   the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. Those who will have
   gods of their own making shall have but a brief enjoyment of them. He
   who truly worships the Everlasting God shall have an everlasting
   blessing! But he who worships gods that he has made himself--mere
   objects of this mortal day--shall have but a short day of it. He shall
   be as the early dew which glistens brightly, but is soon gone--or as
   the morning cloud which is banished by the rising of the sun.

   4. 5. Yet I am the LORD your God from the land ofEgypt, and you shall
   know no god but Me: for there is no Savior beside Me. I did know you in
   the wilderness, in the land of great drought. The Israelites drew near
   to God when

   they needed bread and water in the wilderness. God says, "I did know
   you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought." And the Lord
   might say to His people nowadays, "I did know you when you were very
   sick, when you were very poor, when you were in great trouble. You
   sought Me then--how is it that you are trying to do without Me now?"

   6-8. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled,
   and their heart was exalted, therefore have they forgotten Me.
   Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I
   observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her
   whelps, and will tear open the rib cage of their heart, and there will
   I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them. When men
   forget God they may expect that they will meet with some terrible
   judgments. And especially God's own people will find this to be the
   case with them if they forget the Lord. Our God is a very jealous God
   and when His children will set their hearts on other objects instead of
   upon Him, He will take care to embitter those objects of their
   affection to them--He will make their idols to be loathed by them. If
   God did not love us very much, He would think little of our faults, but
   just because He loves us so much, He cannot bear that any part of our
   heart's affection should go away from Him. So, if He sees that we deal
   unfaithfully with Him, He will make us realize that sin is an
   exceedingly evil and bitter thing. His anger against us will be like
   that of a bear that is robbed of her whelps, or of a lion or leopard
   leaping upon his prey.

   9. O Israel, you have destroyed yourself: but in Me is your help. "You
   have gone away from Me, but I will bring you back again. You have
   destroyed yourself by your sin, but I will restore you to My favor by
   My Grace. You may look within yourself for causes of repentance, but
   you must not look to yourself for the means of restoration. You must
   look to Me, your Savior and your God." So this verse teaches us "O
   Israel, you have destroyed yourself, but in Me is your

   help."
     __________________________________________________________________

Order Is Heaven's First Law

   (No. 2976)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk everyone in his
   path." Joel 2:8.

   THOSE who have been able to observe the marching of an army of locusts
   have been amazed beyond measure with the marvelous regularity of their
   advance. Agur, who must surely have seen them, says, "The locusts have
   no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands." The wonder is that
   creatures comparatively so insignificant in size, and so low down in
   the scale of intelligence, should maintain such more than martial
   order, both in their long flights and in their devouring marches. The
   ablest commanding officers would be at their wits' end if ordered to
   marshal a multitude numbering even a thousandth, or perhaps a millionth
   part of the countless hordes of these destructive marauders and yet, by
   instinct, the locust soldiery can and do keep rank better than the most
   veteran regiments of the line, as I can personally testify, from having
   seen miles of them in one of the Italian valleys. "They shall march
   everyone on his ways," says the Prophet, "and they shall not break
   their ranks: neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk everyone
   in his path."

   I. As I considered this remarkable fact in insect life, my meditations
   led me to note THE ORDER WHICH REIGNS, not only among locusts, but
   THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF GOD'S WORLD. And then I said within myself--
   After this fashion should there be order and arrangement in the
   Christian Church. God has trained His great insect army and among them
   order reigns, but this is no exception to the general rule, for all the
   hosts of God are marshaled in rank and file and are never left to be a
   disorganized mob of forces. From the most minute to the most
   magnificent, all creatures feel the sway of order and they well observe
   the laws imposed by their Creator!

   Look up to the heavens and observe the innumerable stars that glisten
   there so plenteously that numeration fails. Looked at through the
   telescope, stars are so abundant that the heavens appear to be covered
   with dust of gold and yet we have no record that one of these bodies
   has ever interfered with the orbit of its fellow sphere, or if such a
   catastrophe has ever been permitted, it has been part of the
   all-comprehending scheme. The majestic orbs move, each one in its own
   orbit, and all in perfect harmony. Even the aberrations, as we call
   them, are nothing but the result of regular law and the astronomer
   finds that he can calculate them with the greatest possible accuracy.
   There are no irregularities, discords, or failures among the
   constellations! And if to the student of the heavens such should appear
   to be the case, he has but more fully to master the universal law and
   he discovers, with astonishment, that every eccentricity is a necessary
   incident in a system grander than he had thought. Mere amateurs in
   astronomy talked of irregularities, but Newton and Kepler found a
   mathematical precision manifest in all. At no point need we be afraid
   that the universe will be thrown out of gear! If a man had placed
   innumerable wheels in a machine, there would be, in due time, a
   breakdown somewhere. Oil would be needed here, a cog would be broken
   there, a band would be snapped in this place, or a piston would be
   immovable there--but God's great machine of the universe, whose wheels
   are so high that the sublime Ezekiel, when he saw them, felt that they
   were terrible, has continued to revolve these many thousands, perhaps
   millions of years, and has never yet been stopped for cleaning or
   repair because God has impressed upon every atom of it the most docile
   spirit of submission--and His powerful hands are at work every instant
   amidst the machinery giving force to His laws.

   Nor is it so in the coarser inanimate forms of matter only, but the
   same law holds good with the whole animal creation. Not locusts alone,
   but the fish of the sea and the birds of the air all observe their
   Maker's bidding and both live and move according to rule and order, all
   forming portions of the perfect circle struck out by the Divine
   compasses. What a wonderful thing it is that mighty streams of fish
   should come, during certain seasons, from the North and swim near
   enough to our coasts to afford our citizens so large a portion of their
   daily food! If there is complaining in our

   streets, there need not be, for extended fisheries could supply all the
   inhabitants of Britain, even if they were multiplied a hundred times,
   and yet there would be no perceptible declining in the teeming
   population of all the sea, for God has so arranged it that there shall
   be most of those kinds which are most required for food. But what a
   marvel that at the fixed period, the unguided fish should migrate in
   such countless shoals and should return again, in due season, to their
   old abodes among the Arctic waves!

   Mark, too, how every tribe of animals is necessary to all the rest. So
   beautiful is the order of Nature that we cannot wantonly destroy a race
   of little birds without suffering from their removal. When the small
   birds were killed in France by the peasantry, who supposed that they
   ate the corn, the caterpillars came and devoured the crops. Man made a
   defect in an otherwise perfect circle--he took away one of the wheels
   which God had made and the machine did not work perfectly. But leave it
   alone and no jars or grindings will occur, for all animals know their
   time and place and fulfill the end of their being. You spoil the
   harmony of Nature's concert if even the sparrow's chirrup is unheard.
   The stork and the crane fly at God's bidding, the swallow and the
   martin know their pathway--the prowling beasts and ravenous birds, as
   well as the domestic cattle, all hold their own in Nature's
   arrangements. Like the bejeweled breastplate of the high priest, Nature
   is full of gems, each one in its setting--and the glory is marred if
   one is lacking. Be assured that the wild ass and coney, leviathan and
   behemoth, eagle and dove, gnat and lizard are all arranged for the
   highest good and are beautiful in their season. "Neither shall one
   thrust another; they shall walk everyone in his path."

   Rising a little higher, there is also order in the Providence of God.
   When you view the great world of human history, it looks like a skein
   of thread much twisted and tangled. When you study it, you see nations
   rise and fall, like boiling waves of a foaming sea. You read of
   horrible wars, wantonly commenced and wickedly continued. The human
   race seems to have destroyed its sons without a motive. Men rush upon
   each other with all the fury of fiends and tear each other like
   wolves--and yet they eat not that which they have killed! The history
   of mankind appears at first sight to argue the absence of God. We ask,
   "How is this? We expected to find, if God were in Providence, something
   more orderly and regular than we see here. Instead of a grand volume
   from a master-pen, we see words flung together without apparent
   connection. We expected to find a sublime poem, such as angels might
   love to read, but all this is confusion, void and
   unintelligible--strokes and dashes without meaning to us." Yes, my
   Brothers and Sisters, and so it is. But we are little children and do
   not yet understand God's hieroglyphics! We write in large text and have
   not the transcript of the celestial shorthand. Our limited field of
   vision only lets us see a brick or two of the great house--and
   straightway we begin to criticize the infinite Architect and His work.
   After all, supposing this world to have existed six thousand years,
   what is that? In God's sight, it is but as a day, or as yesterday when
   it has passed. We see but one thread of history, a raveling of life,
   and then we vainly fancy that we can form a fair judgment of the
   tapestry curiously fashioned by the finger of the Lord!

   Coming down from these great things to ourselves, depend upon it that
   all the events in our own little lives are marching straight on to a
   gracious consummation. You, child of God, sometimes say, "What can be
   the design of this cross? What can be meant by that bereavement? Why am
   I perplexed by this dilemma? Why is this difficulty piled like a
   barricade across my path? Well, you know not now, but you shall know
   hereafter! Meanwhile, settle it firmly in your faith that "all things
   work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
   called according to His purpose." Your affliction does not jostle your
   prosperity, but promotes it. Your losses do not cause your loss--they
   really increase your true riches! Onward still, laden with untold
   blessings, every event is marching for the righteous and for the humble
   spirit. God has His way in the whirlwind and the clouds are the dust of
   His feet. Only be patient and wait upon Him with childlike confidence
   and the day shall come when you shall wonder, and be astonished, that
   there should have been such order in your life when you thought it was
   all confusion--such love when you thought it unkindness, such
   gentleness when you thought it severity, such wisdom when you were
   wicked enough to impugn the rightness of your God! Brothers and
   Sisters, the events of our history march on as rightly as a victorious
   legion under a skillful Leader. Do not let us arraign the wisdom of
   that which happens to us, or fancy that we could order our affairs in
   better style. Our good and ill, our joy and grief, all keep their
   places. "Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk everyone in
   his path."

   II. But we must rise still higher. We have come from the world of
   matter to the world of living creatures and up to the world of
   intellectual beings--NOW LET US THINK OF GOD HIMSELF.

   We may say of all His attributes that "neither does one thrust another,
   but each one walks in his path." Let us be careful at any time in
   thinking of God, that we indulge not in reflections upon one attribute
   to the forgetting of the rest. Many Christians are much soured in their
   disposition by considering God only in the light of Sovereignty. Now,
   that He is a Sovereign, is a great, deep, mysterious, but also most
   blessed Truth of God, and we would defend Divine Sovereignty with all
   our might against all comers. But, at the same time, absolute
   Sovereignty is not the only attribute of God and those who keep their
   eyes fixed upon that, to the exclusion of all other qualities and
   prerogatives, get an ill-balanced idea of God--and very likely they
   fall into errors of doctrine and, still more likely, they become
   hardhearted towards their fellow men and forget that the Lord has no
   pleasure in the death of sinners, but desires rather that they should
   turn unto Him and live.

   On the other hand, many injure their minds very greatly by reflecting
   solely upon the one thought of God, that He is good. It is a blessed
   Truth that He isgood and benevolent, and full of compassion--and Holy
   Scripture tells us that "the Lord is good to all; and His tender
   mercies are over all His works." God forbid that we should seek to
   diminish the kindness of God, or think lightly of it, "for His mercy
   endures forever." Yet some look at that one emerald ray as though it
   were the whole of the spectrum! They gaze upon one star and regard it
   as the Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, all in one. And, alas, worse
   results follow, for they are tempted to think sin to be a mere trifle
   since they ignore the Justice and Sovereignty of God. They so exclude
   God's righteousness and vengeance from their minds so that when they
   hear of Hell, and of the wrath that will come upon the impenitent, they
   shudder with inward unbelief and try to doubt it--and, perhaps, manage
   to find texts of Scripture which look as if they helped them in their
   perverted and jaundiced view of the Most High! They think they are
   glorifying God, but they are really dishonoring Him, for God is no more
   altogether Mercy than He is altogether Sovereignty! And He is no more
   altogether Sovereignty than He is altogether Mercy. The fact is that
   every glory meets in God! All that is good, excellent and great may be
   found in Him in complete perfection. God would have you so to think of
   Him, for, in the Atonement, which is His grandest Revelation of
   Himself, He has been pleased to show you--

   "How Grace and Justice strangely join; Piercing His Son with sharpest
   smart, To make the choicest blessings yours."

   This leads me one step further to observe that the same order is
   perceptible in the Doctrines of the Word of God. Doctrines, which look
   as if they contradicted each other, are nevertheless fully agreed. It
   is the defect in our mental vision which makes separate Truths of God
   appear to cross each other's orbit, for it is certain that the Truths
   of Scripture do not thrust each other, but each one goes on in its own
   path. Perhaps the fiercest of fights has been waged over the great fact
   that salvation is of Grace and the equally certain fact that man is
   responsible to God under the Gospel, and that, if he perishes, his ruin
   lies at his own door--and is not to be charged upon God in any sense
   whatever. This has been the arena in which intellectual gladiators have
   fought with each other age after age. If they had stood side by side
   and fought the common enemy, they would have done good service, for I
   believe in my soul that they both hold some Truth and that either of
   them will hold error unless he will yield something to his rival. There
   are some who read the Bible and try to systematize it according to
   rigid logical creeds, but I dare not follow their method and I feel
   content to let people say, "How inconsistent he is with himself!" The
   only thing that would grieve me would be inconsistency with the Word of
   God! As far as I know this Book, I have endeavored, in my ministry, to
   preach to you not a part of the Truth of God, but the whole counsel of
   God--but I cannot harmonize it, nor am I anxious to do so. I am sure
   all Truth is harmonious and to my ear the harmony is clear enough--but
   I cannot give you a complete score of the music, or mark the harmonies
   on the gamut--I must leave the Chief Musician to do that.

   You have heard of the two travelers who met opposite the statue of
   Minerva and one of them remarked, "What a glorious golden shield
   Minerva has!" The other said, "No, it is bronze." They argued with one
   another. They drew their swords, they slew each other and, as they fell
   dying, they each looked up and the one who said the shield was made of
   bronze discovered that it had a golden side to it--and the other, who
   was so bold in affirming that it was gold--found that it also had a
   bronze side. The shield was made of two different metals and the
   combatants had not either of them seen both sides. It is just so with
   the Truth of God--it is many-sided and full of variety. Grand
   three-fold lines run through it--it is one yet three, like the Godhead!
   Perhaps you and I have only seen two of the lines--many persons refuse
   to see

   more than one--and there may be a third yet to be discovered, which
   shall reconcile the apparently antagonistic two, when our eye shall be
   clarified by the baptism in the last river and we shall ascend the Hill
   of the Lord to read the Truth of God in the light of the Celestial
   City!

   However, it is clear that salvation is altogether of Grace and equally
   clear that if any man perishes, it is not for lack of invitations on
   God's side--honest invitations to come to Christ. We hear our Master
   saying, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
   will give you rest." Some friends are so afraid of that text that they
   generally quote it "weary and heavy laden," which is not the true
   reading--the laboringones are invited to Jesus! Many such invitations
   did Christ give, yet did He not also say, "No man can come to Me,
   except the Father which has sent Me draw him"? Amid the soft rain of
   tenderness we hear the thundering of those solemn Truths of God--"So
   then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that
   shows mercy." "Therefore has He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and
   whom He will, He hardens." As we listen to that thunder, we bow to the
   Sovereignty of God yet, amid the pauses, we hear the Master say,
   "Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely," and we also hear
   Him say, "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come
   in, that My house may be filled." Let us believe both sets of Truths
   and not oppose ourselves to friends who hold either the one or the
   other, but seek to bring them to believe both--for as the Bible is
   true, they are, both of them, the Truths of the living God! Observation
   leads me to think that those persons who are willing to hold the whole
   of revealed Truth, are generally Christians of a more active spirit and
   more desirous for the conversion of souls than those who contract their
   minds and only hold some one or two great theological dogmas. If we
   will but lay aside our Chinese shoes and allow our feet to grow as they
   should, we shall find it far better walking on the road to Heaven--and
   we shall be more ready for any work which our Master may call us to do!

   III. Now we turn to THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

   Dear Friends, you and I who have entered into the Kingdom of Grace and
   have received a life which the worldling cannot understand, (for the
   carnal mind knows nothing of the spiritual life), must remember that
   our thoughts, graces, and actions ought all to keep their proper
   position so that it may be said of them, "Neither shall one thrust
   another; they shall walk everyone in his path."

   As to our thoughts, we ought to endeavor, as God shall teach us by His
   Spirit, to keep our thoughts of God's Word in their due harmony. Some
   Brothers and Sisters, for instance, are altogether doctrinal in their
   inclinations. Doctrinal study is admirable--may God send us much of it!
   Yet doctrine is not all that we are taught in the Sacred Word. There
   are also duties and promises--why despise these? Then again, other
   professors of religion are altogether of a practical turn and, while
   they value James, they depreciate Paul. They do not like an expository
   sermon, they cannot endure it! But if you give them a precept, they
   rejoice greatly. They are quite right as far as they go. The Lord send
   us much more practical Christianity! But this is not all. There are
   others who are altogether experimental and some of these will hear no
   sermon unless it treats upon the corruption of the human heart, or upon
   the dark frames of the child of God. Others will have no experience but
   the bright side--you must always preach to them out of the Canticles,
   inditing the good matter concerning the sweet love of Christ towards
   His spouse.

   Now, each of these forms of preaching is good in its season, but he who
   would keep close to the Scriptures and preserve completeness in his
   thoughts must weigh well the doctrine and seek to get a clear view of
   the Covenant of Grace and the economy of salvation. He must study the
   precepts and ask the Holy Spirit to give him the fleshy heart upon
   which those precepts may be written as upon living tablets. And then he
   must watch his experience, mourning over inbred sin, but also rejoicing
   in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, through whose blood we have
   the victory.

   We must endeavor, as much as possible, to exercise our thoughts upon
   all the subjects which God has given us to think upon in His Word and
   has applied to our hearts by the workings of the Holy Spirit. Where
   this is done, we shall avoid one thought thrusting another, and each
   will go in its own path. I have heard of doctrinal preachers who hated
   the very sound of the word, "duty.'' I have also heard the practical
   Brother declare that he detested "election" while the experimental
   Brother has affirmed that the doctrinal preacher was merely "a
   dead-letter man." Oh, what naughty words for God's children to use to
   describe one another--bitter sentences which they only use because they
   know so little! Shame upon us that we say, "I am of Paul" and, "I am of
   Apollos" and, "I am of Cephas," for all these are ours to profit by if
   we are Christ's! Learn from the doctrinal, learn from the practical,
   learn from the experimental! Blend the whole together and let not one
   thrust another, but allow each to go straight on in its own path!

   The same should hold good in the graces which we cultivate. The Lord
   Jesus Christ is pleased to put, by His Holy Spirit, into the hearts of
   those whom He has saved, certain lovely and precious things, but it is
   not always easy to get these in due harmony. For instance, I know a
   Brother who is very faithful. He does not mind telling you of your
   faults, but then, he is not affectionate in spirit--and so he never
   warns you of your infirmities in a way that does you good. Now, if that
   Brother could get affection to balance his fidelity, what an admirable
   man he would make! I remember well another Brother who was all
   affection and nothing else. He was so affectionate as to be effeminate
   and I, poor rough creature as I am, could never bear the sight of him.
   He always reminded me of a pot of molasses and his office appeared to
   be the anointing of everybody he met. If he could but have mixed a
   little fidelity with his sweetness, he would have been a much better
   and stronger man. Secker says that Christianity ought, first, "to make
   a man more of a man and then, more than a man"--and so it would if we
   sought, by the power of the Spirit, to cultivate all the graces!

   The beauty of the human countenance does not consist exclusively in
   having bright eyes--no, the fine eyes help, but all the other features
   of the face must balance it. A man may have the finest possible
   forehead and yet he may be extremely ugly because his other features
   are out of proportion--so it is with character. Character must have all
   the graces, but all the graces in harmony. Take, for instance, the
   virtue of meekness. It is a lovely thing to be of a meek and quiet
   spirit, but then, my Brothers and Sisters, how could reforms ever be
   worked if all were so meek that they could not speak out against error?
   Where would you find your Luthers and your Calvins? Meekness must be
   balanced by the virtue which is its compensating quality, namely,
   courage. Affection must be strengthened by fidelity. A man must be
   patient under affliction, but he is not to be so patient as to be idle.
   He must couple energy with his patience, in order to manifest a
   practical faith. When we have each of these, we shall be what Paul and
   James call, "perfect." Then shall we have come to be "entire, needing
   nothing," having reached "the measure of the stature of the fullness of
   Christ." Christian men should be men-Christians. If your child should
   have a rapid growth in its arms, but not in its legs, or if its legs
   should lengthen, but not its arms, what a strange being it would be!
   What a monster! It is the growth of each limb in proportion that brings
   a man to perfection. So, my Brothers and Sisters, when our heads grow
   faster than our hearts, it is an ill sign-- yet how many know a great
   deal more than they feel, and criticize much more than they believe! It
   is also an evil thing when a man's tongue grows bigger than his
   head--when he has more to say than he knows or does--when, like Mr.
   Talkative, he can talk about the road to Heaven, but makes no progress
   on it!

   The same proportions and balancing should be found in our Christian
   duties. This is too large and difficult a subject to go fully into,
   now, but we will have a word or two about it. A man is not in his
   outward action a complete Christian because he is attentive to one
   duty, for God would have His people attend to all. It will sometimes be
   a question with you as to how much time should be given to private
   devotion, how much to family worship and how much to worship--and you
   may easily make great mistakes here. I recollect a Brother, a very
   excellent man, too, who was always at Prayer Meetings and public
   services, but, unfortunately, being always away from home, his family
   was so neglected that the sons grew up, one after another, to be the
   most precocious specimens of depravity that the parish could exhibit!
   We thought and we hinted as much to our Brother that if he would be at
   home, sometimes, to teach the children, whose mother was as neglectful
   of them as the father was--and so the mischief became doubled--he would
   be far more in the path of duty than in attending public services to
   the neglect of family piety. I only wish he had been able to see the
   propriety of our advice, for he has had to smart for his folly. It is
   not often that a man's private devotions obtrude in this way, but I
   know one professor who used to spend so long a period in private prayer
   that he neglected his business and also the assembling of himself with
   God's people. It was, indeed, an unusual vice, but it came to be quite
   a sin in his case. This last is a very unusual fault and one that I
   could almost excuse because it is so unusual--but I recommend far more
   strongly the careful thinking of how much time is due to God in the
   closet, how much at the family altar, how much at the Prayer Meeting
   and how much to the weeknight services--for we must give to each
   according to its due proportion.

   Again, the difficulty will often occur to you, my Brothers and Sisters,
   as to how much is due to diligence in business and how much to fervency
   in spirit. No one can draw the line for another. Each one must judge
   for himself, but this must be the law--"Neither shall one thrust
   another; they shall walk everyone in his path." There may be a season
   in which you may lawfully give all the hours of the day to business.
   Your business may require it and there are times with commercial men
   when to go to weekday services would be almost insanity--they must keep
   to their work, or else there will become a failure--and then the name
   of Christ will be evilly spoken of. There will be times, too, with
   workingmen, when if they were to insist upon coming to the Monday
   evening Prayer Meeting, or to the Thursday night lecture, they would be
   altogether out of the path of duty--there is a demand for labor just at
   some particular time and they must obey the call--and they are in the
   path of duty in so doing. I am afraid that there are not many who fail
   in that way, but crowds who err in the opposite direction. Some will
   keep the shop open so late that there is no time for family prayer!
   Others will confine their servants so strictly that they can never get
   out on weeknights to hear a sermon. It does not strike the employer's
   mind that some of the young people would perhaps like to be at the
   Prayer Meeting on Monday night, nor will the employer be there himself.
   Now, I cannot say to you, you must give so much time to God and so much
   to the business--you yourself must ask God the Holy Spirit to guide
   you! But remember, you must not let one thrust another. It is a good
   saying of an old Divine, "Never bring to God one duty stained with the
   blood of another." As much as lies in you, give to each distinct duty
   its due proportion.

   There is a still greater difficulty with regard to the arrangement of
   distinct duties when they are likely to run counter to one another.
   Here is a servant--his master expects him, after he has entered into an
   engagement with him, to do such-and-such unnecessary work on the
   Sabbath. The young man says, "No, I cannot do that. It is clearly
   unscriptural and I must obey God rather than man." But there are
   certain things which come somewhere between the necessary and the
   unnecessary--and the servant may properly enquire, "What is my duty?"
   You must settle it carefully within your own mind. Have you any sordid
   or selfish motive for deciding in any particular way? If so, be very
   cautious how you decide, but seek the Lord's Glory, and the Lord's
   Glory, alone, and say, "While I am, as a servant, to serve man, yet I
   am the Lord's free man and I must walk both as a servant and the Lord's
   free man, and not forget either."

   Sometimes the matter of the conduct of children towards parents has
   come under our notice. A harsh parent has said, "My children shall not
   carry out their religious convictions." In such cases we have had to
   occasionally recommend the child to wait until he has grown a little
   older. At other times, we have bid the child break through the parent's
   evil command, since we cannot hold that the parent can have any right
   to make his child disobey God. In the matter of the child's
   religion--when it is able to judge for itself--it is as free as its
   parents and has a right to choose for itself. And while the parent
   should seek intelligently to guide it, coercion must never be tried. If
   the parent is ungodly, the child is free from all obedience to wicked
   commands and must then act in obedience to a higher Parent, and to a
   greater Law, namely, the Law of God. The same happens, at times, with
   regard to the husband and the wife. Of course, a good wife continually
   wishes to do that which will please her husband and she is happy to be
   subservient to him as far as may be. But when it comes to a point of
   conscience and the two relations clash, the relations of the Heavenly
   Bridegroom and the earthly husband--it is not always easy to decide
   upon a fitting course of action. But we may at least be certain that we
   must not be actuated by selfishness, nor by a desire to avoid
   persecution, nor to please men--we must stand on the side of honesty to
   God, fealty to the King of kings and a regard for the Truth as it is in
   Jesus. Do try, if it is possible, and I believe it is possible in every
   case, to harmonize all your relationships, so that neither one of them
   shall thrust another, but each shall walk in its own path.

   IV. So, Brothers and Sisters, my concluding remark shall be that as
   this is to be true in the little commonwealth of the heart and the
   home--IT OUGHT TO ALSO BE TRUE OF THE CHURCH AT LARGE.

   It is a great blessing when the members of the church do not thrust one
   another, but everyone goes in his own path. There are different orders
   of workers and these must cooperate. Alas, workers in a Sunday school
   do not always agree with one another. Then, workers in Sunday schools
   are not always so fond of workers in Ragged schools as they might be
   and, perhaps, the workers in Ragged schools may sometimes look down
   with coldness upon the distributors of tracts. It should never be so.
   We are like the different members of the body and the eye must not say
   to the foot, "I have no need of you," neither must the hand say to the
   ear, "I have no need of you." Every man must work according to the gift
   of the Holy Spirit. When a man steps out of his proper office into
   another, he makes a great mistake, both for himself and for the Church
   at large--and when one Brother envies another and picks holes in his
   coat, and finds fault with his service, he needs to hear that Inspired
   question, "Who are you that judges another man's servant? To his own
   master he stands or falls." I pray all the bands of workers to maintain
   a holy unanimity, being of one accord, minding the same thing,
   provoking one another to nothing but love and good works, striving for
   nothing except that they together may promote the Glory of the Lord
   Jesus!

   And as it is true in any one church with regard to the laborers, so it
   should be also with regard to the different ranks and classes of
   Christians. The rich should never say, "We do not want so many poor in
   the church," neither should the poor man say, "Our minister favors the
   wealthy--there is more thought of the rich than there is of the poor."
   There is just as much fault on one side as there is on the other in
   these things. While we sometimes find the purse-proud man looking down
   on the poor, it quite as often happens that the poor man takes umbrage
   where there is no need for it and is much more wicked in his jealousies
   than the other in his purse-pride. Let it never be so among Christians,
   but let the Brother of high degree rejoice that he is exalted and the
   poor that he is brought low! We need both and cannot do without
   either--and having both in the church, neither should one thrust
   another, but each should go in his own path.

   So with the educated and the uneducated. I have been saddened,
   oftentimes, when I have heard a sneer against a Brother who cannot
   speak grammatically. The Brother who can speak grammatically, perhaps,
   does not try to speak at all--and yet he sneers at the other and says,
   "Well, really, I wonder that such fellows should preach! What is the
   good of them?" Now, until you have done better than he does, do not
   find fault with him! God uses him, so surely you ought not to despise
   him! The fact is, Brothers and Sisters, that the learned and educated
   minister is necessary and useful--we have no right to sneer at those
   who have gone through a College and earned a high degree of learning,
   for they are useful. But on the other hand, who among us hears of such
   men as Richard Weaver and Mr. Carter, and others who are laboring among
   the poor and dares to despise them? If I might have my choice, I should
   prefer to work with them rather than with the fine-spun gentlemen, but
   still, every man in his own order, each man after his own fashion--let
   the one take his position and the other take his position--and never
   say a jealous or an angry word of each other, neither let one thrust
   another, but each one go straight on in his own path.

   So it ought to be with all our churches. In this great city of London,
   there is no excuse for anything like jealousy among the various
   Christian churches. If we were to build as many places of worship as
   would reach, set side by side, from here to London Bridge, on both
   sides of the road and without a single house or shop in all the
   distance--and if we were to put Gospel preachers into them all, I
   believe they could all be filled without any of them being a hindrance
   to another--for the millions in this city are so enormous that there is
   no chance of our being jostled by one another! We are like fishermen in
   the deep sea. Because there are a hundred boats, they need not, any of
   them, come off the worse. If there were 50,000 boats, they could all be
   full where the fish are so abundant. Perhaps you say, "I hear Mr.
   So-and-So, and what a dear man he is!" Very likely he is, but so is
   somebody else. It would be a great pity if everybody could hear only
   one man. It would be a very sad thing if everybody wanted to come to
   the Tabernacle, for we cannot make it any bigger than it is--and it
   would be a very wretched thing if everybody wanted to go somewhere
   else, for then we should have an empty house! But now, each one
   listening according as his own spiritual taste may guide him, or as his
   spiritual appetite may dictate to him, we are formed into different
   communities which prosper individually, but which would glorify God
   much more if all disunion were cast aside and if we sought each other's
   good, profit and edification.

   And so, to conclude, it ought to be with the different denominations. I
   sometimes think that these will continue forever. They are of no hurt
   to the Church of God, but a great blessing, for some of them take up
   one point of the Truth of God which is neglected and others take up
   another--and so, between them all, the whole of the Truth of God is
   brought out! And it seems to me that the Church of Christ is even more
   one than if all the various sections were brought together into one
   grand ecclesiastical corporation, for this would, probably, feed some
   ambitious person's vanity and raise up another dynasty of priestcraft,
   like the old Babylon of Rome! Perhaps it is quite as well as it is, but
   let each body of Christians keep to its own work and not sneer at the
   work of others. Let all feel, "We have this to do, and we will do it in
   the name of God." Let each body of Christians try to correct its
   neighbor in its errors and mistakes, but let each work hand in hand and
   stand foot to foot in the common battle and the common service, for, O
   my Brothers and Sisters, the time will come when our little narrow
   jealousies will all melt away like the hoar frost when the sun arises!
   When the King shall come in His Glory, or we are carried to the other
   side of the stream of death and see beyond the curtain which parts us
   from the invisible world, we shall look with very different eyes upon
   some things which seem so important now! We shall then see that God has
   forbidden us to glory in anything but the Cross of Christ and that the
   one thing necessary, after all, to contend for was, "By Grace are you
   saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of
   God."

   Now, may the Lord help us to go straight on in our own paths, not one
   thrusting another, but all working together for God. And if there are
   any among us who are not converted, let me remind them that they are
   out of order--and let me tell them what comes of that. When a man sets
   himself in opposition to God's Laws, they crush him as surely as he is
   there! Throw yourself from the Monument and the law of gravitation will
   not be suspended to save you. Even so, if you are out of order with
   God, there is no help for it--and your destruction is certain if you
   remain opposed to Him. Oh, that you may be led, by Divine Grace, to get
   into order with God--to be reconciled unto God by the death of His Son!
   He tells you the way to get into order. It is this--simply trust Jesus!
   That is the way to rectify all errors. He that believes on the Lord
   Jesus Christ shall be saved! May God bless us all with that salvation,
   for His name's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Plowing Rock

   (No. 2977)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

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

   "Shall horses run upon the rocks? Will oneplow there with oxen?" Amos
   6:12.

   THESE two questions are evidently Oriental proverbial expressions.
   Proverbs have always been used by the wisest of men. Solomon not only
   spoke and wrote a great many, but he also made a considerable
   collection of those uttered by others. We find in the writings of such
   notable thinkers as Socrates, Pliny and Aristotle, an abundance of
   short, pithy sentences, many of which can be used as proverbs. Proverbs
   have great force in them, because they are condensed wisdom. They are
   generally most convincing--it is hardly ever possible to answer or
   controvert them. They carry truth home as an arrow has often been known
   to carry death to the person aimed at, for they strike, they stick,
   they penetrate, they wound. Our Lord Jesus very frequently made use of
   proverbs, nor was He singular in doing so. The Prophets of old
   constantly employed them and here, in our text, we see Amos--who, from
   his occupation as a herdsman and gatherer of sycamore fruit, was
   probably more familiar with their use than some others of the Prophets
   were--puts together two proverbs which were commonly used to signify
   that men do not, as a rule, continue to labor in vain and spend their
   strength for nothing. Wise men do not send their horses to run upon the
   rocks and they do not send their oxen to plow where all their toil
   would be wasted--"Shall horses run upon the rocks?" "Will one plow
   rocks with oxen?" The answer implied is, "Certainly not," and it means
   that if a thing cannot be done, or is not worth doing if it can, it
   will be well for us not to attempt to do it. Our text may have two
   bearings--first, upon men and, secondly, upon God.

   I. First, WITH REGARD TO MEN. They are not usually so foolish as to try
   to plow a rock, yet many are as foolish as that in moral and spiritual
   matters!

   I want to give you three or four illustrations of this fact. The first
   is that many persons have tried to find the way of safety and pleasure
   in the way of sin. Many a man has sought to get rich by injustice.
   Possibly he has succeeded to a certain extent, but, as a general rule,
   it is notorious that ill-gotten riches are generally ill-spent and
   bring a curse upon their possessors. Some have thought that if they
   indulged their passions, they would have great enjoyment. Although
   their fathers warned them that such a sin would be like
   self-destruction and would make their whole life sad, they have not
   believed it would be so and they have tried to plow this hard rock of
   sin and to find lasting pleasure therein. There are hundreds and
   thousands of men who are pursuing the way which is not good--and they
   know it is not good--yet they foolishly continue in it because they
   conceive it to be the path of pleasure, nor can you beat that false
   notion out of their heart, do what you may! On the contrary, they turn
   upon you and call you a "Puritan" because you object to their style of
   living. Possibly they revile you as a hypocrite because you point out
   the evils of the way in which they are walking. Yet if they would but
   think at all seriously, they must perceive that the way of sin cannot
   lead to happiness. It is absolutely inconceivable that God, who made
   the whole universe, should have arranged that the terminus of sin
   should be Heaven, or should have made the path of evil lead to joy and
   peace! The Judge of all the earth cannot have put a premium upon
   wickedness! In the long run, it will be proved that sin brings forth
   sorrow and that the path of right is the path of peace. Yet many will
   not see that it must be so and they continue, even to the bitter end of
   life, to plow that rock, breaking the plowshare, wearing out the ox,
   and themselves dying a death of miserable disappointment, which, if
   they had not been arrant fools, they would never have had to endure,
   for they would never have attempted so hopeless a task as that of
   trying to find any real pleasure in the ways of sin! As well might you
   sow the sea with salt and expect to reap from it a harvest of golden
   sheaves! As well might you scatter firebrands and expect to gather from
   them the cooling

   streams that flow from the mountain spring, as live in sin and expect
   to receive happiness as the result of doing so! Cease, O sons of
   men--such an act of madness as the plowing of this rock must always be!

   Others are attempting another equally absurd task. They are hoping to
   find real joy in pursuits which are laudable in themselves, but which
   are entirely of this world. Did you ever read the book called The
   Mirage of Life It is a book which is well worth everyone's reading. The
   author gives, in sets of pictures, the life of the man of pleasure, the
   life of the courtier, the life of the philosopher, the life of the
   statesman, the life of the warrior and so on with a very fair selection
   of facts from the lives of such men, with the objective of showing
   that, although each one of them was eminent in his own line of
   things--and apparently successful in that line--yet they all failed to
   find the precious jewel of solid satisfaction. Most of them lived in a
   sort of perpetual weariness and when, at last, they died, and their
   eyes were opened, they found that their pretty dreams had all vanished
   and that the reality, when they beheld it, was dreary indeed. There
   have been men--perhaps some of you have known them--who have had more
   wealth than you and I would care to count, yet they have thought
   themselves poor--and so they really were, for they were incapable of
   enjoying the riches which they had amassed! There have been men who
   have been crowned with laurel who have had all sorts of honors heaped
   upon them, yet, when a friend has wished them a happy new year, they
   have said, "Then it had need be a very different year from any that we
   have ever yet experienced." The high places of the world, like the
   mountaintops, are glassy with icy dangers and they are cold with
   discontent. Many try to clamber up to them--and a few reach the summit,
   but others perish in the crevasses. Yet those who reach the summit
   often envy those who are in the valley below, and those in the valley
   envy those on the heights, for, beneath yon moon, there is no
   contentment to be found in earthly things either in the peasant's hut
   or the monarch's palace! The man whose arm is not long enough to grasp
   that which lies in the land beyond the stars will have to live and die
   without attaining to perfect satisfaction. Man, it is not here below
   that God has placed that which you need! The bread for your souls must
   come from Heaven! That which can satisfy your immortal spirit must be
   Divine, like the Creator who made you! God alone can satisfy the
   cravings of your soul. Cease, then, to toil, and tug, and fret, and
   fume, and waste your time and strength in seeking happiness in these
   bubbles of earth. "Seek you first the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you"--insofar
   as you need them--but as for seeking them first, plow that rock no
   longer, for it will yield you no return for all your toil!

   Men of another sort are satisfied that the things of this world are not
   sufficient to render a man perfectly happy, so they have religious
   thoughts of a certain form. They believe that they are very good,
   excellent and they mean to make themselves still better and so to get
   perfect peace by feeling that they are what they ought to be, and have
   done what they ought to have done! I remember when I plowed that hard
   rock and entertained the hope of getting a very fine crop off it--but I
   woke, one morning, to discover that the rock would not yield even the
   moss or lichen of comfort to me--there was nothing on its surface that
   could bring me any contentment. Self-righteousness is a great cheat.
   The man who gets most comfort out of it simply gets that comfort
   because he is ignorant! If he knew himself and knew God's Law, and knew
   the demands of inflexible Justice, he would fling upon the nearest
   dunghill that self-righteousness of his which looks like fair white
   linen, but which really is, in God's sight, nothing but filthy rags! O
   Sinner, you cannot find your way to Heaven by your own works, for the
   only way to Heaven by works is to keep perfectly the Law of God--and
   you have already broken that Law! You must present this matchless vase,
   flawless and entire, at the gates of Glory if you would be saved by
   works--but you have already shattered it in a thousand pieces--how can
   you hope to mend it? That is impossible! The hope of salvation by a
   perfect life is over and you must, each one, feel that your life has
   already been imperfect.

   Some hope that they will get perfect peace by the way of ceremonies.
   Many people tell us that we are living in a very enlightened age, but I
   am inclined to think that Carlyle was uncommonly near the mark when he
   said that "the United Kingdom contains about thirty millions of people,
   mostly fools," for it does seem as if people, nowadays, are fools to a
   very large extent. For instance, a man says that if we will come and
   confess our sins to him, he can forgive us in the name of God--and that
   he can, by sprinkling a few drops of water upon a child, and uttering
   certain words, transform an heir of wrath into an inheritor of the
   Kingdom of Heaven! He also says that if we come to what he calls an
   altar, he will give us the very body and blood of Christ to eat and
   drink! Well, when I was young, I thought that anybody who talked like
   that ought to be served like the gypsies who were put in prison for
   taking sixpences from silly servants and pretending to tell their
   fortunes! And, in later years, I have been sometimes surprised that the
   law has not been put in motion against

   these gentlemen, for certainly the imposture which they seek to foist
   upon us is a far more terrible one than that of the fortune-telling
   gypsies! The so-called "priest" has no power to forgive sins, or to
   change the nature of the child he sprinkles, or to offer the sacrifice
   of the "mass." There is nothing more in him than there is in anybody
   else--and let him talk as loudly as he may, his pretensions are utterly
   vain and worthless! If you trust to him, the result to you will be the
   same as it has been to tens of thousands before you, for you will find
   that all the ceremonies which men have invented, yes, and all the rites
   that God Himself has given, cannot bring healing to a diseased soul, or
   hush the tumult of an awakened conscience, or bring the soul into a
   state of conscious reconciliation with the Most High! O Sirs, you may
   be sprinkled, and confirmed, and immersed, and go to the Communion
   Table, and do I know not what besides--yes, you may travel along seven
   thousand leagues of ceremonialism, but you will be just as uneasy at
   the end as you were at the beginning! That is not the way of peace,
   neither will God make it to be so! It is plowing a rock--and no harvest
   can possibly come of it.

   Some are trying the equally impossible task of being saved by Jesus
   Christ when they shall have prepared themselves for Him. In other
   words, they talk about being saved by Christ, but, in their heart of
   hearts, they do not think that Christ can save them till they have
   reached a certain standard of excellence. Now we know, from the
   Scriptures, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save His people
   from their sins and He will do it from first to last, or not at all. He
   will be the Alpha and the Omega--the A and the Z of salvation's
   alphabet, or else He will have nothing to do with it! Yet thousands of
   hearers of the Gospel are constantly saying, "We will believe in Jesus
   when we feel our sins more--when we feel more repentance--when we have
   done this and told that, and experienced the other." Ah, Sirs, this
   plan of bringing Christ in at the end of the work--after you have
   accomplished the first part of it yourselves--is a most foolish
   mistake, and a fatal one, too! It is like setting oxen to plow a rock.
   Let me ask you--Are you any better than you used to be? You have been
   trying, for a long while, to make yourselves ready for Christ--are you
   any more ready than you were at the first? Has it never struck you that
   Hart's lines are true?--

   "If you tarry till you're better, You will never come at all"?

   Thus I have shown you how the text can be applied with regard to men.

   II. Now, secondly, I want to show you how these Proverbs can be applied
   WITH REGARD TO GOD. "Shall horses run upon the rocks? Will one plow
   there with oxen?"

   God does not always continue to do that which, after a certain period,
   turns out to be unprofitable. Dear Friends, there are some of you--I
   pray God to grant that there may not be any of you of whom this will
   remain true--but it is at present true that there are some of you to
   whom the Gospel has come in vain. Up till now, so far as you are
   concerned, the Gospel plow has only gone across a rock--the Truth of
   God preached in your hearing has not gained an entrance into your
   heart. Oh, how many come and hear us preach merely that they may
   compare us with other preachers! They pass certain criticisms upon our
   mode, manner and matter. We do not know, and we do not care what they
   say, but the point that really concerns us is that we cannot get the
   Gospel plow into them--we cannot make them feel, and repent, and
   believe! A great master of the art of preaching once said, when his
   congregation complimented him on having delivered a fine discourse,
   "There is another sermon lost." He did not want his hearers to praise
   his discourse--he wanted them to feel the power of the Truth of God
   which he had preached to them! And so do we. But there are some hearers
   into whom we do not know how to get the Truth of God. We may put it,
   first in one way, and then in another way--sometimes pathetically and,
   at other times, we may make use of a little humor. We may denounce or
   allure, but we are equally foiled in whatever way we attempt to reach
   them. We cannot get the plow in where we want it to go and if ever the
   share does seem to make a little impression, it only produces a slight
   surface scratch. Some of you have had a good many of those scratches.
   You have thought, "When I get out of this place, I will go home and
   pray," but you have not done so. Or, if you have prayed, your
   seriousness has soon vanished and the impression made upon you in the
   service has expended itself in that prayer!

   What is worst of all, in some of you, God's dealing with you, in the
   preaching of the Gospel, has developed the hardness of your hearts. It
   has made others realize how hard they are and, truth to tell, it has
   really hardened them. Plowing does not harden rocks--but preaching does
   harden sinners if the Gospel does not reach their hearts and, of all
   hardhearted men, the hardest are those who have been hardened in the
   fire of the Gospel! If you want to find a heart that

   is as hard as steel, you must look for one that has passed through the
   furnace of Divine Love and has been made aware of the redemption that
   is in Christ Jesus, but has rejected the Truths of God that has been
   made known to it.

   This hardening of heart is not the fault of the plowshares which have
   been used and, with some of you, God has used a great many. There is a
   man here who used to be plowed by God when he was a child, and the
   plowshares employed then were his mother's tears. He cannot forget
   them! Even now, as I bring them to his memory, he feels as if he must
   weep as he did when he was a child. Ah, my Friend, that mother of yours
   is in Heaven, now, but if she could look down upon her son, and tears
   could be shed in Heaven, what cause she would have to weep over you!
   She prayed for you when you were nestling in her bosom and she took you
   to the House of God from your very early days. You can remember her
   very look when she used to speak to you about Jesus when you were quite
   a little child! And perhaps you remember her dying request that you
   would follow her to Heaven. But that plowshare--one of God's best--has
   never yet cut into your rocky heart and you still remain as hard as you
   ever were!

   Since that time God has tried you with the plowshare of personal
   sickness. You have not always been such a strong man as you are today.
   Time was when you lay very near the gates of death and you trembled at
   the prospect before you! Do you remember when the fever seized you, or
   when you thought the cholera had claimed you as its victim? You
   trembled then and you made many vows which all proved to be lies! And
   you even made a profession of repentance, but it was mere
   profession--and though you appeared, just for a little while, to be
   touched--and those who were around you, who had prayed for you, hoped
   that at last the plowshare had entered into you--they found that you
   rose up from that bed of sickness worse than you were before!

   Since then, God has used another sharp plowshare upon you--the
   conversion of some of those who are very near and dear to you. You were
   not at all pleased when your wife came home a converted woman, but you
   could not help feeling it. And when your sister wrote and told you that
   she was rejoicing in Christ as her Savior, you could not pour ridicule
   upon the letter and, as you read it, it brought tears to your eyes. You
   quickly wiped them away and said that you were not such a fool as to
   trouble about so absurd a matter, yet it was not easy for you to forget
   the emotion which the news had caused. Possibly your own dear child,
   whom you love very much, has made a profession of faith in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, yet you do not know anything, experimentally, about such
   faith as that. This is a very sharp plowshare and none can think
   lightly of it but those who are unaware of its operation. To have your
   relatives and friends converted and to be yourself left out of the
   happy circle of blessing ought to make you think seriously about this
   matter!

   Another plowshare has gone across your rocky heart from the fact that
   some of your old companions are dead. One was buried this week, was he
   not? You used to drink and smoke with him, but there will be no more
   pipes and beer on a Sunday night for you two! You know right well that
   he died without the fear of God in his heart and you also know that you
   are living in the same sad and perilous condition. It gave you quite a
   shock when someone said to you, "Old Tom is dead." You have also seen
   several of your business friends die. There was that clerk who was in
   the office with you a little while ago--he is gone and you have been
   called to occupy his place. Death has come awfully near you again and
   again. You have been like a soldier on the field of battle who saw the
   ranks on every side of him mown down, yet he still lived on. God's plow
   has been at work with you--He has been trying, by these striking
   Providential dealings, to touch your hard heart--but it has not yet
   yielded. Do you think that God means to keep on plowing you to no
   effect? If you do, you are wonderfully mistaken, for the oxen will not
   always plow upon this rock--and when it comes to this--that neither can
   love melt you, nor terrors subdue you--God will say, "Ephraim is joined
   to idols: let him alone." And when God says that, your doom will be
   sealed! May God grant that He may never have to say that concerning any
   whom I am now addressing!

   I have thus shown you that you have been like a piece of granite rock,
   untouched by all the different plowshares which have been tried upon
   you. There is another thought that you must not forget and that is, you
   have wearied the workers. I pity the poor oxen that have to plow a
   rock--they plod on and on and all their toil is wasted. The hardest
   form of labor is that which produces no result. I remember being in a
   military prison where they punish the men by making them carry cannon
   balls from one end of the yard to another, and bring them back again--a
   very senseless practice. The sergeant who accompanied me said, "When we
   let the men carry the balls from this end of the yard, to make them
   into a pyramid at the other end, there was some kind of amusement in
   the task, so the rule was made that the man must carry the ball from
   this end of the yard and bring it back again, and his toil seems to be
   so altogether fruitless that

   it becomes a double punishment to him." It is certainly a very great
   trial for a man to have to work for nothing and to feel that all he is
   doing will result in nothing. There are some of us who have had to do
   so with you unconverted folk. And sometimes some of us have been very
   harshly used--we oxen that have to plow such hard rock's as you are!

   The first part of my text asks, "Shall horses run upon the rock?" I
   remember going over a smooth, rocky place in the Alps which is called
   Hell-Place because it is so very slippery. Well, horses could not be
   expected to run over rocks like those, and it is not surprising that
   they sometimes trip! And if the preacher occasionally trips, it is
   little wonder when he has such rocks as those to go over. George
   Herbert says that the sins of hearers sometimes make the preacher trip,
   and so it is. There is often, in the hearer, that which makes the
   preacher speak amiss. I remember pleading one night here with all my
   soul, and I said, "If some of you who are listening to me, never mean
   to accept Christ as your Savior, do not continue to sit in this place
   and hear the Gospel, but go away and let somebody who will accept Him,
   occupy your seat." I did not think that one of my hearers would take me
   at my word, but there was one, over whom I have never ceased to lament,
   and for whom I still pray, who says that he will never come here again
   because he is one of those who will never receive Christ and, though he
   would still like to hear me preach, he will never occupy another
   person's place. It was a mistake on my part to say what I did, but I do
   not think I would have tripped like that if the rock had not been so
   hard and smooth!

   It is hard for a horse to have to run upon such a rock as that and it
   is hard for the oxen to keep on plowing there. I have had over 20 years
   of this kind of plowing upon some of you--and I have made nothing of
   you yet. Thank God, there are not many of your sort, but there is still
   a remnant left of the old Park-Streeters who were "almost persuaded"
   then, and they are still "almost persuaded." And I am "almost
   persuaded" that I shall never be able to do them any good. It seems to
   me that there is nothing which I can say that will ever reach their
   hearts, or else, surely, it would have reached them before now! I am
   always glad when I hear that some other preacher attracts them and that
   they are listening to him with interest, for, as long as they get
   saved, I do not mind how it is done. Still, it is hard lines for us to
   have to preach for 20 years to some of you and to have all that labor
   for nothing. If anybody could teach me how to preach better, I would
   gladly go to school, again, and learn how to get at some of your
   hearts. If they would teach me how to speak in such a vulgar style that
   I would lose my reputation, but be blessed to the saving of your souls,
   I would willingly fling my reputation to the winds! Or if I could learn
   the art of oratory, I would go and sit at the feet of Cicero or
   Demosthenes, if I could but get at your superfine hearts that need such
   fine words before they will be touched! But I fear that it is the
   oxen's fate to go on plowing, and plowing, and plowing--and to get
   weary with the labor, and yet to see no result of it all.

   One other thing that I want you to remember--you who remain unconverted
   after all this effort--and that is if the same labor which has been
   lost upon you, has been used elsewhere, it might have been profitable.
   Christ said, concerning Bethsaida and Chorazin, a very amazing thing
   which I do not fully understand, but which I absolutely believe--"If
   the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and
   Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." It is
   a very extraordinary thing that God would send the Gospel to men who do
   not get any good out of it, and not send it to people who would have
   got good out of it! There are people, possibly, even in London,
   certainly, in other parts of the earth, who would have been converted
   if they had heard the Gospel as much as you have--yet you have heard it
   and have not been converted! That same digging about and fertilizing
   that would have made other trees bring forth much fruit, has been used
   in vain upon you, for you have brought forth no fruit. And you have
   stood there and occupied a plot of ground which a better tree might
   have occupied. You have cumbered the ground--do you think that God will
   always allow you to do that? Have you--who live in the country and have
   a large orchard--have you a tree that has borne no fruit for many
   years? I am sure that, if so, you mean to have it cut down before
   long--and God means to have some of you cut down--and that, it may be,
   before long! I tremble even as I speak to you thus, for I may be a
   Prophet foretelling the destruction of your soul! May God, in His
   infinite mercy, grant that you may repent before His axe of Judgment
   falls upon you!

   Any man in his senses, when he finds that the rock will not break,
   gives up plowing it. The ancient proverb says, "Will one plow there
   with oxen?" and God, though infinitely merciful, is equally wise. And
   if, after the use of means which are blessed elsewhere, any heart still
   remains hard, He may fairly say, "I have done with it. I give it up to
   its natural rockiness and so let it continue forever." That is the end
   of the matter and a terrible end it is! And I do not know anything more
   that I can say about it. I have preached the Gospel thousands of times
   and I have nothing to preach but the Gospel--but these people will not
   have it, so what more can I say to them? A man came to me the other day
   and asked me to pray for him. He was one to whom I had many times
   explained the Gospel and after I had again done so, he said to me,
   "Will you pray for me, Sir?" I said, "No, I will not." He asked, "Why
   not?" and I replied, "Do you want me to ask God to save you apart from
   the Gospel? I have told you the Gospel again and again--will you accept
   it? If you will not, I shall not ask God to save you. How can I do so?
   I cannot expect Him to save you if you will not have the Gospel. If you
   will have it, that will save you. If you will not have it, you will be
   lost and it is no use for me to pray for you."

   There I had to leave the matter so far as that man was concerned, but
   let me say this much to God's people--You see that we cannot do
   anything with this rock. The oxen are quite tired out with their
   useless labor, so let us pray to God to turn that rock into good soil.
   It needs a miracle to be worked and only God can work it. Let us unite
   our prayers and cry to God, "O Lord, You did change our rocky hearts
   into good soil, where the Good Seed could enter, germinate and grow.
   Change these rocks, we beseech You!" Here is the reason for our Prayer
   Meetings and for our private intercession. We can do nothing with these
   rocky hearts, so let us turn to God who can do everything! Then I may
   add that if you will pray God to change these rocky hearts, I will go
   on preaching to them! The weary ox will go on plowing again, hard as it
   has found the work for these 20 years and more. If you will pray, I
   will preach! If you pray God to make the rock brittle and break it up,
   I will plow it again, and I should not wonder if the plowshare gets
   into some of them at last, so that there may yet be a golden harvest to
   God's honor and Glory!

   Let me put the plow in one minute more. The greatest rock-breaking plow
   that I know of is the one that broke me up. If that will not do it, I
   do not know of any other that will. When Christ died upon the Cross,
   among other wonderful things that happened, we read that "the rocks
   rent, and the graves were opened." Ah, it was a dying Christ that rent
   the rocks! Sinner, listen once more to--

   "The old, old story Of Jesus and His love."

   You have offended and grieved your God and my God is just--and must
   punish you for your wrongdoing. But, in order that He may not punish
   you, He has taken upon Himself your nature and come into this world to
   suffer in the sinner's place and borne what was due to human sin in His
   own body on the Cross! Out of pure love to those who were His enemies,
   out of love to those hearts that are so hard that they will not love
   Him, out of love to those who have, perhaps, for 50 years rejected and
   despised Him--for love, for the sake of love, alone, He died upon the
   Cross, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." And
   now, if you will trust Him, you shall at once have the pardon of all
   your sins! If you will trust Him, you shall be--

   "To the great Father's bosom pressed,

   Once for all a child confessed!" You shall be cleansed in a moment and
   accepted and saved forever if you do trust the Incarnate, dying, risen,
   glorified Redeemer! God grant that this plowshare of the Cross may
   touch you! Law and terrors, I know full well, do not affect some men,
   but Almighty Love--will that not affect them? God grant that it may,
   and unto Him shall be glory forever and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: AMOS 6:1-8; 7:1-6.

   Amos was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. His words are
   rugged, but sometimes he rises to sublimity. His expressions are
   somewhat dark and not readily understood, but when we learn the meaning
   of them, we perceive that they are full of deep, earnest, solemn
   warning and instruction.

   Amos 6:1. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the
   mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the
   house of Israel came!It was a time of great sin and also of great
   judgment, yet there were some in Zion who were quite at ease under all
   that was happening. No sense of sin grieved them, no thought of coming
   judgment alarmed them. What did they care if the nation went to rack
   and ruin? What did it mean to them that God was angry with His people?
   They were atheists or, at least, they acted as if they were! Whatever
   might happen, they would run the

   risk of it. "Woe," says God, to all such people as these--and when the
   Lord says, "Woe," to anyone, it is indeed woe, for He never speaks thus
   without cause.

   2. Pass you unto Calneh, and see; and from there go you to Hamath the
   great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than
   these kingdoms? Or their border greater than your border? The Lord
   points to other cities which had been destroyed--to Calneh, and Hamath,
   and Gath which He had smitten because of the sin of the people who had
   lived there, and He says, "You that dwell at Jerusalem, and you that
   live at Samaria, do not imagine that you will escape the consequences
   of your sin. I was able to reach the inhabitants of these proud cities,
   despite their strong fortifications and their powerful armies--and I
   can also reach you." So, when we look back upon the judgments of God
   upon guilty men, we may conclude that no sinner has any right to think
   that he shall escape. The proudest and mightiest have been brought down
   by God and so will men who dare to resist the Most High continue to be
   humbled, even to the world's end.

   3. You that put far away the evil day. You who say, "There is time
   enough yet. Let us see a little more of life; why need we be in a hurry
   to seek salvation?" "You that put far away the evil day"--

   3. And cause the seat of violence to come near For, when men try to
   postpone thoughts about "the judgment" which is to follow "after
   death," they are generally the more eager to indulge in sin. They say,
   "There is time enough yet," because they want a longer period for yet
   greater indulgence in sinful ways. The Lord cries, "Woe," to all such
   people as these.

   4. That lie upon beds of ivory.They were men of wealth who spent their
   money upon all manner of luxuries while the poor of the land were
   perishing through need.

   4. And stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of
   the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall.It was, as I
   have said, a time of danger when war was at the gates, but the people
   were so careless that they lived as if peace were established forever
   and the enemy could never touch them! Their expenditure was at a high
   rate for self-indulgence and only for that.

   5. That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves
   instrument of music, like David. But not for the same purpose as David
   played and sang--his instruments of music were used for spiritual
   solace and the worship of God--but these people set their wits to work
   to find out how their music might inflame their lusts and be a vehicle
   for the expression of their lascivious desires.

   6. That drink wine in bowls. For seldom can a careless man crown the
   edifice of his sin without indulging in drunkenness! He must have the
   sensual delight that he finds in "the flowing bowl."

   6. And anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not
   grieved for the affliction of Joseph. It is not wrong for a person, to
   whom God has given much of the good things of this life, to enjoy them
   fitly and reasonably. The sin of these people consisted in the fact
   that when others were afflicted, they took that opportunity to indulge
   themselves in all the delights of the flesh. And when God's rod was
   being used for chastisement, they went on with their sinful mirth to
   show how little they cared about it. Probably I am addressing some who
   have, at this very moment, a sore sickness in the house. Or it may be
   that a beloved wife is scarcely cold in her grave, or a dear child has
   only just sobbed itself into its death-sleep--yet the survivors are
   running after amusements, pleasures and follies more wildly than ever,
   as if to hush the voice of conscience and to forget the strokes of
   God's rod! Oh, that this very solemn chapter might convey a warning
   message to them!

   7. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive,
   and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.
   Whenever God does come forth to execute judgment upon the ungodly, He
   will first pick out those who have defied Him the most. Those who have
   the proudest spirit and the hardest heart shall be the first to feel
   the strokes of His rod.

   8. The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself, says the LORD, the God of Hosts,
   I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I
   deliver up the city with all that is therein.

   The next chapter shows that even when God was very angry with the
   wicked, there was still wonderful power in prayer.

   Amos 7:1-3. Thus has the lord God showed unto me; and, behold, He
   formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter
   growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowing. And
   it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of
   the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech You: by whom
   shall Jacob arise? For he is small The Lord repented for this: it shall
   not be, says the LORD. In a vision, the Prophet saw the locusts or
   grasshoppers come to devour all the green things of the land--a very
   terrible visitation! If you have never seen it, you cannot realize how
   utterly bare everything is made after the visit of the locusts. The
   Prophet put up a vehement and earnest prayer. He cried, "O Lord God,
   forgive!" And no sooner was the intercession offered than the Lord
   said, "It shall not be." Thus the impending judgment was turned away.

   4-6. Thus has the Lord God showed unto me: and, behold, the Lord God
   called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat
   up a part. Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech You: by whom shall
   Jacob arise? For he is small. The Lord repented for this. This also
   shall not be, says the Lord God. This time the Prophet saw the fire
   devouring the land--perhaps the fire of war which casts its blazing
   brand upon peaceful dwellings. This fire, however, was something worse
   than that, for the very deep itself seemed to be licked up by tongues
   of flame and the Prophet, in hearty sympathy with the afflicted people,
   cried again as he had done before, and the answer came, "This also
   shall not be, says the Lord God." This ought to encourage you who are
   the King's remembrancers to make use of the position in which His Grace
   has placed you, and to cry earnestly to Him to turn away His wrathful
   hand and have pity upon sinners! God grant that many of us may have
   such an intercessory spirit as that of Amos the herdsman-Prophet!
     __________________________________________________________________

Power With God

   (No. 2978)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 8TH, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

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

   "As a prince have you power with God." Genesis 32:28.

   MEN think a great deal of anyone who has power with royalty. If it were
   said, concerning somebody in this place, "That individual has very
   great power with the Queen," there are a great many of you who would
   turn at once to look at that person. He who has great power with an
   earthly prince is sure to have many flatterers around him who will pay
   him homage for the sake of the advantage which they hope to gain
   through his mediation. But, dear Friends, what a far greater honor it
   is to have power with the King of kings! Power with men may be an evil
   thing, but what blessing must come from power with God! How it ennobles
   the soul of the man who possesses it! This man, Jacob, who has power
   with God, is called Israel, a prince, for so he is--but princes have no
   such dignity as his unless they, too, have power with God, for he is "a
   prince of God."

   What a comprehensive blessing it must be to have power with God, for he
   who has power with God must have power with men! Creatures must submit
   where the Creator, Himself, has yielded. If you can have your way with
   the Master, you may depend upon it that you can have your way with His
   servants. The man who has power with God must be safe. "If God is for
   us, who can be against us?" No weapon that is formed against such a man
   can prosper and every tongue that rises against him in judgment, he can
   condemn, for, having power with God, he shall be able to plant his foot
   upon the neck of his adversaries and to reign over those who rebel
   against him. Such a man as that cannot be in need. If he has power with
   God, he will tell Him about his needs and they shall all be supplied.
   He will confess his sins and they will be forgiven. God will deal well
   with the man who has power with Him. There is such a wide range of
   blessing here that I must not stop to enlarge upon it. If you have
   power with God, you will see that this is a weapon which, like the
   flaming sword at the gate of the Garden of Eden, turns every way. Or I
   may say of it what David said of the sword of Goliath, "There is none
   like that; give it to me." Human language can never tell a thousandth
   part of the value of power with

   God!

   I. I want you to note, first, WHAT THIS POWER CANNOT BE. "Power with
   God."

   You scarcely need to be told that it cannot be anything like physical
   force in opposition to God. It is power with God, not power againstGod,
   that is mentioned in our text. No creature, however mighty, can have
   any power to stand in opposition to Omnipotence. Who are we that we
   should ever stand up to oppose the Most High? Let the twig contend with
   the fierce flame, or the wax with the burning heat, but let us not
   contend with God! If we did so, we should be like the moth in the
   candle--utterly consumed. The strongest and the proudest men must be
   but as stubble in the day of God's anger. In fact, to think of man
   having any power against God is sheer madness, for we have not any
   power at all apart from God. We only exist because He wills it. The
   breath in our nostrils is His gift, moment by moment. We should go back
   to the nothingness from which we sprang if He withdrew, for a single
   instant, His sustaining hand! Man has no power against God. O you
   foolish sinners who are resisting Him, give up the unequal battle! I
   charge you, before God, to count the cost of a contest with your Maker
   before you begin it! As well might a potsherd strive with him who molds
   it as for you, a creature, to strive with your Creator! He will break
   you in pieces, like a potter's vessels, in the day of His anger.
   Therefore, be wise and end the fight--and be at peace with Him!

   Neither can this "power with God" mean mental power. There are persons
   who seem to exalt their intellect even above God Himself! It is a fine
   thing to be gifted with powers of argument and to have a keen reasoning
   faculty. But, at

   the same time, to some people these are very dangerous possessions. I
   know certain individuals who say that they will never believe what they
   cannot understand. If they adhere to that determination, they will
   never believe in their own existence, for they certainly cannot
   understand that! They seek to overthrow the Word of God and the
   Doctrines of the Gospel with their subtle wit and profound thought, but
   it is sheer madness for human folly to contend with Divine Wisdom! It
   is insanity carried to the very highest point for even the wisest of
   men to think that their intellects are a match for the Omniscience of
   God, for, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men." Even the
   simplicity of the Gospel-- and it is very simple--and "the foolishness
   of preaching"--which, in some people's esteem, is utter foolishness,
   shall win the victory while those who imagine that they are wise shall
   be proved to be fools! Brothers and Sisters, let us never attempt to
   argue any case in opposition to God's will, for we cannot have any
   power with Him in that way. Let us always surrender our judgment to the
   teaching of His Word and conform our will to His will. If we ever think
   that a certain course is best, but it is evident, by the working of
   God's Providence, that He does not think so, let us not for a single
   moment hold a debate with Him, but let us say, as David did, "I was
   dumb, I opened not my mouth because You did it." If God does anything,
   that is enough for us! If God saysanything, that is enough for us!
   Instead of arguing and reasoning, "It is written," or "God has said
   it," is sufficient to settle any question that concerns a Christian!

   It is almost necessary, in these days of superstition, to say that
   neither can any man have any magical power with God,for, albeit that
   people nowadays would be ashamed to confess that they believed in
   magical arts, yet something very akin to it seems still to exist among
   mankind. They suppose that there is some efficacy in the mere
   repetition of certain words. I am sure they must think so, for they do
   not put their hearts into the words, but they are quite content if they
   have galloped through a collect, or some set form of prayer. Another
   supposition is that the prayer is all the better for being offered by a
   certain individual who is ordained to that particular work, so those
   who are sick send for an official to come and "pray for them"--I have
   often heard that expression, as though it was thought that this person,
   by reading a prayer out of a book, could, by a sort of magic, do the
   sick one good! O Sirs, mere words strung together--whether they are in
   Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or English--are of no use before God! It is
   the utterance of the heart that He hears, and you must never imagine
   that there is any excellence in a certain arrangement of letters and
   sounds, or that certain men, by the use of these words, can bring down
   blessings from above! Oh, no! Jacob had no abracadabra, no talisman, no
   magic, no charm, no enchantment--and God forbid that you and I should
   ever be such heathens as to believe that there is any power with God in
   any such things! God is not prevailed upon to grant His blessings by
   any such fooleries as these--He utterly abhors them!

   And, again, when we speak of having power with God, we must not suppose
   that any man can have any meritorious power with God. It has been
   thought by some people that a man can attain to a certain degree of
   merit, and then he will receive Heaven's blessings--if he offers a
   certain number of prayers, if he does this, or feels that, or suffers
   the other, then he will stand in high favor with God. Many are living
   under this delusion and, in their way, are trying to get power with God
   by what they are, or do, or suffer! They think they would get power
   with God if they were to feel sin more, or if they were to weep more,
   or if they were to repent more. It is always something that they are to
   do, or something they are to producein themselves which they are to
   bring before God so that, when He sees it, He will say, "Now I will
   have mercy upon you, and grant you the blessing you crave." O dear
   Friends, all this is contrary to the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus
   Christ! There is far more power with God in the humble acknowledgment
   of sinfulness than in a boastful claim of cleanliness--much more power
   in pleading that Grace will forgive than in asking that Justice should
   reward--when we plead our emptiness and sin, we plead the truth--but
   when we talk about our goodness and meritorious doings, we plead a lie!
   And lies can never have any power in the Presence of the God of Truth.
   O Brothers and Sisters, let us forever shake off from us, as we would
   shake a viper from our hand, all ideas that by any goodness of ours,
   which even the Spirit of God might work in us, we should be able to
   deserve anything at God's hands and to claim as right anything from the
   Justice of our Maker!

   II. Now, secondly, let us inquire FROM WHERE THIS POWER PROCEEDS. If
   anyone asks, "How can a man have power with God?" The answer is, "Not
   because the power is in him, but he can have power with God by reason
   of something that is in God."

   First, God's people get power with Him from the very Character of God's
   Nature. You will soon see what I mean. Have you ever visited a family
   in the depths of poverty and found them with a few rags to sleep upon,
   with nothing

   whatever in the cupboard, with a child dying for lack of food, mother
   and father with pinched countenances who tell you that, for the last 48
   hours they have had nothing whatever to eat? And have you not felt that
   they have had power over you, so that you could not help them? I am
   certain that it has been so, if you have a tender heart, and are of a
   gracious, generous spirit. The power that they have over you does not
   arise from their riches, but quite the reverse--from their poverty.
   Their power over you does not lie in their being respectable and
   well-to-do--quite the opposite--their power over you lies in their
   being in abject distress. Their misery has power to excite your pity!
   Because you see them in such a sad state, you, being a man of
   compassionate spirit, are straightway moved to try to help them. There
   is many a spectacle of suffering and sorrow in this world that even a
   strong man cannot bear to look at, especially if he is unable to
   relieve those who are in distress. Now, if we, being evil, are so
   stirred by the sight of human misery, how much more is our heavenly
   Father, who is all goodness, tenderness, gentleness and love, moved to
   pity by the miseries of His children? Whenever you and I come to Him,
   it is wise for us to plead before Him our weakness, that He may pity it
   and make us strong--our poverty, that He may pity it, and enrich
   us--our dire necessity, that He may pity it and supply all our
   needs--our low estate, our sinking heart, our trembling spirit, our
   utter nothingness! In that way we shall have power with Him.

   If you have been accustomed to visit the poor, you know how those who
   have got to be "old stagers" at receiving charity, never put their best
   leg forward when they want to impress you with a due sense of their
   need. If they had a little of anything in the house, they would take
   care that you did not see it. If there has been any improvement in
   their circumstances since you last called upon them, you will have to
   fish a long while before you will find it out--but they are very adept
   at bringing forward the black side of their case because their power
   lies there with those who have generous hearts! And so, Brothers and
   Sisters, our power with God, when we come to Him as sinners, lies not
   in what we are, but in what God is! He is Love, He is full of pity, He
   is Tenderness, He is Gentleness. He wills not the death of a sinner,
   but delights to display His saving Mercy, to manifest the abundance of
   His Grace. The foundation of our power with God must always lie in the
   love and tenderness of God. He is susceptible of pity--yes, He is
   Tenderness itself. He is a God of Compassion and, therefore, it is that
   the poor, feeble sons of Adam have power with Him!

   But we get a further view of the source from where this power with God
   proceeds when we reach the next point, namely, God's promises. God has,
   in His Word, been pleased to say that He will do this and that and give
   this and that. He was quite free, once, to do whatever He pleased, but
   now that God has given us His promises, He is not free to break them
   and it would be inconsistent with His glorious attributes that He
   should do so. Neither will He ever be false to a single syllable that
   has gone forth out of His mouth. When God gave His promises, He did, as
   it were, put Himself in the power of those who know how to plead the
   promises. Every promise is so much strength given to the man who has
   faith in the promise, for he may, with it, overcome even the Omnipotent
   God Himself! Why, Brothers and Sisters, if your character is what it
   should be, and a person comes to you and says, "You promised to give me
   such-and-such a thing," has not the person who can say that, power over
   you to the full extent of your promise? If you are a true man, he has
   beaten you at once! If you say to him, "But when did I give you that
   promise? You may have misunderstood what I said," and he puts his hand
   in his pocket and brings out your promise in black and white, with your
   name signed to it, there is no getting away from that, is there? Now,
   that is just the way in which God gives us power with Him, for He has
   given us His promises in black and white! Here they are in the Book
   which we know to be His Book, His own Infallible Word! It is a blessed
   thing to be able to come before God on your knees and to put your
   finger on a promise in the Bible, and to say, "Lord, this is what You
   have promised that You will do. I beseech You to do it because You are
   the God of Truth. I know that You cannot lie, so I remind You of Your
   promise and plead with You to do as You have said." Do you not see what
   power you have with God when He has given you faith to lay hold upon
   Him, bringing His own gracious promise in your hand? There is a
   conquering power in faith, because faith pleads the promises of God!

   Thus, you see, there are two sources of power--God's Nature and God's
   promises.

   But the true child of God knows of other sources of power with God, so
   next, he pleads the relationships of Grace. God, in His infinite mercy,
   has been pleased to choose certain people to be His children. "You
   shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." There was no
   reason, in themselves, why they should be His sons and daughters, but
   His Sovereign Grace adopted them and His Spirit regenerated them. But
   the moment that God made any one of us His child, He did again--I speak
   with all reverence--give us power with Him and put Himself into our
   hands! Who among us does not know the power of a child over his father?
   There are some children who have too much power. There is a Greek story
   of the little boy who ruled all Athens because he ruled his mother and
   his mother ruled his father--and his father ruled the senate and the
   senate ruled Athens! And so, in that way, the little boy practically
   ruled the whole city! And I am afraid that there are some children who
   have a good deal too much power in that way. But our Heavenly Father,
   though He is too wise to indulge us in that way, is so good that He
   will not deny us any privilege that, by right, belongs to the position
   of a child. When your child appeals to you because there is something
   that he really needs, but which you have withheld from him, and he
   says, at last, "But, my dear father, will you not grant me this?" Or if
   you have chastened him and he says, "Father, stay your hand! Am I not
   your child?" you cannot resist his appeal. He has power with you--you
   know that he has! And what a wonderful power we have when we can truly
   say, "Abba! Father!" We shall have power with God in our times of
   greatest weakness if we can cry, "Abba! Father!"

   I can never forget a certain illness when I had been racked with pain
   and brought very low with heaviness of spirit through the nature of the
   complaint from which I was suffering. I felt driven almost to despair,
   one night, until I laid hold of God, in an agony of prayer, and pleaded
   with Him something like this, "If my child were in such anguish as I am
   in, I would listen to him and relieve him if I could. You are my
   Father, and I am Your child, then will You not treat me like a child?"
   Almost at the very moment when I presented that plea before God, my
   pain ceased and I fell into a sweet slumber, from which I woke up with,
   "Abba! Father!" on my lips and in my heart! I believe that this is an
   invincible plea, because, when God calls Himself our Father, He means
   it. There are some fathers in this world, who do not act at all as
   fathers should--shame upon them! But that will never be said of our
   Heavenly Father. He is a true Father and He has a heart of compassion
   towards His children. And He does not willingly afflict or grieve the
   children of men--and when we know how to appeal to His Fatherhood, we
   shall prevail with Him!

   Once more, dear Friends, the power that we have with God also springs
   from His past actions. Look at what He has done for His own people.
   First, He chose them. Well, then, as He chose them, He cannot cast them
   away because He is an Immutable God! As He has made His choice, He
   stands to it. Paul asks, "Has God cast away His people?" And he answers
   his own question, "God has not cast away His people which He foreknew."
   That is what He has never done! Then, in addition to choosing us, He
   has also redeemed us. And after He has redeemed us from destruction by
   the blood of His Son, can He allow us to be lost? Can He pay for us
   with such a price as that and yet neglect to keep us to the end? That
   cannot be! When He gave His Son as a Ransom for us, He did, indeed, put
   Himself into our hands, for, "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?" Do but know that God gave His Son for you, dear
   Friend--know that Jesus Christ is yours and the logic of your prayer is
   clear enough, and forcible enough, when you say, "What can You deny me,
   O my Father? You have given me Your Son, so, by His blood and wounds,
   by His life and death, and resurrection Glory, give my spirit the Grace
   it needs, since You have given me Jesus Christ."

   Do you not see, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, that every mercy
   which God has bestowed upon you gives you power over Him? "Therefore,
   sing with John Newton--

   "His love in time past forbids me to think

   He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink!

   Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,

   Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through." If He has done so
   much for us, will He not do still more? Does not every blessing which
   is bestowed by God come to us with this message in its mouth, "There is
   more to follow," and may we not be quite sure that He who has blessed
   us now for 40 years, for fifty, sixty, seventy--and I see some who have
   numbered 80 years, and you have had God's blessing all the while--then,
   has He not, by all these years of favor and mercy, pledged and bound
   Himself to bless you even to the end? Assuredly it is so!

   III. Now, in the third place, notice HOW THIS POWER WITH GOD CAN BE
   EXERCISED BY CHRISTIANS. What shape does power with God take? Of course
   it takes the shape of prayer. Christians put forth the power they have
   with God when they draw near to Him to ask for blessings upon
   themselves and upon others, but it is not every man who prays who has
   power with God, or who knows how to use the power which really exists.
   Who are the people who really have power with God! I will tell you.

   First, this power is exercised by those who are deeply sensible of
   their own weakness. No man has power with God who thinks he is strong,
   except in the sense in which Paul wrote, "When I am weak, then am I
   strong." I have an idea, and I think that Scripture supported it, that
   Jacob wrestled very hard with the Angel, but that he never won the
   victory till the Angel touched the hollow of his thigh and caused the
   sinew to shrink. Then, when Jacob could not any longer stand--as he
   fell, he clutched the Angel with all his might as though he would also
   pull Him down if he must himself go down--and the weight of Jacob was
   all the greater because he could not stand. His very weakness was an
   element of his strength and that moment of weakness was the moment of
   his victory! Now, if you go to God feeling that you are partly full, He
   will not fill you, but will wait till you are quite empty before He
   will pour His blessing into you. He will not mix oil with water and,
   until He has emptied all the water out of the vessel, He will not begin
   to pour in His oil or His wine. When you feel that you have a little
   strength for prayer, I think it is very likely that you will not have
   power with God. But when it comes to this, that you cry out, "O God, I
   can do nothing--all my power is turned to utter weakness! I am driven
   to the lowest extremity," then, in the very desperation of your
   weakness, you will clutch the promise-making God and, as it were, drag
   down the angel and win the blessing, as Jacob did. It is your weakness
   that will do it, not your strength!

   Have you ever tried to go to God as a fully-sanctified man? I did so
   once. I had heard some of the "perfect" brethren, who are travelling to
   Heaven by the "high level" railway and I thought I would try their plan
   of praying. I went before the Lord as a consecrated and sanctified man.
   I knocked at the gate. I had been accustomed to gain admittance the
   first time I knocked, but this time I did not. I knocked again and kept
   on knocking, though I did not feel quite easy in my conscience about
   what I was doing. At last I clamored loudly to be let in and when they
   asked me who I was, I replied that I was a perfectly-consecrated and
   fully sanctified man--but they said that they did not know me! The fact
   was, they had never seen me in that character before. At last, when I
   felt that I must get in, and must have a hearing, I knocked again and
   when the keeper of the gate asked, "Who is there?" I answered, "I am
   Charles Spurgeon, a poor sinner who has no sanctification or perfection
   of his own to talk about, but who is trusting alone to Jesus Christ,
   the sinners' Savior." The gatekeeper said, "Oh, it is you, is it? Come
   in! We know you well enough, we have known you these many years!" And
   then I went in directly. I believe that is the best way of praying, and
   the way to win the day. It is when you have got on your fine feathers
   and top-knots that the Lord will not know you! When you have taken them
   all off and gone to Him as you went at the first, then you can say to
   Him--

   "Once a sinner near despair

   Sought your Mercy Seat by prayer.

   Mercy heard and set him free,

   Lord, that mercy came to me "-- "and I am that poor publican who dared
   not lift so much as his eyes towards Heaven, but smote upon his breast
   and cried, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner,' and he went home to his
   house justified rather than the Brother over there who talked so
   proudly about the higher life, but who went home without a blessing."
   Yes, my Brother, you are strong when you are weak, and you are perfect
   when you know that you are imperfect! And you are nearest to Heaven
   when you think you are farthest off. The less you esteem yourself, the
   higher is God's esteem of you.

   Again, in order to have power with God, we must have simple faith.
   Nobody who doubts can prevail with God. The promise is not to the
   waverer, for James says, "Let not that man think that he shall receive
   anything of the Lord," The man who gets the blessing is the one who
   fully believes in God's promise and who so believes in it that he acts
   upon it. I shall never forget the faith of a certain member of this
   Church, who is still living. About 18 or 19 years ago, I was very ill,
   indeed. Most people thought that I would die, but, one morning, very
   early, this good Brother came down to my house and asked to see my
   wife. It was just about daybreak and when she saw him, he said to her,
   "I have been all the night wrestling with God for your husband's life.
   We cannot afford to lose our Pastor and I feel sure that he is going to
   live, so I thought I would just walk here and tell you so," "Thank you,
   thank you," said my wife, "I am very grateful for your prayers and for
   your faith." It is not everybody who can pray to God like that! And we
   fail to obtain the blessings that we seek because we do not pray like
   that. But, dear Brothers and Sisters, if we were to believe God just as
   we believe our friends--if we were to give God as much trust as we give
   to our husbands and our wives--how strong in faith we would be! He
   deserves a thousand times more confidence than we can ever repose in
   the very best of our relatives or

   friends and if we have faith in His promises, we shall certainly
   overcome Him! If you trust Him, He cannot fail you. It is possible for
   even a good man to fail one who trusts him, but it is quite impossible
   for God to fail the soul that has relied upon Him!

   I am sure that if we ministers only believe God more and preach more in
   faith, He will honor us more. I fancy that if God were to give us
   Pentecostal blessings, it would be seen that many of us are by no means
   ready to receive them. Suppose there were 5,000 persons converted in
   one day here, most of the churches round here would say, "There is a
   shocking state of excitement aver at the Tabernacle. It is really
   dreadful!" The very "sound" Brethren would feel that we had gone off
   into Arminianism, or some other error and I expect that some of you
   would say, very dolefully, "Oh, dear! Dear! Dear! Dear! We do hope they
   will all stand." The first thought that would be excited in many
   Christian minds would be one of suspicion! I am sure that if we
   reported that anywhere in England, 3,000 were brought to know the Lord
   in one day, there is not one Christian in ten who would believe that
   such a thing was possible! And there is not one in a hundred who would
   think that it was true! And we ministers would be very much of the same
   mind. I was preaching in Bedford, and I prayed that God would bless the
   sermon and give me at least some few souls that afternoon. When I had
   done, there was an old Wesleyan Brother there who gave me a good
   scolding, which I richly deserved. He said to me, "I did not say,
   'Amen,' when you were asking for a few souls to be converted, for I
   thought you were limiting the Holy One of Israel! Why did you not pray
   with all your heart for allof them to be saved. I did," he added, "and
   that was why I did not say, 'Amen,' to your narrow prayer." It is often
   the case that we preachers do not honor God by believing that He will
   give great blessings and, therefore, He does not honor us by giving
   those great blessings! But if we maintained a closer adherence to the
   Truth of God and had a firmer confidence that God's Word shall never
   return unto Him void, He would do far greater things by us than He has
   ever yet done!

   To this sense of our own weakness and our full belief in God, we must
   add earnest attention to His Word. Brother, you cannot expect God to
   listen to you if you will not listen to Him. And when you ask of God,
   you must not imagine that He will give to you what you ask of Him if
   you do not give to Him what he asks of you. If a man loves to sin, his
   prayers cannot register with the God of Holiness. When God says to a
   man, "Such-and-such a thing is to be done," and the man says, "I will
   not do it," the next time he goes to God in prayer, it is very likely
   that the Lord will say to Him, "As you did not do as I wished, I shall
   not do as you wish." The toleration of any known sin deprives us of
   power with God--and the neglect of any known duty prevents a man from
   succeeding when he is on his knees. If you would prevail with God, you
   must have "a conscience void of offense." You must go before the Lord
   confessing your sins and saying, "O Lord, help me to do Your will in
   all things! I am perfectly willing to do so and I wish to be Your
   loyal, obedient servant in all things." If you do that, you will find
   that whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.

   In addition to all that I have said, the man who is to prevail with God
   must be a man who is terribly in earnest. What an earnest man Jacob was
   in that night of wrestling! What a grand utterance that was, "I will
   not let You go, except You bless me"! Cold prayers do, as it were, ask
   God notto listen to them. When you pray for anything, if you do not
   present your petition with earnestness and fervor, you cannot expect
   the Lord to hear you. Some people, when they pray, are like the little
   boys in the street who give runaway knocks at the door--and off they
   go! But the man who prays rightly gets a hold of the knocker on the
   Door of Mercy and he knocks, and knocks, and if there is no answer, he
   knocks again and again, and if there is not, then, an answer, he knocks
   again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and the longer he is
   kept waiting, the more loudly he knocks till, at last, you would think
   that he was going to carry the house by storm and make the doorposts
   jump out of their sockets, he knocks so hard! That is the kind of man
   who wins the day with God--the man who will not let the Lord go until
   He blesses him! The prayers of John Knox brought down upon Scotland
   such copious blessings because they were the prayers of a man whose
   heart was all on fire with sacred earnestness, and who prayed with his
   whole soul and spirit. Our Lord Jesus, Himself, said, "The Kingdom of
   Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force."

   To all these qualifications for power with God we must add holy
   importunity. Wrestling is not merely laying hold of a man and then
   letting him go. I wonder how Jacob did hold that Man who wrestled with
   him until the breaking of the day? I guarantee you that he had a tight
   grip on Him and I expect that, sometimes, it was especially leg-work,
   and then arm-work, and then loin-work, for, when men wrestle in real
   earnest, all their sinews, muscles, bones and limbs are

   brought into play. So it must have been with Jacob that night, and he
   kept on holding the Angel fast, and saying in his soul, if not with his
   lips--

   "With You all night I mean to stay, And wrestle till the break of
   day"--

   and, therefore, the blessing was given to him because he kept on
   struggling for it! There are some mercies which never will be bestowed
   except in answer to continued, importunate prayer. O Brother or Sister,
   if you know how to keep on pleading, you are the one who has power with
   God! You will be called Israel if you can spend the whole night in
   resolute, determined, humble, believing importunity! The blessing must
   come if you feel that you cannot do without it, because it is for God's
   Glory that it should be bestowed upon you!

   And, dear Friends, there is great power with God when, in importunate
   prayer, we at last come to tearful entreaty. In Hosea 12: 4, the
   Prophet tells us that Jacob "had power over the Angel, and prevailed;
   he wept, and made supplication unto Him." Moses does not tell us that
   in the Book of Genesis, but Hosea also had the Inspiration of the Holy
   Spirit, and he gives us this interesting item concerning Jacob's
   wrestling, that, "he wept." I think I see the Patriarch covered with
   sweat through his great exertions in wrestling, but, in addition, his
   heart is breaking within him and he is sighing and crying all the
   while--and the hot tears are falling on the Angel's hands and I think
   it was the tears that finally won the victory. You remember that when
   our Lord Jesus Christ was in the Garden of Gethsemane, "He offered up
   prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that
   was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared." And
   the man who knows how to weep, if not actually, yet with real spiritual
   tears--the man whose soul gets stirred up to a passionate agony of
   desire--is the man who has power with God! If we have any such members
   in this Church--and I believe that we have many who really do weep over
   the souls of sinners--they are the men and women who will bring down
   the blessing in answer to their prayers and tears! Brothers and
   Sisters, if you are in the habit of weeping over your unconverted
   children and, in your pleading with God for their salvation, are in the
   habit of weeping unless the blessing comes, you are sure to get the
   blessing sooner or later! You are the very strength of the Church! You
   are the lifeguards of the Church and God will be sure to give
   innumerable blessings in answer to those prayers and tears of yours!
   May we have many such Church members, for these are people who have
   power with God!

   IV. I close by briefly noticing TO WHAT USE THIS POWER MAY BE TURNED.

   Whenever this power with God is given, it will bring down many
   blessings upon the person who has it and it will also make him the
   means of great blessing to others. My time has almost gone, so I will
   only dwell on that second point.

   Abraham was a man who had power with God, but there was poor Lot living
   over in Sodom, just as a great many professed Christians are doing
   today. I hope they are God's people, but I cannot make them out. They
   like worldly amusements and they like worldly talk--they are like Lot
   in Sodom. I wonder how they can endure the foul atmosphere in which
   they live? I have often said that the Grace of God can live where I
   could not. There are some people with whom I should not like to live,
   yet I trust the Grace of God is in them. At least, I hope so, I must
   not judge them. But, dear Brethren, if ever that part of the Church
   which is like Lot in Sodom gets a blessing, it must be through you who
   are like Abraham and have power with God! Pray for your poor
   inconsistent Brothers and Sisters--entreat the Lord to prevent them
   from going any further into sin. Ask the Lord that they may not be
   destroyed with Sodom in the day of His vengeance, and the Lord will
   hear you, and bring Lot safely out of Sodom, though it may be that Lot
   will have to lose all that he has and lose his wife, too, before he
   will get out. You will get him out if you know how to pray for him.

   Moses was another man who had power with God. You remember that when
   the Israelites made the golden calf, the Lord said to Moses, "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." Was not that a wonderful
   opportunity for Moses? He was to be made into a great nation, and all
   the rest of the people were to be destroyed. But you recollect how
   Moses pleaded with the Lord and he did not plead is vain. The Lord said
   to him, "Let Me alone, that I may consume them," but it seems as though
   Moses stood up and grasped God's hand, in which He held His rod of
   vengeance, and at last the Lord said that He would pardon the nation
   and spare them in answer to the plea of Moses, the man who had power
   with God.

   And there was Aaron, too, when the plague broke out among the people
   who had murmured against him and Moses, and thousands were being struck
   dead. At the command of Moses, he took a censer and filled it with
   burning coals and incense--and ran into the midst of the congregation
   just where the death wave had come--"and he stood between the

   dead and the living; and the plague was stayed." Aaron, the high priest
   with his censer, had power with God. The Lord Jesus Christ, Aaron's
   great Antitype, is continually exercising this power on the behalf of
   His people, and He also helps some of His servants to do the same
   work--Martin Luther, to wit. How he seemed to stand with the censer of
   the Gospel between the living and the dead and, in other dark times and
   perilous ages, God has raised up many eminent servants to whom He has
   given that same censer of the Gospel which pours forth a sweet savor of
   Christ as they also swing it to and fro, standing between the living
   and the dead! Oh, that God would give power to many of you, dear
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, in some such way as this! Recollect the
   power that the early Christians had with God to get Peter out of
   prison. If you have power with God, it is an engine which you may burn
   in all manner of ways for the blessing of your fellow Christians and of
   poor outcast sinners. Therefore I charge you to seek it! And when you
   get it, hold it fast and walk humbly before God that He may not take
   this power from you, but may you be strong in the Lord and in the power
   of His might, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Banner

   (No. 2979)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1905.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1863.

   "You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be
   displayed because of the truth." Psalm 60:4.

   MOST writers upon this Psalm, after having referred the banner to the
   Kingdom of David, say that there is here a reference to the Messiah. We
   believe there is. Nor is that reference an obscure allusion. In the
   Lord Jesus we find the clue to the history and the solution of the
   prophecy. He is the banner--He is the ensign that is lifted up before
   the people. He is Jehovah-Nissi, "the Lord My Banner," whom it is our
   joy to follow and around whom it is our delight to rally. We shall not
   stay to prove--though we might readily do so--that the banner here
   intended is no other than the Lord Jesus Christ in the majesty of His
   Person--in the efficacy of His merit--in the completeness of His
   righteousness--in the success of His triumph--in the glory of His
   advent. If you read it with an eye to Him, you have the meaning at
   once-- "You has given Christ as a banner to those who fear You, to be
   displayed because of the truth." So let us consider our Lord Jesus
   Christ, first, as He is compared to a banner. Secondly, by whom Hie is
   given. Thirdly, to whom Hie is given. And fourthly, for what purpose.

   I. Let us consider OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST AS HE IS COMPARED TO A BANNER.

   The banner was far more useful, I suppose, in ancient, than it is in
   modern warfare. Times have changed and we are changed by them. Yet we
   still speak with reverence of the old flag. There is much meaning in
   the phrase, "the flag that's braved a thousand years the battle and the
   breeze." The soldier still waves the flag of his country and the sailor
   still looks with patriotic pride to the flag that has so long floated
   at England's masthead. Our metaphor, perhaps, rather points to ancient
   than present use.

   We should notice, first of all, that the banner was lifted up and
   displayed as the point of union. When a leader was about to gather
   troops for a war, he hoisted his banner and then every man rallied to
   the standard. The coming to the standard, the rallying round the
   banner, was the joining with the prince, the espousing of his cause. In
   the day of battle, when there was always a likelihood that the host
   would be put to flight, the valiant men all fought around the banner.
   Its defense was of the first and chief consequence. They might leave
   the baggage for a while--they might forsake the smaller flags of the
   divisions--but the great blood-red banner that with prayer had been
   consecrated--they must all gather round it, and there, if necessary,
   shed their heart's blood.

   Christ, my Brothers and Sisters, is the point of union for all the
   soldiers of the Cross! I know of no other place where all Christians
   can meet. We cannot all meet--I am sorry that we cannot--at the
   baptismal stream. There are some who will not be baptized--they still
   persist in the sin of putting drops of water in the place of the
   ordained flood and bringing infants where faith is required. We cannot
   all meet even around the table of the Eucharist--there are some who
   thrust aside their brethren because they do not see eye to eye with
   them. And even the Communion Table has sometimes become a field of
   battle. But all Christians can meet in the Person of Christ! All true
   hearts can meet in the work of Christ! This is a banner that we all
   love, if we are Christians, and far from it are those who are not. Here
   to Your Cross, O Jesus, do we come! The Churchman laden with his many
   forms and vestments. The Presbyterian with his stern Covenant, and his
   love of those who stained the heather with their blood. The Independent
   with his passion for liberty and the separateness of the free churches.
   The Methodist with his intricate forms of Church Government, sometimes
   forms of bondage, but still forms of power. The Baptist, remembering
   his ancient pedigree and the days in which his fathers were hounded
   even by Christians, themselves, and counted not worthy of that
   name--they all come to Christ!

   Various opinions divide them. They do not see eye to eye on many
   matters. Here and there they will have a skirmish for the old landmarks
   and rightly so, for we ought to be jealous, as Josiah was, to do that
   which is right in the sight of the Lord, and neither decline to the
   right hand nor to the left. But we rally to the Cross of Christ! And
   there all weapons of national warfare being cast aside, we meet as
   Brothers, fellow comrades in a blessed Evangelical Alliance who are
   prepared to suffer and to die for His dear sake! Forward then,
   Christians, to the point of union! In the crusade against the powers of
   darkness, with the salvation of sinners for my one undivided aim,
   little care I for anything but the lifting up of my Master's Gospel and
   the proclamation of the Word of mercy through His flowing blood!

   Again, the banner, in time of war, was the great guide-star, it was the
   direction to the soldier. You remember what special care they took, in
   the day of battle, that in case the standard-bearer should fall, there
   might still be some means of guiding the warriors.

   So, to this day, Christ is the great Guide of the Christian in the day
   of battle. There is no fear that Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
   today and forever, will ever fail. Fix your eyes upon Him, Christian,
   and if you would know the best way to fight, fight in His footsteps,
   imitate His every action, let your life be a copy of His life! You need
   never stop to ask for directions--the life of Christ is the Christian's
   model. You need not turn to your fellow Believer and ask, "Comrade,
   what are we to do now? The smoke of battle gathers and the cries are
   various. Which way shall I go?" The Apostle Paul has given us our
   directions--"Let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
   looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the
   joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and
   is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God." Press forward, in
   Christ's footsteps, saying, "God has given You, my Savior, to be to me
   a banner because of the truth."

   In these two respects, as the central point for rallying, and as the
   direction to the warrior, Christ is our banner! And the banner, let it
   be remembered, is always the chief object of attack. The moment the
   adversary sees it, his objective is to strike there. If it is not the
   most vulnerable point, it will be at least the point where the
   adversary's power is most felt. Did they not of old aim their shots at
   the flagstaff so as to cut down the banner? Whenever the old Knights of
   the Red Cross fought the Saracens, they always endeavored to make their
   steel ring upon the helmet of the man whose hand held the standard of
   Mohammed! The fight was always fiercest around the standard. Sometimes,
   when the battle was over, the field would be strewn with legs, and
   arms, and mangled bodies, but, in one place there would be a heap where
   they were piled one upon another--a great mountain of flesh and armor,
   broken bones and smashed skulls--and one would ask, "What does this
   means? How came all this carnage is here? Why are they so trampled, one
   upon another, and in pools of human blood?" The answer would be, "'Twas
   there the standard-bearer stood, and first the adversary made a dash,
   and stole the banner, and then 50 knights vowed to redeem it, and they
   dashed against their foes and took it by storm. And then again, hand to
   hand, they fought with the banner between them, first in one hand and
   then in another, changing ownership each hour."

   So, dear Friends, Christ Jesus has always been the object of attack!
   You remember that when Divine Justice came forth against Christ on
   Calvary, it made five tears in the great Banner, and those five wounds,
   all glorious, are still in that Banner! Since that day, many a shot has
   sought to riddle it, but not one has been able to touch it! Borne
   aloft, first by one hand and then by another, the mighty God of Jacob
   being the strength of the standard-bearers, that Banner has bidden
   defiance to the leaguered hosts of the world, the flesh and the devil!
   And never has it been trailed in the mire, and never once carried in
   jeering triumph by the adversary! Blessed are the tears in the Banner,
   for they are the symbol of our victory! Those five wounds in the Person
   of the Savior are the gates of Heaven to us! But, thank God, there are
   no more wounds to be endured--the Person of our Lord is safe forever.
   "A bone of Him shall not be broken." His Gospel, too, is an unwounded
   Gospel and His mystical body is uninjured. Yes, the Gospel is unharmed
   after all the strife of ages. The infidel threatens to rend the Gospel
   to pieces, but it is as glorious as ever! Modern skepticism has sought
   to pull it thread from thread, but has not been able so much as to rend
   a fragment of it! Every now and then, fresh adversaries have found out
   some new methods of induction or declamation, attempting to prove the
   Gospel to be a lie, and Christ an impostor. Have they succeeded? No,
   verily, they have all had to fly from the field. The good old Banner of
   the Lord Omnipotent, even Christ Jesus, still stands exact above them
   all!

   And why should the banner be the object of attack but for this very
   reason, that it is the symbol of defiance As soon as ever the banner is
   lifted up, it is, as it were, flaunted in the face of the foe. It seems
   to say to him, "Do your worst, come

   on! We are not afraid of you--we defy you!" So, when Christ is
   preached, there is a defiance given to the enemies of the Lord. Every
   time a sermon is preached in the power of the Spirit, it is as though
   the shrill clarion woke up the fiends of Hell for such a sermon to say
   to them, "Christ is come forth again to deliver His lawful captives out
   of your power! The King of kings has come to take away your dominions,
   to wrest from you your stolen treasures, and to proclaim Himself your
   Master." There is a stern joy which the minister sometimes feels when
   he thinks of himself as the antagonist of the powers of Hell. Martin
   Luther seems to have felt it when he said, "Come, let us sing the 46th
   Psalm and let the devil do his worst!" That was lifting up the standard
   of the Cross! If you want to defy the devil, don't go about preaching
   philosophy! Don't sit down and write out fine sermons with long
   sentences, three quarters of a mile in length! Don't try and cull fine,
   smooth phrases that will sound sweetly in people's ears. The devil
   doesn't care a bit for this! But talk about Christ! Preach about the
   suffering of the Savior! Tell sinners that there is life in a look at
   Him and straightway the devil takes great offense.

   Look at many of the ministers in London! They preach in their pulpits
   from the first of January to the last of December--and nobody finds
   fault with them because they prophesy such smooth things. But let a man
   preach Christ! Let him exclaim about the power of Jesus to save and
   press home Gospel Truths with simplicity and boldness-- straightaway
   the fiends of darkness will be against him and, if they cannot bite,
   they will show that they can howl and bark! There is a symbol of
   defiance in the banner of the Cross--it is God's symbol of defiance,
   His gauntlet thrown down to the confederated powers of Darkness--a
   gauntlet which they dare not take up, for they know what tremendous
   power for good there is in the uplifting of the Cross of Christ! Wave,
   then, your banner, O you soldiers of the Cross! Each in your place and
   rank keep watch, but still wave your banner, for though the adversary
   shall be full of wrath, it is because he knows that his time is short
   when once the Cross of Christ is lifted up!

   We have not quite exhausted the metaphor yet. The banner was always a
   source of consolation to the wounded. There he lies, the good knight.
   Right well has he fought without fear and without reproach, but a
   chance arrow pierced the joints of his harness and his life is oozing
   out from the ghastly wound. There is no one there to unbuckle his
   helmet, or give him a draught of cool water. His frame is locked up in
   that hard case of steel and though he feels the pain, he cannot gain
   relief. He hears the mingled cries, the hoarse shouts of men that rush
   in fury against their fellows and he opens his eyes--as yet he has not
   fainted from his bleeding. Where, do you think, does he look? He turns
   himself round. What is he looking for? For friend? For comrades? No.
   Should they come to him, he would say, "Just lift me up and let me sit
   against that tree, but you go to the fight." Where is that restless eye
   searching and what is the object for which it is looking? Yes, he has
   it! And the face of the dying man is brightened. He sees the banner
   still waving and with his last breath he cries, "On! On! On!" and falls
   asleep content because the banner is safe. It has not been cast down.
   Though he has fallen, yet the banner is secure!

   Even so, every true soldier of the Cross rejoices in its triumph! We
   fall, but Christ does not! We die, but the cause prospers! As I have
   told you before, when my heart was most sad--as it never was before nor
   since--that sweet text, "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him, and
   given Him a name which is above every name," quite cheered my soul and
   set me again in peace and comfort. Is Jesus safe? Then it never matters
   what becomes of me! Is the banner all right? Does it wave on high? Then
   the adversary has not won the day! He has felled one and another, but
   he, himself, shall be broken in pieces, for the banner still shine in
   the sun!

   And, lastly, the banner is the emblem of victory. When the fighting is
   over and the soldier comes home, what does he bring? His blood-stained
   flag. And what is borne highest in the procession as it winds through
   the streets? It is the flag. They hang it in the church--high up there
   on the roof, where the incense smokes, and where the song of praise
   ascends-- there hangs the banner, honored and esteemed, borne in
   conflict and in danger. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ shall be our Banner
   in the last day and when all our foes shall be under our feet! A little
   while and He that will come shall come, and will not tarry. A little
   while, and we shall see--

   "Jehovah's banner furled, Sheathed His sword; He speaks! 'Tis done, And
   the kingdoms of this world Are the kingdoms of His Son."

   And then Jesus, high above us all, shall be exalted! And through the
   streets of the holy city, the acclamations shall ring, "Hosanna,
   Hosanna, blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!"

   II. Let us turn to our second point for a few moments. It is this--Who
   gave us this Banner? BY WHOM WAS CHRIST GIVEN TO US?

   Soldiers often esteem the colors for the sake of the person who first
   bestowed them. You and I ought greatly to esteem our precious Christ
   for the sake of God who gave Him to us--"You have given a Banner to
   those who fear You." God gave us this Banner in old eternity. Christ
   was given by the eternal Father, from everlasting, before the earth
   was, to His elect people, to be the Messiah of God, the Savior of the
   world! He was given in the manger, when "the Word was made flesh, and
   dwelt among us." He was given upon the Cross when the Father bestowed
   every drop of His Son's blood, and every nerve of His body, and every
   power of His soul to bleed and die, "the Just for the unjust, that He
   might bring us to God." " You have given a banner."

   That Banner was given to each one of us in the day of our conversion.
   Christ became, from that time forth, our glory and our boast. And He is
   given to some of us, especially, when we are called to the ministry, or
   when the Holy Spirit's guidance puts us upon any extraordinary work for
   Christ. Then is the banner, in a direct and especial manner, committed
   to our care. There are some here who have had this Banner given to them
   to carry in the midst of the Sunday school. A dear Sister here has it.
   A beloved Brother has it to bear in the midst of many of this
   congregation. The young men of our College, of our Evening Classes, and
   many others of you, workers for Christ, have that Banner, that you may
   bear it in the streets, that you may lift up the name of Jesus in the
   causeways, and in the places of assembly. And, in a certain measure,
   all of you who love the Lord, have that Banner given to you, that in
   your various spheres of service you may talk of Jesus and lift up His
   holy name!

   Now, inasmuch as God Himself gives us this Banner, with what reverence
   should we look upon it, with what ardor should we cluster round it,
   with what zeal should we defend it, with what enthusiasm should we
   follow it, with what faith and confidence should we rush even into
   death, itself, for its defense!

   III. Thirdly, TO WHOM IS THIS BANNER GIVEN? The text says, "You have
   given a banner to those who fear

   You." Not to all men. God has a chosen people. These chosen people are
   known, in due time, by their outward character. That outward Divine
   Grace-worked character is this--they fear God, and they that fear God
   are the only persons who ought to carry this banner. Shall the banner
   be put into a drunkard's hands? Shall the great Truth of Christ be left
   to those who live in sin? Oh, it is a wretched thing when men come into
   the pulpit to preach who have never known and felt the power of the
   Gospel! Time was--but times are changed somewhat--when, in multitudes
   of our parish pulpits, men whose characters were unhallowed, preached
   to others what they never practiced themselves! To such, the banner
   ought not to be given! Men must fear God, or else they are not worthy
   to bear it.

   Moreover, none but these can bear it. What others bear is not the
   banner--it is but an imitation of it. It is not Christ they preach--it
   is a diluted thing that is not the Gospel of Jesus. They cannot
   proclaim it to others till they know it themselves! It is given to them
   that fear God because they will have courage to bear it. Fear is often
   the mother of courage. To fear God makes a man brave. To fear man is
   cowardly, I grant, but to fear God with humble awe and holy reverence
   is such a noble passion that I would we were more and more full
   thereof, blending, as it were, the fear of Isaac with the faith of
   Abraham! To fear God will make the weakest of us play the man, and the
   most cowardly of us become heroes for the Lord our God!

   Now, inasmuch as this banner is given to those that fear God, if you
   fear God, it is given to you. I do not know in what capacity you are to
   bear it, but I do know there is somewhere or other where you have to
   carry it. Mother, let the banner wave in your household! Merchant, let
   the banner be fixed upon your house of business. Let it be unfurled and
   fly at your masthead, O sailor! Bear the banner, O soldier, in your
   regiment! Yours is a stern duty, for, alas, the Christian soldier has a
   path of briar that few men have trod. God make you faithful and may you
   be honored as a good soldier of Jesus Christ! Some of you are poor and
   work hard in the midst of many artisans who fear not God. Take your
   banner with you and never be ashamed of your colors. You cannot be long
   in a workshop before your companions will pull their colors out. They
   will soon begin talking to you about their sinful pleasures, their
   amusements, perhaps their infidel principles. Take your banner out
   likewise. Tell them that it is a game two can play at--never allow a
   man to show his banner without also showing yours! Do not do it
   ostentatiously--do it humbly--but do it earnestly and sincerely.

   Remember that your banner is one that you never need be ashamed of--the
   best of men have fought under it! No, He who was God as well as Man has
   His own name written on it! Surely, then, you need not be ashamed to
   wave it anywhere and everywhere. You can think bravely--now be great in
   action as you have been in thought--

   "Presence of mind and courage in distress Are more than armies to
   procure success."

   IV. This is our last question, FOR WHAT PURPOSE WAS THIS BANNER GIVEN
   TO US?

   Our text is very explicit upon that point--it was given to us to be
   "displayed because of the truth." It is to be displayed. In order to
   display a banner, you must take it out of its case. Members of this
   congregation, Brothers and Sisters in the Church, I pray you study the
   Scriptures much. I would not have men attempt to preach unless they
   have some power. To go forth without some study would be like a man
   attempting to do execution with a gun that had much powder in it and no
   shot. Young men, save your spare hours to study the Bible. Steal them
   from your sleep if you cannot get them any other way. Sunday school
   teachers, be diligent in your preparations for your classes. Let your
   banner out of the case. It is of little service lifting it up in the
   midst of the ranks without its being unfurled. See that you know the
   holy art of unfurling it. Practice it! Study it! Be well acquainted
   with Him who is the wisdom of God and the power of God!

   And, after the flag is unfurled, it needs to be lifted up. So, in order
   to display Christ, you must lift Him up. Lift Him up with a clear
   voice, as one who has something to say which he would have men hear.
   Speak of Him boldly, as one who is not ashamed of His message. Speak
   affectionately, speak passionately, speak with your whole soul--let
   your whole heart be in every word you say, for this is to lift up the
   banner!

   But, besides lifting up the banner, you must carry it, for it is the
   business of the standard-bearer, not merely to hold it in one place,
   but to bear it here and there if the plan of battle shall change. So,
   bear Christ to the poor lodging houses, to the workhouses, to the
   prisons, if you can get admittance, to the back streets, to the dark
   slums, to the cellars, to the solitary attic, to the crowded rooms, to
   the highways and the byways! And you especially who are private
   Christians and not preachers, bear it from house to house! We had a
   complaint, the other day, that some of you had been going from house to
   house to try and talk to others about their souls. You had entrenched
   upon the parochial bounds of the authored gamekeeper! I pray you to
   entrench again! What is myparish? The whole world is my parish! Let the
   whole world be your parish likewise! What does it matter to us if the
   world is parceled out among men who probably do little or nothing? Let
   us do all we can! No man has any right to say to me, "Visit in
   such-and-such a district, not here--this is my ground." Who gave it to
   you? Who gave him lordship of the world, or any portion of it? "The
   earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." The earth is your field
   and no matter upon whose district, territory, or parish! Let me
   encourage you who love the Savior, you who have the pure Gospel, to go
   and spread it! Let nothing confine you, or limit your labors, except
   your strength and your time!

   Still, after all, if we carry the Gospel and lift up the banner, it
   will never be displayed unless there is wind to blow it. A banner would
   only hang like a dead flag upon the staff if there were no wind. We
   cannot produce the wind to expand the banner, but we can invoke
   heavenly aid. Prayer becomes a prophecy when we say, "Awake, O heavenly
   wind, and blow, and let this banner be displayed." The Holy Spirit is
   that gracious wind who shall make the Truth of God apparent in the
   hearts of those who hear it. Display the banner, talk of Christ, live
   Christ, proclaim Christ everywhere! He is given to you for this very
   purpose. Therefore, let not your light be hid under a bushel. "You are
   the light of the world." "Let your light so shine before men." Let the
   old flag be held up by firm hands. Go forth in new times, with new
   resolves, and may you have constant renewing as new opportunities open
   before you!

   Oh, but are there not some of you who could not bear this banner? Let
   me invite such to come and take shelter under it. My Master's banner,
   wherever it goes, gives liberty! Under the banner of old England, there
   never breathes a slave. They tread our country, they breathe our air
   and their shackles fall! Beneath the banner of Christ, no slave can
   live. Do but look up to Jesus, relying upon His suffering in your
   place, and bearing your sins in your place and forthwith you shall have
   acceptance in the Beloved! And the peace of God which passes all
   understanding shall keep your heart and mind through Jesus Christ. So
   may God enlist you beneath the banner, to His Glory! Amen.

   Genesis 32:1. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
   What an encouragement the visit of these angels must have been to Jacob
   after the strife which he had had with Laban! But, dear Friends, angels
   often come to meet us, though we know it not. As in the old classic
   story, the poor man said, "This is a plain hut, but God has been here,"
   so we may say of every Christian's cottage, "Though it is poor, an
   angel has come here," for David says, "The Angel of the Lord encamps
   round about them that fear Him, and delivers them." As the angels of
   God met Jacob, I trust that if you have come here after some stern
   battle, trial and difficulty, you may find the angels of God meeting
   you here. They do come into the assemblies of the saints. Paul tells us
   that the woman ought to have her head covered in the assembly "because
   of the angels," that is, because they are there to see that all things
   are done decently and in order.

   2. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host: and he called
   the name of that place Mahanaim. He gave it a name to commemorate God's
   having sent the angels and called it, "two camps" or, "two hosts."

   3. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the
   land ofSeir, the country ofEdom. He is out of one trouble with
   Laban--now he is into another with Esau. Well did John Bunyan say--

   "A Christian man is seldom long at ease;

   When one trouble's gone, another does him seize."

   4. 5. And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall you speak unto my lord
   Esau, Your servant Jacob says thus, I have adjourned with Laban, and
   stayed there until now: and I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and
   menservants, and women servants: and I have sent to tell my lord, that
   I may find favor in your sight This is very respectful language, and
   rather submissive, too. But when a man knows that he has done wrong to
   another, he ought to be prepared to humble himself to the injured
   individual and, though it happened long ago, yet Jacob really had
   injured his brother Esau. So it was but right that in meeting him
   again, he should put himself into a humble position before him. There
   are some proud people who, when they know that they have done wrong,
   yet will not admit it. And it is very hard to end a quarrel when one
   will not yield and the other feels that he will not, either. But there
   is good hope of things going right when Jacob, who is the better of the
   two brothers, is also the humbler of the two.

   6, 7. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We went to your
   brother Esau, and also he comes to meet you, and four hundred men with
   him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. And well he might
   be, for an angry brother, with four hundred fierce followers, must mean
   mischief!

   7, 8. And he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks, and
   herds, and the camels, into two bands; and said, If Esau comes to the
   one company, and smites it, then the other company which is left shall
   escape. This is characteristic of Jacob. He was a man of plans and
   arrangements, a man of considerable craftiness which some people,
   nowadays, call, "prudence." He used means and he sometimes used them a
   little too much. Perhaps he did so in this case, but, at the same time,
   he was a man of faith and, therefore, he betook himself to prayer.

   9-12. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father
   Isaac, the Lord which said unto me, Return unto your country, and to
   your kindred, and I will deal well with you: I am not worthy of the
   least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which You have showed
   unto Your servant, for with my staff I passed over the Jordan, and now
   I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my
   brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and
   smite me, and the mother with the children. And You said, I will surely
   do you good, and make your seed as the sand of the seas which cannot be
   numbered for multitude. A prayer most humble, most direct in its
   petitions, and also full of faith. That was a grand argument for him to
   use--"You said, I will surely do you good." This is one of the
   mightiest pleas that we can urge in praying to God--"Do as You have
   said. Remember Your word unto Your servant, upon which You have caused
   me to hope." O Brothers and Sisters, if you can remind God of His own
   promise, you will win the day, for promised mercies are sure mercies--

   "As well might He His being quit, As break His promise, or forget."
   "Has He said, and shall He not do it?" Only for this will He be
   enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them, and we must take
   care that we call His promise to mind and plead it at the Mercy Seat.

   13-21. And he lodged there that same night; and took of that which came
   to his hand a present for Esau his brother; two hundred she goats, and
   twenty he goats, two hundred ewe, and twenty rams, thirty milch camel
   with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten
   foals. And he delivered them into the hand of his servants, every drove

   by themselves; and said unto his servants, Pass over before me, and put
   a space between drove and drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying
   When Esau my brother meets you, and asks you, saying, 'Whose are you?
   And where are you going? And whose are these before you? Then you shall
   say, They are your servant Jacob's; it is a present sent unto my lord
   Esau: and, behold, also he is behind us. And so commanded he the
   second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, On
   this manner shall you speak unto Esau, when you find him. And say we
   moreover, Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will
   appease him with the present that goes before me and afterward I will
   see his face; perhaps he will accept me. So went the present over
   before him: and himself lodged that night in the company. If Jacob had
   been true to his faith in God, he would have dispensed with these very
   prudent preparations, for, after all, the faithfulness of God was
   Jacob's best defense! It was from God that his safety came--not from
   his own plotting, planning and scheming. There are some of you, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, who have minds that are naturally given to
   inventions, devices, plans and plots--and I believe that where this is
   the case, you have more to battle against than those have who are of an
   ample mind and who cast themselves more entirely upon the Lord. It is a
   blessed thing to be such a fool that you do not know anyone to trust in
   except your God. It is a sweet thing to be so weaned from your wisdom
   that you fall into the arms of God.

   Yet, if you do feel that it is right to make such plans as Jacob made,
   take care that you do what Jacob also did. Pray as well as plan and if
   your plans are numerous, let your prayers be all the more fervent, lest
   the natural tendency of your constitution should degenerate into
   reliance upon the arm of flesh and dependence upon your own wisdom,
   instead of absolute reliance upon God.

   22-24. And he rose up that night, and took his two wives, and his two
   women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over the ford Jabbok.
   And he took them and sent them over the brook, and sent over what he
   had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a Man with him until
   the breaking of the day. It was the Man Christ Jesus putting on the
   form of Manhood before the time when He would actually be Incarnate!
   And the wrestling seems to have been more on His side than on Jacob's,
   for it is not said that Jacob wrestled, but that "there wrestled a Man
   with him." There was something that needed to be taken out of
   Jacob--his strength and his craftiness--and this Angel came to get it
   out of him. But, on the other hand, Jacob spied his opportunity and,
   finding the Angel wrestling with him, he in his turn began to wrestle
   with the angel.

   25. And when He saw that He prevailed not against him, He touched the
   hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint
   as he wrestled with Him. So that he was made painfully to realize his
   own weakness while he was putting forth all his strength!

   26. And He said, let Me go, for the day breaks. And he said, I will not
   let You go, except You bless me. Bravely said, O Jacob! And you sons of
   Jacob, learn to say the same! You may have what you will if you can
   speak thus to the Covenant Angel, "I will not let You go, except You
   bless me."

   27. 28. And He said unto him, what is your name? And he said Jacob. And
   He said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob. "The supplanter."

   28. But Israel. "A prince of God."

   28, 29. For as a prince have youpower with Godand with men, and have
   prevailed. And Jacob askedHim, andsaid, Tell me, I pray You, Your name.
   That has often been the request of God's people--they have wanted to
   know God's wondrous name. The Jews superstitiously believe that we have
   lost the sound of the name of Jehovah--that the name is altogether
   unpronounceable. We think not so, but certainly, no man knows the
   Nature of God, and understands Him but he to whom the Son shall reveal
   Him. Perhaps Jacob's request had somewhat of curiosity in it, so the
   Angel would not grant it.

   29. And He said, why is it that you ask after My name. And He blessed
   him there. He did not give him what he asked for, but He gave him
   something better and, in like manner, if the Lord does not open up a
   dark doctrine to you, but gives you a bright privilege, that will be
   better for you!

   30-32. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, for I have seen
   God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over
   Peniel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. Therefore
   the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon
   the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because He touched the hollow
   of Jacob's thigh in the sinew which shrank.

   Psalm 119:33. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes. The Psalmist
   is constantly talking about "the way." We have that expression in the
   27th verse, then in the 29th , the 30th and the 32nd -and now again we
   have it here--"Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes."

   33, 34. And I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I
   shall keep Your Law; yes, I shall observe it with my whole heart. That
   is not true or right understanding which permits us to go into sin.
   Those who are really wise in heart hate evil and love righteousness.

   35. Make me to go in the path. Or, way--

   35. Of Your commandment; for therein do I delight. "Make me to go." Not
   only show me the way, but make me to go, like a nurse does with a child
   when she puts her hands under its arms and strengthens its tottering
   footsteps. This is a very beautiful expression--"Make me to go." Lord,
   we are very weak. We are like little children. Make us to go in the
   path of Your commandments, for therein do we delight.

   36. Incline my heart unto Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.
   The heart must love something--it will either love that which is good,
   or that which is evil. "O Lord," the Psalmist seems to pray, "incline
   my heart in the right direction. Make it lean towards that which is
   good. Cause me to count Your Grace better than all the riches of the
   world."

   37. Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity. "Do not let me even look
   at it, for one may look at an ugly thing until the sense of its
   deformity gradually disappears and it becomes attractive. Lord, never
   let me so fix my eyes upon sin that, at last, I come to reckon it a
   desirable thing."

   37. And quicken You me in Your way. "A man who travels quickly has not
   time to stop and look at the things in the road. Lord, let me go so
   fast to Heaven that when the devil hangs his baubles in his shop
   window, I may not have time even to stop and look at them! Turn away my
   eyes from beholding vanity and quicken You me in Your way.'"

   38. Establish Your word unto Your servant, who is devoted to Your fear.
   That is, "Make Your word to me real and true. Put away my natural
   skepticism, my proneness to question, my tendency to doubt." "Establish
   Your word." "Make me to know how firm, how true, how real it is, for I
   would love it more and more. I do believe it, for I am devoted to Your
   fear, but I long to be still further established in the faith."

   39. Turn away my reproach which I fear. Are any of you fearing
   reproach? If so, you may well fear it, for you deserve it. Yet, even
   then, you may ask the Lord to turn it away from you.

   39, 40. For Your judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after Your
   precepts. Some people whom I know long after the promises, and others
   long after the doctrines. I hope that they will all get an equal
   longing for the precepts, for true Believers love the precepts as much
   as they love the promises or the doctrines. "Behold, I have longed
   after Your precepts."

   40. Quicken me in Your righteousness.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Lift for the Prostrate

   (No. 2980)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 19, 1875.

   "And he (that is, Jesus) came and took her by the hand, and lifted her
   up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them."
   Mark 1:31.

   PETER'S wife's mother was sick of a very terrible fever. It was no
   ordinary one, such as, we are told, is common in the district when she
   lived, but "Luke, the beloved physician," as Paul calls the Evangelist,
   tells us that "Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever." You
   know that it is the nature of fever to leave the patient prostrate even
   when the disease departs, but Jesus Christ not only intended to heal
   Peter's wife's mother and to heal her at once, but He also meant that
   she should be so completely cured that she should have no lingering
   prostration. Christ's cures are always perfect cures, not partial ones!
   He does not cause the fever to go and permit the prostration to
   remain--He takes away both the fever and the prostration!

   It is possible that the poor patient had almost given up all hope of
   recovery and, probably those who were around her would also have
   despaired if they had not had faith in the Great Physician, the Lord
   Jesus Christ. It was, therefore, for her encouragement and for theirs,
   also, that our Lord bent over the bed where the fevered woman lay, took
   her by the hand, thus cheering her by showing that He was not afraid to
   come into contact with her and then, gently lifted her up. And she,
   yielding to the kindly gesture, rose and sat up--no, not merely sat up,
   but left the bed, being so perfectly restored that she began at once to
   minister to them as the housewife whose duty it was to care for their
   comfort!

   I hope that there are many in this congregation whom Jesus Christ means
   to bless, who are, at present, in a state of utter prostration. They
   are so despondent that their spirits sink almost to the point of
   despair. They cannot believe that there is mercy for them--they have
   relinquished all hope of that. They did, at one time, have some measure
   of hope, but it is all gone. They are in the prostrate condition of
   Peter's mother-in-law and they need Christ to do for them the two
   things which He did for her. First, He came into contact with her and,
   secondly, He gently lifted her up and completely restored her. May He
   do the same for you!

   I. Our first concern, in looking after prostrate souls, is to tell them
   that JESUS CHRIST COMES INTO CONTACT WITH THEM.

   You think, my poor distressed Friend, that Jesus Christ will have
   nothing to do with you. You have read and heard about Him, but He seems
   to you to be a long way off and you cannot reach Him. Neither does it
   seem at all probable to you that He will ever come your way and look
   with pity upon you. Now, listen.

   In the first place, Jesus Christ has come into contact with you, for
   you are a member of the human race of which Jesus Christ also became a
   member by His Incarnation. Never forget that! While it is perfectly
   true that Christ "is over all, God blessed forever," yet it is equally
   true that He deigned to be born into this world as the Infant of an
   earthly mother, and that He condescended to live here under the same
   conditions as the rest of us--suffering the same weakness, sickness,
   sorrow and death as we do--for our sakes. Never think of Jesus, I pray
   you, as though He were only a spirit, at whose Presence you have cause
   to be alarmed! But think of Him as a man like yourselves, eating and
   drinking as others did-- not a recluse, shutting Himself away from
   sinners--but living as a Man among men, the perfect specimen of
   Manhood, the Man, Christ Jesus, for thus He has come near to you! You
   would not be afraid to speak to one of your fellow men-- then do not be
   afraid to speak to Jesus! Tell Him all the details of your case, for He
   was never a Man of a proud and haughty spirit. He was not one who said,
   "Stand by, for I am holier than you!" No, He was a man with a great
   heart of

   love. He was so full of attractiveness that even children came and
   clustered around His feet! And when His disciples would have driven
   them away, He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and
   forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God." He never repelled
   even the very worst of mankind when they approached Him--He longed to
   gather them to Himself. He wept over the guilty city of Jerusalem and
   said, "How often would I have gathered your children together, even as
   a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not!" Come,
   then, distressed spirit, and see, in the very fact that Jesus is
   Immanuel, God With Us, that He has come near to you and laid His hand
   upon you!

   "Ah," you say, "I can comprehend that He has come near to men, but
   then, I am not merely a man, but a sinful man." Yes, and Jesus has come
   near to sinful menand His name is called Jesus because He is the Savior
   from sin! His work in this world was not to seek saints, but, "to seek
   and to save that which was lost." My Master's errand was not to the
   good, the excellent, the righteous, but to the evil, the unholy, the
   unrighteous! He said, "They that are whole have no need of the
   physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous,
   but sinners to repentance." If He did not come to save sinners, why did
   He comes as a Sacrifice? Sacrifice is only required where there is
   sin--an Atonement is only needed where there is guilt! Christ comes to
   you, a guilty sinner, and He lays His hand upon you, even as He laid it
   upon Peter's wife's mother when she was sick of that great fever!

   Do I hear you say, as in a whisper--as if you were afraid that anyone
   else might hear you, that you are not only a sinner, but a great
   sinner--that you have sinned beyond the ordinary guilt of the common
   mass of mankind--that there are some points in which the crimson of
   your guilt is of a deeper dye than that of any other man? My Friend,
   let me assure you that Jesus Christ came to save the chief of sinners.
   Do you see Him on the Cross, enduring those indescribable pangs of
   death? Can you hear His death cries and that soul-piercing shriek, "My
   God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" and still think that such a
   death as that was on behalf of little sinners' trifling offenses, mere
   peccadilloes or mistakes? Ah, no! the Son of God came to give His life
   a Ransom for many great sins and many great sinners! The grandeur of
   the Atonement of Christ is a proof that its objective was the removal
   of sin, however great that sin may be! The Son of God is Himself the
   Savior of sinners! There must, therefore, be a colossal greatness about
   sin to need the Son of God to remove it, and to need that the Son of
   God should diebefore the more than Herculean labor of putting sin away
   could be performed. But, having put away sin by the Sacrifice of
   Himself, He is now able to save even the greatest of sinners.

   That Jesus has come into contact with great sinners is very clear, or,
   as you read the record of His life, you see that His preaching was
   constantly aimed at just such characters. If you take a survey of His
   usual congregations, you wiil discover that they were largely made up
   of such characters. The Pharisees said, with contempt, but no doubt
   with truth, "This Man receives sinners and eats with them." Just at
   that very time, we have the record, "Then drew near unto Him all the
   publicans and sinners to hear Him." His preaching evidently attracted
   them and He never seems to have been surprised that it did, nor to have
   expressed His disgust that He should have drawn around Him such a low
   and degraded class of hearers! No, but on the contrary, He said that He
   was sent to seek lost sheep till He found them, and to welcome the
   wandering prodigal when He came back to His Father's house. Our Lord
   Jesus Christ, from the character of His congregation and the tone of
   His preaching, evidently came to this world on purpose to come into
   contact with the very worst of sinners! I want you to realize, dear
   Friend, that my Lord Jesus Christ is a Man, and that He is not a Man
   who has come to look for congenial companions who might be worthy to be
   numbered among His acquaintances--He has come to look after uncongenial
   men and women to whom He may bring the blessings of salvation! He has
   come not to be ministered unto, but to minister--not to receive, but to
   bestow blessings. His purpose in being here, in this world, is not to
   pick out, here and there, a noble and notable character, but to seek
   after souls that need His Grace and to come to them and bless and save
   them! So He has, in this respect, come near to you!

   Remember that commission of His, which He gave to His disciples a
   little while before He went back to Heaven-- "Go you into all the
   world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." On another occasion,
   after His Resurrection, He reminded them "that repentance and remission
   of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at
   Jerusalem." That is, beginning at the very place where the people lived
   who had crucified Him! "Begin where they live who have stained their
   hands with My blood. Begin with them and then go to every other
   creature in the whole world, and say to sinners in every part of the
   globe, 'Whoever believes on the Son of God has everlasting life." In
   giving that commission, our Lord Jesus Christ reached His hand across
   the centuries that He might touch you--and I have come

   here to obey His commission by preaching the Gospel to you, for you are
   included in the term, "every creature." So Jesus Christ comes into
   contact with you through the preaching of His Word at this very moment!

   There is one solemn thought that I should like you to think of. It is
   this--having entered this House of Prayer and having heard the Gospel,
   as you will have done before this service is over, the Lord Jesus
   Christ has so come into contact with you that you will never lose the
   impression of that contact, whether you are lost or saved. If you are
   lost, you will have the additional guilt of having rejected
   Him--neither can you ever clear yourself of that guilt, do what you
   may. Your ears have heard the Word of God so that if you do not receive
   it, you will be numbered among those to whom the Gospel came, but who
   judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life--like some of those to
   whom the Apostle Paul preached and, therefore--it shall condemn you.
   For, to everybody who hears the Gospel there is a savor in it--to some,
   it is a savor of death unto death--and to others a savor of life unto
   life. There is not a man, woman, or child who has understanding enough
   to know what we mean by preaching the Gospel, who will be able to go
   out of this House of Prayer without receiving some token of contact
   with the Lord Jesus Christ. Either His blood will be upon you to save
   you, or else there will be realized in you that dreadful curse which
   the Jews invoked upon themselves, "His blood be on us, and on our
   children," which abides upon them as a curse unto this day! You shall
   either be cleansed from guilt by the blood of Jesus, or else you shall
   be guilty of rejecting Him--and so putting yourselves in the same
   category as the Jews who rejected Him and who nailed Him to the
   accursed tree. One way or other, you can be sure of this, "The Kingdom
   of God is come unto you." It is a solemn fact to have to state this,
   but so it is. Jesus Christ has, in some way or other, put His hand upon
   you and He is now in contact with you.

   II. Leaving that point, however, I feel joy in passing on to the next
   one. When Jesus grasped the hand of Peter's wife's mother, HE THEN
   BEGAN TO GENTLY LIFT HER UP. She, willingly enough, responded to His
   touch and, by at once recommencing her household duties, proved that
   she was perfectly healed!

   Now, there are some poor, prostrate, desponding souls, who need
   somebody to give them a lift. And I would that the Lord, even while I
   am preaching, might take some of you by the hand and lift you up. My
   objective will be to mention a few things which may help to give you a
   lift. You need to be saved. You long to be saved, but you fear that you
   never will be, and it is that very fear which keeps you from being
   saved! If you could but hope, your hope would be realized--but you do
   not feel as if you dared even to hope! Now, give me your hand and let
   me try to give you a lift.

   First, remember that others who were very like what you now are, have
   been saved. Do you not know some people who used to be very much in the
   condition in which you are at the present moment? If you do not, then
   find out the nearest Christian friend among your acquaintances--tell
   him what you regard as the peculiarity of your condition--and I feel
   almost certain that he will say to you, "Why, that is not anything
   peculiar! That is just how I was before I found the Savior." If you do
   not find it so with the first Christian person whom you meet, you ought
   not to be surprised, because, of course, all Christians are not alike,
   but I feel sure that you will not have talked to many Christian people
   before you will find that what you consider to be very remarkable
   peculiarities in yourself will turn out to have been very common, for a
   great many other people have been in exactly the same state! I
   challenge you, who are very despondent, to see whether you cannot find
   some who once were as you now are, who have been saved--and when you do
   find them, the reasoning is very clear. If A is saved, and B is like A,
   then why should not B also be saved?

   "Ah," you say, "I have very few Christian acquaintances of whom I can
   make enquiry." Very well, then, I will give you another simple test.
   Take your Bible and look up the cases of conversion and see whether the
   saved ones were not very much like you now are. And if that should not
   satisfy you, turn to the various promises that the Lord Jesus has made
   to seeking sinners and see whether there is not one that is suited to
   such a sinner as you are. I think that you cannot go far in an honest
   examination of the promises of the Gospel without saying, "Well, now,
   it really does look as if I could squeeze in there. At any rate, I
   think that description exactly meets my case." I should not be
   surprised if you meet with some text, of which you will say, "Why, that
   looks as if it had been written entirely for me! It is such an accurate
   description of my forlorn condition." Well, then, if you find that
   Christ has invited such sinners as you are, and that according to the
   Inspired record, He has saved such as you are, why should not you also
   have hope? Have you been a thief? Remember that--

   "The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day.

   And there may you, though vile as he, Wash all your sins away!"

   Have you been a sinner in a more immodest sense? Remember that there
   was a woman who was "a sinner" in that very sense, who washed Christ's
   feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Have you
   been a swearer? I should think that Simon Peter had been a great
   swearer before he was converted, or else he would not have used oaths
   and curses so freely when he denied his Master! Yet, in spite of that
   old habit breaking out again, Simon Peter was not only saved, but he
   became one of the most useful servants of our Lord Jesus Christ! I
   might continue to mention all sorts of sinners and say to you, "Such a
   one as you now are has been saved, and has gone to Heaven--is not that
   a lift for you?" I pray the Lord to make it so! Others like you have
   been saved, so why should not you, also, be saved? Therefore, be of
   good courage, poor prostrate sinner!

   Let me give you another lift. Salvation is all of Divine Grace. That is
   to say, it is altogether of God's free favor. God does not save any man
   because there is anything in him that deserves salvation. The Lord
   saves whomever He wills to save! This is one of His grand prerogatives
   of which He is very firm. His own declaration is, "I will have mercy on
   whom I will have mercy; and I will have compassion on whom I will have
   compassion." And Paul's conclusion from that declaration is, "So then,
   it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that
   shows mercy." Well, now, if it is God's will to bestow His mercy upon
   sinners according to His own Sovereign Grace in Christ Jesus,
   irrespective of anything good in them, why should He not show mercy to
   you? You have been looking for some reason in yourself why He should
   show mercy to you, but you cannot find any such reason--and I can tell
   you that there never was any reason in sinners, themselves, why God
   should save them! He has always saved them for reasons known only to
   Himself which He has never revealed--and which He tells us He will not
   reveal. He asks, like the householder in the parable, "Is it not lawful
   for Me to do what I will with My own?" And so He will! No man has any
   right to salvation. We have all forfeited all claims of merit, so, when
   the Lord gives His mercy, He gives it wherever He pleases. Why, then,
   should He not give it to you as well as to anybody else?

   I may also remind you that faith in Jesus Christ always saves the
   soul--simply trusting Him, as we were singing just now--

   "Only trust Him! Only trust Him! Only trust Him now! He will save you!
   He will save you! He will save you now!"

   There have been a great many who have put this to the test and they
   have found that faith in Christ has saved them. There are some people,
   nowadays, who tell us that this is immoral doctrine--they say that we
   ought to preach up good works. We do preach up good works in the most
   forcible manner, for we say that faith in Jesus Christ prevents men
   from living in sin! We do not preach good works as a requirement of
   salvation. That would be as foolish as children who take flowers and
   stick them in the ground, and say, "Oh, what a beautiful garden we
   have!" We plant the seeds of the flowers, or the roots of the flowers
   of Grace, for faith in Jesus Christ is the seed and the root of
   virtue--and he that believes in Jesus Christ is saved, not merely from
   the punishment of sin, but from the sin itself--from the power of sin,
   from the habit of sin! If it is still said that this is immoral
   doctrine, let the thousands of men and women who have been saved from
   drunkenness, lasciviousness and profanity by simply believing in Jesus,
   rise up and enter their solemn protest against the wicked charge that
   there is anything immoral in this teaching! Immoral doctrine? Why, it
   has brought millions to Christ and millions to Heaven! If this Doctrine
   could truly be called immoral, then God, Himself, might be charged with
   being immoral, for this Gospel assuredly came from Him and it is
   nothing short of blasphemy to call it immoral! Hear this Gospel,
   Sinner! You have no good works and you will never have any until you
   repent of sin and trust the Lord Jesus Christ! If you try to have any,
   they will all break down because the motive at the back of those
   supposed good works will be this--you will do them in the hope of
   thereby saving yourself. What is that but sheer selfishness--dead
   selfishness, which cannot be acceptable with God? But, Sirs, if you
   will only trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall receive the immediate
   pardon of your sin and with that pardon will come heartfelt gratitude
   to Him who gives you the pardon! And with that gratitude will come
   intense hatred of everything that He hates, and fervent love of
   everything that He loves. And then you will do good works! But from
   what motive? Why, out of gratitude to Him--and not being the result of

   selfishness, they will really be good works, for they will be done with
   the view of pleasing God--not as a means of getting something for
   yourself.

   Every soul, then, that has believed in Jesus has found everlasting life
   and deliverance from sin. Very well, then, you also will find the same
   blessings if you now trust wholly in Him. They did "only trust Him"--do
   the same--"only trust Him now." They dropped into the arms of Christ,
   He caught them and holds them fast. Do the same--drop now into the arms
   of Christ who stands beneath you, ready to catch you--and you shall
   most certainly be saved! This is Christ's own declaration, "He that
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." The belief is to come first,
   and the baptism is to follow as the confession of the belief. Christ
   commanded His disciples to observe that order--"Go you, therefore, and
   teach (or, make disciples of) all nations, baptizing them, (those who
   are made disciples), into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
   of the Holy Spirit." This is what Christ Himself said. So, if you have
   believed in Him and have been baptized on profession of that faith, you
   are saved, just as myriads of others have been saved! I have thus tried
   to give you a further lift and I pray the Lord Jesus to take you by the
   hand and lift you up, you fevered and prostrate patients who cannot
   rise without His power being poured into you!

   Let me try to give you a lift in another way. I think I hear you say,
   "O Sir, I know the Gospel but, somehow, I cannot get hold of it. I know
   what praying means, but I cannot pray as I would. I know what repenting
   is, but I cannot repent as I would." Here is a text which will, I hope,
   give you a lift--"The Spirit also helps our infirmities." Can you not
   look up to Heaven and ask that blessed Spirit to help you? What, though
   your heart is hard as the nether millstone, the Spirit of God can make
   it soft in a moment! Though it seems impossible for you to believe in
   Jesus, the gracious Spirit is ready right now to enable you to believe
   in Him! If now you seem to be the very reverse of what you ought to be,
   the blessed Spirit can completely change your nature! He can open blind
   eyes and unstop deaf ears and take away the stony heart out of your
   flesh and give you a heart of flesh! I know that you cannot help
   yourself, but I also know that the Holy Spirit can help you, for
   nothing is impossible to Him! Come, heavenly Wind, and breathe upon
   these dry bones! Quicken them into life and activity so that where
   there was nothing but death, there may be a living army to serve the
   living Lord! And, blessed be His holy name, He will do it for, wherever
   there is a true, heart-felt prayer for His Presence, He is already
   present, dictating that prayer! No one really prays until the Holy
   Spirit teaches him how to pray! So, you who are like Peter's wife's
   mother, have we been able to lift you up yet? May the Lord's almighty
   hand be stretched out to you, for ours alone will be too weak to lift
   you up!

   Here is another lift for you. Notwithstanding all that I have said, you
   still think that you deserve to be lost and that you must be lost, for
   your being punished will show the Justice of God. That is true, as far
   as it goes, but let me tell you something else that is equally true.
   Your being saved will glorify the Mercy of God and "He delights in
   mercy." I recollect the time when I thought that if Jesus Christ saved
   me, it would be the biggest thing He ever did. I thought so then, and I
   do not know but that I think so now. And I feel sure that when I get to
   Heaven, I shall still have that idea. And if you, dear Friend, think
   the same concerning yourself, I expect you are about right! Jesus
   Christ, however, loves to do big things. He delights to show great
   mercy to great sinners and if there is one man here who seems not to
   have any good point about him, but whom everybody knows as being a
   renowned sinner--well, I pray the Lord to save you, my Friend, because
   then the devils in Hell will hear of it and they will be angry! And I
   like them to be angry for such a reason as that! And the wicked men
   with whom you have been accustomed to associate, will hear of it and
   they will say, "What? Old Jack a Christian? Harry turned Baptist? I
   never would have believed such a thing to be possible!" We like to have
   just such converts as these and my Lord likes to have them, too, for
   such victories of Sovereign Grace cause a great stir in the camp of the
   Philistines--and they begin to tremble, and cry, "Who will be the next
   to turn?" And so the Kingdom of Heaven grows, Satan's fame gets dimmed
   and the fame of Jesus of Nazareth grows brighter and brighter!

   "Ah," says one, "I never looked at it in that light, for, certainly, if
   Jesus Christ were to save me, it would be the biggest wonder on earth!"
   Then I think it is very likely that He willsave you, for He delights to
   do great wonders and to work mighty marvels! How do you think that a
   doctor gets to have great fame? There are some physicians in London who
   have so many patients waiting to see them that the poor sufferers have
   to wait hours before they can get in. How did those doctors get to be
   so celebrated? If I were to tell you they got all their fame through
   curing chapped hands, sore fingers and warts, you would say, "Nonsense!
   Nobody gets fame through doing such little things as that!" How did
   they get their honor, then? Oh, there was a poor man who was near
   death. He had been given up by several other doctors, but this one was
   enabled by God to heal him. Or there was a man whose leg was about to
   be amputated and this doctor said, "I will save that man's limb." Or
   there was a complicated case of internal disease and this doctor said,
   "I understand that case," and he cured it--and everybody talked about
   the wonderful cure--and now, everybody goes to that doctor! He became
   famous through curing bad cases--one really bad case brought him more
   credit than 50 minor maladies might have done. So is it with the Great
   Physician and you big sinners with such a complication of disorders
   that nobody but Christ can cure you! My Lord and Master has a wondrous
   way of healing those who appear to be incurable! And when He cures such
   cases as yours, Heaven and earth and Hell hear of it and it makes Him
   famous. So I would encourage you to hope that He will save even you,
   though you are as prostrate as Peter's wife's mother was before Christ
   took her by the hand and lifted her up. May my gracious Lord and Master
   help you to take encouragement from what He has done for others who
   were in as sad a state as you are now in!

   Though your case seems so hopeless to you, or, if you have any hope of
   recovery, you feel that it will take a long while, I want to remind you
   that Jesus Christ pardons sinners in an instant. A man is as black as
   midnight one moment, and as bright as noonday the next! Jesus Christ
   lifted up upon the Cross has such mighty power that if a man had all
   the sins of mankind resting upon him, yet, if he did but look to Christ
   by faith, his sins would all be gone in a moment! Did you ever see that
   wonderful sculpture which represents the Laocoon and his sons with the
   monstrous snakes twisted all about their limbs? Well, though you should
   be another Laocoon and sinful habits should be twisted all about you,
   so that it would be impossible for you to free yourself from them, yet,
   if you look to Jesus by faith, those monsters shall drop dead at your
   feet! Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman, sets His foot upon the
   monster, Sin, and breaks its head. And if you believe in Jesus, that
   pierced foot of His shall crush the life out of your sins and you shall
   be delivered from their power. Oh, that you might have Grace to trust
   in Jesus for instantaneous pardon, instantaneous regeneration,
   instantaneous deliverance from nature's darkness into God's most
   marvelous light! If you are as prostrate as Peter's wife's mother was,
   you ought not to lie still any longer when Christ is ready to give you
   such a lift as that!

   But if you do, I bid you remember, poor desponding, despairing sinner,
   that He who has come to save such as you are is a Divine Savior. What a
   deathblow this ought to be to every doubt! You say that there is a
   difficulty in your case. Yes, there is always a difficulty where there
   is only finite power. There always will be difficulties where there are
   creatures with limited capacities. But here is the Creator--the Creator
   in human flesh--He who made the heavens and the earth has come down to
   live here as a Man and to die upon the Cross in order that He may save
   sinners! What difficulty can there be in the Presence of Omnipotence?
   Talk not of difficulty in the Presence of the almighty God! He has but
   to will anything and it is done--to speak and it stands fast forever!
   Jesus Christ, my Lord and Master, is able to save unto the uttermost
   all them that come unto God by Him, and He is able to save them with
   the greatest possible ease. What an easy thing it was for Christ to
   bless men, women and children when He was here upon earth! A poor woman
   came in the crowd and just touched the hem of His garment--she could
   not get near enough to touch Him--but she just touched the hem of His
   garment with her finger. There was contact between her and Christ
   through her finger and the hem of His garment and she was made whole
   that very instant! There were other cases in which Christ healed people
   who were miles away from Him at the time. "Go your way," He said to the
   nobleman, "your son lives." He had not been near him! He could work the
   miracle just as easily at a distance.

   O Sinner, nothing is impossible with God! If you are sick and near
   death, Jesus Christ is able to save you! If I saw you at the very gates
   of Hell--so long as you had not actually crossed the threshold--if I
   saw you trembling there and you said to me, "Can Jesus Christ save me
   now?" I would reply, "Yes, my Brother, look unto Him and He will take
   you from the gates of Hell to the gates of Heaven in a single moment!"
   He said when on earth, "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
   forgiven unto men," and it is just as true today! "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."--

   "Only trust Him! Only trust him! Only trust Him now! He willsave you!
   He will save you! He willsave you now!"

   Oh, that He would bless this word to you! Christ is God as well as Man.
   He suffered on the Cross in the place of sinners, but He lives after
   the suffering has been accomplished! He lives as the Savior who is
   mighty to save and whoever will take Him as his or her own Savior shall
   find it to be so this very hour!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK 1:14-35.

   Verse 14. Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee,
   preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. When one servant of God is
   laid aside, it is a call to the rest to be the more earnest. So after
   John the Baptist was put into prison, "Jesus came into Galilee."
   Sometimes a loss may be a gain--and if the loss of John was the means
   of bringing out Jesus, certainly both the Church and the world were the
   gainers! "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom
   of God."

   15. And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at
   hand: repent you, and believe the Gospel It is clear, from this
   passage, that our Lord exhorted men to repent and to believe the
   Gospel. There are some who profess to be His followers who will not
   allow us to do this. We may teach men, and warn them, they say, but we
   must not exhort them to repent and believe! Well, as the contention of
   these people is not in accordance with the Scriptures, we are content
   to follow the Scriptures and to do as Jesus did--so we shall say to
   sinners, "Repent you, and believe the Gospel."

   16-18. Now as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew,
   his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen. And
   Jesus said unto them; Come you after Me, and I will make you fishers of
   men. And straightway they forsook their nets and followed Him. The
   Gospel minister is like the fisherman with a net. I have sometimes
   heard the comparison drawn as though the Gospel fisherman had a hook
   and a line, which he has not. His business is not to entice a fish to
   swallow his bait but to cast the net all round him and lift him, by His
   Grace, out of the element in which he lies in sin, into the boat where
   Christ still sits, as He sat in the olden days in the boat on the sea
   of Galilee. To shut the sinner up to faith in Jesus Christ--that is the
   main work of the true Gospel fisherman!

   19, 20. And when He hadgone a little farther, He saw James, the son of
   Zebedee, and John, his brother, who also were in a ship mending their
   nets. And straightway He called them: and they left their father
   Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after Him. They
   never had cause to regret that they did! Whatever they left, they were
   abundantly rewarded. They had a rich reward here on earth--and they
   have a far richer reward in Heaven. Whatever a man gives up for Christ
   is a blessed investment which will, sooner or later, bring him good
   interest!

   21, 22. And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath
   day He entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished
   at His doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not
   as the scribes. He did not do as the scribes did, who made a great
   parade of learning by quoting this Rabbi and the other. Jesus said,
   "Verily, verily, I say unto you." He spoke as one who felt that He had
   authority to speak in His own name, and in the name of God, His Father.
   This method of teaching quite astonished the Jews. I wish that those
   who now hear the Gospel might be astonished at it, and be astonished
   into the belief of it by the power with which it comes home to their
   consciences and hearts.

   23, 24. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit;
   and he cried out, saying, Let us alone. How often that is still the cry
   of sinners, "Let us alone. Why do you not hold your own views and let
   us alone?" Yes, the devils and those whom they control, still say, "Let
   us alone." But it is a part of the Gospel to attack that which is not
   the Gospel--and it is as much the duty of the minister of the Gospel to
   denounce error as to proclaim the Truth of God. If we do so, the old
   cry will still be heard, "Let us alone. Let us alone!"

   24, 25. What have we to do with You, You Jesus of Nazareth? Are You
   come to destroy us?I know You who You are, the Holy One of God. And
   Jesus rebuked him. He did not want any testimony from the devil. When a
   man of ill character once praised Plato, the philosopher said, "What
   can I have done wrong that such a fellow as that speaks well of me?" So
   when the devil bore testimony to the Divinity of Christ, "Jesus rebuked
   him."

   25, 26. Saying, hold your peace, and come out of him. And when the
   unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out
   of him. For, if Satan must come out of a man, he will do him as much
   mischief as he can before he departs. His wrath is all the greater
   because his time is so short--

   "He worries whom he can't devour, With a malicious joy."

   27. And theey were all amazed, Insomuch that they questioned among
   themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For
   with authority commands He even the unclean spirits, and they do obey
   Him. It was the authority of His preaching which first astonished them.
   And then the authority with which He worked His miracle and subdued the
   world of demons. Blessed be God! Christ has not abdicated His
   authority! He is still the great Messenger of God, full of Divine
   authority to save men and to deliver them from the power of Satan.

   28-30. And immediately His fame spread abroad throughout all the region
   round about Galilee. And forthwith, when they were come out of the
   synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James
   and John. But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and soon they
   told Him of her. Christ was a house-to-house missionary, as well as an
   open-air preacher. There is much good to be done by those who know how
   to visit and to look after individual cases. There is great good to be
   done in that way--as well as by dealing with mankind in the bulk.

   31-35. And He came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and
   immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them. And at
   evening, when the sun set, they brought unto Him all that were
   diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city
   was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were sick of
   divers diseases, and cast out many devils: and suffered not the devils
   to speak, because they knew Him. And in the morning, rising up a great
   while before day, He went out and departed into a solitary place, and
   there prayed. His hard day's work probably ran on far into the night.
   Yet, "a great while before day," He was up at the sacred work of
   supplication! The more work we have to do with men for God, the longer
   we ought to be at work with God for men. If you plead with men, you
   cannot hope to prevail unless you first plead with God. And, inasmuch
   as our Lord had great success the day before, it teaches us that the
   greatest success does not release us from the necessity of still
   waiting upon God. If God has given you much, my Brother, go with your
   basket and ask for more. Never stop prayer. Increase your spiritual
   hunger and God will increase the richness of the gifts He will bestow
   upon you!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Safeguards of Forgiveness

   (No. 2981)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   SEPTEMBER 23, 1875.

   "And David said unto Nathan, Ihave sinned against the LORD. And Nathan
   said unto David, The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not
   die. However..." 2 Samuel 12:13,14.

   "HOWEVER." There was a qualification to the pardon granted to David.
   There is no need for me to enter into any of the details of his
   enormous sin. To make any excuse for it would to be become a partner in
   it. It was without excuse and if David, himself, were here with us,
   there is no one present who would so bitterly condemn him as he would
   condemn himself. He would be provoked to the utmost indignation by any
   attempt to offer an apology for the great transgression into which he
   fell, surrounded, as it were, by so many circumstances which tended to
   make it even worse than it otherwise might have been.

   In reading this narrative, one cannot help being struck with the fact
   that when Nathan had brought home the sin to David--and the conscience
   of the monarch which had been sleeping for some months was awakened to
   a true sense of his guilt, pardon was at once granted to the sorrowing
   penitent. As soon as he said, "I have sinned against the Lord," the
   same Prophet who had, by God's Grace, brought him to conviction of sin,
   gave him the assurance of absolution--"The Lord also has put away your
   sin; you shall not die." Truly--

   "Wonders of Grace to God belong." The pardoning of great sin is
   amazing, but the pardoning of great sin so rapidly--the forgiveness
   immediately following the confession--is among the things to be set
   down as worthy of special gratitude in the heart and special praise
   with the lips. One fears, however, lest, by the preaching up of the
   abounding mercy of God in suddenly putting away great sin, some might
   be led to think lightly of sin. It has been often raised as an
   objection to the full proclamation of the Grace of God that it tends to
   make men think that the escape from sin is very easy and, consequently,
   causes them to imagine that sin, itself, is a less deadly thing than it
   really is. Now, I will not deny that Antinomianism is natural to the
   human heart and, as there have been men who have turned the Grace of
   God into licentiousness in the past, so there will be, in the future,
   men who will make out of God's mercy an argument in favor of their sin.
   Those who act thus are among the very worst of sinners, "whose
   damnation is just," as Paul wrote concerning those who said, "Let us do
   evil, that good may come." I have read that a spider will extract
   poison from the flower from which the bee extracts honey so, surely,
   from that very Truth of God from which a renewed heart extracts reasons
   for holiness, unregenerate men have been known to extract excuses for
   sin! If they do so, I can only say that they are "without excuse." Some
   have actually caused the precious blood of Jesus Christ, Himself, to be
   to them a savor of death unto death by using the Doctrine of the
   Atonement as an excuse for their transgressions! If they do so,
   however, it certainly is not the fault of the Truth of God, nor the
   fault of the Infinite wisdom and prudence of God, for He has, in many
   remarkable ways, taken care to put safeguards around His free mercy. He
   does forgive and He will forgive, blessed be His holy name--and however
   men may pervert His mercy, He will not cease to bestow that mercy upon
   sinners! He will still continue His loving kindness, yet He has put
   safeguards around the Doctrine of forgiveness--and of the safeguards I
   am now going to speak.

   And, first, I shall speak of the safeguards which were provided in
   David's case. And then, secondly, of those which are provided in our
   own case. This will lend us to notice, in the third place, God's grand
   aim with us and what other great endeavor should be in connection with
   that aim.

   I. First, then, let us notice THE SAFEGUARDS THAT WERE PUT AROUND
   DAVID'S CASE, lest David, or anyone else, should think that because sin
   was readily forgiven, it was in itself a little thing.

   For, notice, first, that David was made to see his sin in its true
   light before it was forgiven. Nathan did not go to him and say, "David,
   you have committed a much greater wrong than you have supposed. You
   have disgraced your character and you have brought dishonor upon the
   God you love--but you are forgiven." No, he uttered a parable which set
   David's own character before him as being of the very base and meanest
   kind. The description of the traveler who came to the rich man, who
   then went and took the one ewe lamb from the poor man with which to
   make a feast for the traveler, was well conceived. It was a trap in
   which David was cleverly caught and made to see himself, though he had
   not the slightest idea, at the moment, that he was seeing himself at
   all. But when Nathan said to him, "You are the man," he was made to
   feel that he was a mean wretch who deserved to be condemned to death.
   His indignation was awakened against himself and against his own
   actions--and thus the Lord took care that David should not receive
   pardon till he had realized the greatness of his sin! This would be a
   strong check to him in the future, keeping him from ever falling into
   that sin again.

   Moreover, he was made to condemn himself. Before Nathan said to David,
   "You shall not die," the king had pronounced sentence upon himself, for
   he had said, concerning the man described in the parable, "As the Lord
   lives, the man that has done this thing shall surely die," not knowing
   that it was himself whom he was condemning! But he pronounced his own
   sentence--and after that he was forgiven. Now, dear Friends, this is
   just what the Lord does with sinners before He pardons them! First, He
   makes them see their sin. Some of us remember well when that terrible
   spectacle haunted us day and night. We had long known that we had
   sinned, but we had no idea that sin was such a monstrous, horrible
   thing as we then saw it to be. We had read of strange monsters of the
   deep, hideous and terrible creatures, but when we saw sin, we beheld
   something more frightful and loathsome than our worst dreams had ever
   brought before our minds! Then we condemned ourselves. Well do I
   remember when I signed my own death warrant-- had the Lord then
   threatened to strike me dead upon the spot, I could not, even if He had
   given me leave to plead with Him--have urged any reason why He should
   not destroy me! I have a thousand times wondered that my soul was not
   sent to Hell! At night I have feared that I should be there before the
   morning light and, in the daytime, I have often trembled lest, before
   the night should come, I should find myself in Hell. Having thus
   condemned myself, then it was that God forgave me--and I do not believe
   that any sinner is ever forgiven until he consents, in his soul, to the
   Justice of God if he should never be forgiven. He must know that he is
   a sinner and that sin is an exceedingly evil and bitter thing, for
   which he deserves to be sent to Hell! And when he reaches that point,
   then pardon will come to him. O dear Brothers and Sister, do you not
   see what a blessed check this is upon that man? Now, when he receives
   forgiveness, he receives it as one who knows what that forgiveness
   covers, and who also knows the condemnation from which that pardon has
   delivered him!

   There was, in David's case, the further safeguard that he was made to
   feel the majesty of the Divine Word. When Nathan came to David as God's
   representative, he spoke to him a simple parable to which a child might
   listen with interest. But there was great majesty in it, for it
   unveiled the secrets of the guilty monarch's heart. It made him see
   himself as he appeared in the clear, translucent light of Heaven--and
   not as he might have represented himself in a more favorable light.
   Read the whole page and note how Nathan made the truth lash him to the
   quick--"Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over
   Israel and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; and I gave you your
   master's house, and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you
   the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I
   would moreover have given unto you such and such things. Why have you
   despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight. You have
   killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be
   your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
   Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house; because
   you have despised Me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to
   be your wife."

   Nathan does not spare him! Every word is like a sharp sword piercing
   him to the heart. David is made to feel that the Word of God can search
   out his most secret things and make him see himself in his true
   character, disguise himself as he may! And then, when he had confessed
   his sin, the same stern Prophet who had spoken so severely, said to
   him, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." Oh, how
   welcome that message must have been to David! How soft and sweet those
   sounds must have been to his ears after the harsher notes to which he
   had listened--just as we have sometimes heard the martial music that
   has thrilled and startled us and then there has come a soft strain of
   gentle music,

   or else a brief season of welcome silence by which our ears have been
   rested and refreshed. So was it when Nathan turned from condemnation to
   comfort and said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you
   shall not die." This would henceforth always be a check to David, for
   he would feel that if he sinned, that Word of God would again find him
   out-- that Word which had first stricken him to the dust by its
   severity--and then had won his heart's love by its tenderness.

   A fourth safeguard was this--David was made to see the greatness of his
   sin by the effect which it produced upon others. Nathan said to David,
   "By this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord
   to blaspheme." As you read some of his Psalms, you can see that David
   knew that the Lord's enemies did blaspheme because of his sin. The
   party that loved the Lord was strong at court just then and the king
   was the patron and head of that party--but there were men of Belial who
   were the ungodly party in the land. And when they caught the king,
   himself, tripping thus, I guarantee you that they talked of it at every
   street corner. It was a sad topic for the faithful ones to speak of and
   the saints of God, when they met together, must have wept, for they
   could make no excuse for the king's crime--and they must have felt that
   a very deadly stab had been given to the cause of truth and
   righteousness. David was made to realize all that and it must have
   helped to keep him from sinning again in such a fashion because he
   loved the cause of God, and the house of God, and the servants of
   God--and there had been a period, in his past life, when he would not
   have believed that it were possible for him to be the means of breaking
   down the walls of Zion! When he had been forgiven, his first anxiety
   was that God would undo the mischief which his sin had worked and,
   therefore, he prayed to the Lord, "Do good in Your good pleasure unto
   Zion: build You the walls of Jerusalem."

   In addition to these safeguards, there is that, "however," which I have
   included in our text. I call the serious attention of every
   carelessly-walking Christian here to that, "however." How many times my
   eyes have rested upon that word and it has chastened my sins, and
   driven me to my God! David was forgiven, but from that day the sword
   never departed from his house. God let him know that although he was
   pardoned, some of the results of his sin still remained. The guilt of
   it was gone, as Nathan said, "The Lord has put away your sin," but the
   evil effect of it was still manifest-- and that must be dealt with by
   the Lord's chastising rod. What a sad change came over David's life
   from this time! Recall the name of Tamar, Amnon and Absalom, and think
   how degraded his own family had become. Then, one and another rebelled
   against him--enemies within his kingdom and without sought to overthrow
   him and, after his sin in numbering the people, God's own angel was
   sent to smite the nation with a terrible pestilence. The earlier part
   of David's life was full of music and dancing--the latter part had far
   more of mourning and lamentation in it. After his great fall, he had to
   go softly all the rest of his days and his dying testimony, though full
   of faith, was marred by the regret, "although my house is not so with
   God."

   He was a man so highly favored of God and so much after God's own heart
   in many ways, that if he could have been without the rod, God would
   have spared him. If this sin of his could have been winked at and he
   could have been delivered from its consequences without chastisement,
   God would have delivered him. But it was not possible. God does not
   give such exemption as that to any of His children and He did not give
   it to David. That warm heart of His which in many respects was so
   excellent, was apt, from its very fervor of affection, to crave too
   much of the love of the creature. So David had to be chastised again
   and again. God did not afflict him willingly--He did it because it was
   for his good. This folly in the heart of His child could not be driven
   out by anything but the rod and, therefore, the rod he must have. He
   was a grand man, one in whom the Grace of God shone very conspicuously,
   but he was a man of like passions with ourselves and we have reason to
   thank God that he was--because his experience becomes all the more
   instructive to us from the fact that while it teaches us that God can
   and will forgive us if we repent of our great and gross sins, yet it
   also teaches us that sin is an evil and a bitter thing and that, though
   the guilt of it may be removed, the evil consequences of it will cling
   to us and be a subject of sorrow to us till God shall wipe away all
   tears from our eyes.

   II. Now, secondly, I want to point out to you THE SAFEGUARDS IN OUR OWN
   CASE. I cannot say that the

   safeguards are the same in every case because the experience of God's
   children vary considerably.

   In the case of some of us, when God's forgiveness came to us, we could
   not think lightly of sin, because, for a long time before we found
   mercy, we had been under a terrible sense of guilt. I am not speaking
   of all Christians, but there are some of us who were for weeks, or
   months, or even years, waiting in outer darkness before the Gate of
   Mercy was opened to us. I will not deny that it was our unbelief in
   Christ that kept us there, but, at the same time, I see how God, in His
   wise Providence, overruled even that to make us ever afterwards hate
   sin as burnt children dread the fire. Oh, what burns of that sort I
   had! They seemed as if they would never heal, the fire had gone so
   deep. I felt that I could sympathize with Job when he said, "My soul
   chooses strangling, and death rather than my life," for I feared that
   no mercy could ever come to me. I have blessed God a thousand times
   that I was so long in finding Christ because through that very
   experience I have been the better qualified to speak to others who are
   in a similar condition. John Bunyan was for years tossed about with
   inward tumults through a deep sense of sin. And when, at last, at the
   sight of the Cross, the great burden rolled off his back and
   disappeared in the sepulcher of Christ, he did not think sin a little
   thing! It had been such a dreadful burden to him for so many years that
   he ever afterwards abhorred it and adored the wondrous love which had
   forever delivered him from its power. With some persons there is a
   check which operates throughout the rest of their lives as the result
   of that long period of depression of spirit and despair of soul which
   preceded the hour of light and joy. God kept us out in the cold so long
   in order that, ever afterwards, we might know what it was like and not
   want to go outside again. He made us feel the aching of the hungry
   belly so that we might not again wander into the far country and long
   to feed from the sinner's trough. After our past experience there, our
   Father's arms about our neck became all the more precious to us and
   there was the less likelihood that we should ever go back to that state
   of sin and sorrow from which we had escaped!

   I say again that this is true only of some--it is not necessary for
   all, and it is only a few of God's servants who have passed through
   such an experience as that. But I think I may say that all who receive
   God's mercy have this safeguard, that for a greater or less period,
   they have been made to feel the death-swoon of sin. It may last but a
   few minutes, but, before Divine Mercy comes to the heart, there is
   usually a striking of the soul with the chill horror of despair and
   there is also a driving into the very marrow of the soul that sharp
   two-edged sword of God which kills all carnal confidence. In the case
   of persons who are suddenly brought into the life and light of full
   salvation, their sight of sin in its horror is but momentary. They hang
   over the precipice and feel as if they were gone, but, at that very
   instant, the Divine Hand is stretched out to remove them. The sentence
   of death must be passed upon all men because all have sinned--we have
   the sentence of death in ourselves, that we may learn not to trust in
   ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. That glimpse of the open
   jaws of Hell, though it is but for an instant--that sight of the
   descending axe of Divine Vengeance and of our own neck laid upon the
   block is enough to make us, even in a moment, pass through a process
   which divorces us forever from the love of sin, makes us feel that it
   is a deadly and damning thing and causes us to cry unto God to deliver
   us from it! That sense of sin is, I take it, a part of the safeguard
   which God provides for each forgiven man to prevent him from drawing
   inferences of licentiousness from God's abundant mercy to him.

   But there is a better safeguard than that. The fact that Jesus Christ
   is our Sacrifice and Savior ought to prevent us from ever going into
   sin again. You may have heard of the king who made a law that any
   person committing a certain crime in his country should have both his
   eyes plucked out. It happened that the very first criminal brought
   before him, under that law, was his own son whose guilt was clearly
   brought home to him. His father was the judge and there remained
   nothing for him to do but to pronounce upon his son the sentence that
   he should have both his eyes torn out. But, rigid as he was as a
   law-giver, such was the father's tenderness of heart that he bade the
   officer first pluck out one of his son's eyes and then take out one of
   his own. I should think that that father's empty eye socket would
   always remind his son of the crime which he had committed--and
   eventually prevent him from ever offending in that way again. Surely,
   that crime could never be pleasant to him after it had been so painful
   to his father! Believer, look at your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
   and say to Him, "What are these wounds in Your hands, dear Lord? What
   are those scars on Your feet, and what is that deep gash in Your side
   which leads to Your very heart?" "These," He says, "are the wounds
   caused by your sins, for I was wounded for your transgressions, I was
   bruised for your iniquities--the chastisement of your peace was upon
   Me, and with My stripes you are healed."

   O my Brothers and Sisters, the next time you are tempted to sin, let
   the open wounds of Jesus appeal to you and cause you to say, "I cannot
   crucify my Lord afresh and put Him to open shame by again sinning
   against Him." This will help to hold you back when the tempter draws
   near you. The "cords of a man" and the "bands of love" will draw you
   the other way much more forcibly and you will say, with Joseph, "How,
   then, can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" You may
   also say, "It is true that sin has not slain me, but it has slain my
   Substitute. It is true that sin has not cast me into Hell, yet it
   brought Hell upon my Substitute. It is true that the wrath of God
   passed by me, but it fell upon my Well-Beloved, the Bridegroom of my
   heart, who, in Infinite mercy, bore it all for my sake." The
   remembrance of this fact

   will be a most blessed safeguard to hold you back from sin--pardon is
   free to you, but it cost Him His all and, because of what it cost Him,
   you feel that you must not sin again.

   Remember also that great as the Grace of God is in pardoning sin, He
   gives, with pardon, other mercies which are equally great, namely,
   repentance and renewal of heart. Wherever the forgiveness of sin comes,
   there comes with it a turning from sin, a leaving of sin, a fresh view
   of sin, a different estimate of it. And the heart that once had sought
   its own pleasure, now seeks God's pleasure! And the man who formerly
   loved carnal delights is moved to long after heavenly delights from the
   very moment of his forgiveness. I speak advisedly when I say that the
   Doctrine of "believe and live" would be a very dangerous one if it were
   not accompanied by the Doctrine of regeneration. If God did not change
   the nature of the forgiven sinner, it would be a dangerous thing to
   give him free forgiveness--but when the two things go together, they
   counteract any evil which might have sprung out of either the one or
   the other by itself--and all good and no evil can come from them when
   they are preached in their due connection. "Believe and live," is true.
   But "You must be born again," is equally true. "Believe on the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," is Apostolic Doctrine, but so is
   this, "Repent you, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be
   blotted out." Change of heart accompanies the forgiveness of sin--and
   wherever that change of heart is given, there springs up in the renewed
   soul a deep sense of gratitude to God. "How much I owe!" says the
   renewed man. "How graciously the love of God has been manifested in my
   case! What great sin He has forgiven! What enormous transgressions He
   has blotted out. Now I cannot help loving Him--oh, that I loved Him
   even more!" And this gratitude becomes in itself a very powerful means
   of checking the soul in any impulse that it has towards sin--and an
   equally forceful incentive in driving it onward towards righteousness,
   "for the love of Christ constrains us." It does constrain us! We do not
   say that it oughtto do so, as some do when they misquote the text. Its
   constraining power draws us onward and upward towards our Lord!

   These things put together, by the power of God's most blessed Spirit,
   lead the renewed man into a holy cautiousness and great watchfulness of
   soul. I wish I could say that I see as much of this spirit in all
   professors as I would like to see. But, alas, Brothers and Sisters, I
   do not! Sin, the very smallest sin--if there can be a small sin--is a
   great evil and we ought to be deeply and solemnly anxious that even the
   least deviation from the righteousness of God should not be found in
   us. If any of you were told serpents which had escaped from their den,
   were hiding somewhere in your house--perhaps near your bed, or in a
   cupboard or bookcase--I know that when you reached your house tonight,
   you would look very carefully on the doorstep and in the hall, to see
   whether there was a young viper there. You would turn up the doormats,
   in case there might be one concealed there! But you would not be
   satisfied until you had thoroughly searched the house from top to
   bottom, in order that those deadly snakes might all be captured and
   destroyed! This is just what you ought to do with yourselves, Brethren,
   for the snakes are there! In every part of your nature, these venomous
   creatures have been hatched and they have multiplied beyond all
   calculation. Sins of all shapes and sizes lurk within you! And if God's
   Grace does not keep you watchful--before you are aware, you may be
   painfully conscious of their deadly power!

   There is this fact that you must have often noticed--I feel sure that
   whether you are aware of the sin itself, or not, you will soon have to
   be aware of the consequences of it You cannot fall into any sin without
   losing, in some measure, the sweetness of your fellowship with God. I
   do not need to look out of my window in order to know that there are
   clouds across the sky. I can tell that the clouds have come, for the
   light is dim in the room where I am reading. So, I may not be conscious
   that I have fallen into sin, but the very dimness of the light of God's
   Presence becomes the indicator to my soul that it is so. Perhaps you
   have had a prosperous day in business and the friends you have met with
   have all been very kind and cheerful, and nothing has happened during
   the day to distress you. Yet when you get home, you feel heavy and
   dull, and you say to yourself, "Why is this?" It is simply that God has
   been causing you to see that the sweetness of the creature cannot make
   up for the lack of the Presence of the Creator. If God were to give you
   all earthly good and yet took His Presence from you--which He will do
   if sin is within you, and unrepented of--the loss of His Presence would
   be a greater loss than the loss of the whole world, or even of Heaven
   itself! If you are in the habit of walking with God-- and I trust that
   many of you are--you will take note of the least stain of sin. You
   have, perhaps, seen a handkerchief that looked perfectly white. But if
   there has been a snowfall and you have laid that handkerchief down upon
   the snow, you have seen its defilement in contrast with the whiteness
   of the snow! So, if you live near to God, you will have a very high
   standard of what you ought to be--and you will see a great deal more
   sin in yourself than you ever used to see. The fact of your living near
   to God will never lead you into presumption, nor cause you to think
   lightly of sin, but it will make what you used to call little things to
   assume hideous proportions and you will say to yourself, "What a sin it
   was that I, who have spoken face to face with God, should make that
   silly remark to my neighbor, a remark that could not minister
   edification to anybody--that I, who have had power with God in prayer,
   should be put out of temper by a poor silly maid, or be made to forget
   myself altogether by some trivial temptation which I ought to have been
   able to master, and could have mastered if I had given it the least
   thought!" You may rest quite certain that if God honors any man in
   public, He takes him aside privately and flogs him well, otherwise he
   would get elevated and proud, and God will not have that! He will not
   have Big-Self to serve Him--He will take him down from his high
   pinnacle and grind him to powder, so as to get all the pride out of
   him!"

   III. The last point, on which I can only speak briefly, is this. ALL
   THIS INDICATES WHAT GOD'S GREAT AIM IS AND WHAT OURS OUGHT TO BE.

   God's aim isnot merely to forgive us and to free us from the penalty of
   sin, but to take sin out of us and get rid of it altogether. The Lord
   might have forgiven David and yet not have used the rod upon him as He
   did. That child might not have died, but might have grown up to be
   David's comfort and joy. And Absalom might not have turned out such a
   scapegrace, but might have been his father's best helper. God might
   have arranged matters so, but He did not see fit to do it. He seems to
   say, "My dear child, David, I love you so well that, while I fully
   forgive you, I will take such measures with you as will effectually
   prevent you from ever falling into that sin again. I will so deal with
   you that should you ever have such a temptation as this again, your
   tendency to that sin shall be very decidedly checked." Long before his
   sin with Bathsheba, there were various indications as to David's
   special liability to temptation. That sin only threw out upon the
   surface the evil that was always within him! And now God, having made
   him see that the deadly cancer is there, begins to use the knife to cut
   it out of him. God's business with you, if you are His child, is to get
   rid of the sin that is within you-- to purge you not merely with blood
   and with hyssop, but with fire, till He has made your nature very
   different from what it now is.

   Our aim should be in conformity with God's aim, that is to seek to get
   rid of sin altogether. You have first to realize what your sin really
   is. It may be that, this day, you have lived a blameless life so far as
   it can be seen of men, but what about your thoughts? You have never
   committed adultery as David did, but how many adulteries have you
   committed in your heart? You were never actually a murderer--God forbid
   that you ever should be! But when your evil passions have risen, how
   many times have you been a murderer in the sight of God? We are not
   merely to imagine that if we bring our outward moral conduct into
   conformity with the will of God, we are all right--we are also to look
   within. Every thought of evil is sin! A photographer will tell you that
   the object presented to the camera leaves an impression upon it even
   though the exposure of the sensitive plate was only for the fraction of
   a moment. Notice, Brothers and Sisters, whenever sin is brought before
   your mind even in imagination, whether it is attractive to you or not.
   I hope that you catch yourself saying, "O my God, how is it that I can
   think of such a thing with any degree of tolerance?" You feel that you
   would not commit that sin--you would rather die than commit it--yet you
   are not as displeased as you ought to be at even the thought of it.
   Perhaps you almost wish that you might do this evil thing. If so, that
   shows which way your nature still gravitates--to the old nature which
   is so corrupt that it stinks! And when it stinks most in your nostrils,
   it is, perhaps, best for you, for then it drives you away from being
   proud of it and takes you to that dear Savior in whom alone your life
   can ever be found!

   Brothers and Sisters, in all your spiritual engagements, note how far
   your heart is really in them. Do not be content if you can say, "I went
   to the Tabernacle last Thursday night." Did you really worship there in
   spirit and in truth? Did you profit by the Word read and preached? Do
   not be satisfied if you can say, "I read a chapter in the Bible and
   offered prayer to God this morning." What is the use of all this if
   your heart was not in the exercise? "Rend your hearts, and not your
   garments," is a message which would sometimes be appropriate to you.
   What we have to look at is how near the soul gets to God, and how far
   it gains the mastery over sin. If it is a question of the forgiveness
   of our sin for the sake of Him who hung upon the Cross, blessed be His
   name, we have that and we have it perfectly in Him! If it is a question
   of our righteousness in the sight of God, so far as the imputation of
   Christ's righteousness is concerned, that also is ours, as everything
   else that is His is ours! But as to the cleansing of the heart, the
   purging of all secret places, the driving out of every lurking sin and
   the getting rid of every imagination and wish and desire that is
   contrary to God, this has to be battled for, through faith in Jesus
   Christ and by the power of the Eternal Spirit! And the complete victory
   has yet to be

   gained. We must still continue to cry with Paul, "Oh wretched man that
   I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But with him
   we can also say, "Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through
   our Lord Jesus Christ." We are not to shut our eyes and fancy that the
   war is over, that all our spiritual enemies are slain--but we are to
   press onward to the end! Perhaps, even at the very end, we may have a
   stern fight with fierce temptations, as John Knox and many others have
   had, but, in the name of the Lord, we will destroy them! In any case,
   we must not give way to sin. We dare not let sin have dominion over us.
   We must strive and struggle against it and we shall do so, for He who
   has pardoned us will also sanctify us. He who has delivered us from
   death by sin will also deliver us from the death ofsin and will present
   us to Himself "a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
   such thing."

   Brothers and Sisters, do not let me, for a moment, take away from you
   the joy of perfect pardon which is already yours if you have believed
   in Jesus Christ. Your sins, which were many, are all forgiven. Let no
   doubt upon that point come into your mind! Poor troubled Sinner, do not
   be distressed as though you could not find immediate pardon through
   Jesus Christ, for you can. If you believe in Him, your sins are
   forgiven you for His sake. But I am sure that if you are in a right
   state of heart, you do not need to have pardon and yet be allowed to
   live in sin. You could not be content, even if the Lord were to forgive
   you all your sins, if He did not also change your nature and deliver
   you from the power of sin. That these two things are to be had in Jesus
   Christ, let us firmly believe--and for the realization of these two
   things, let us earnestly pray and thrive! And may God graciously give
   them to us all, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: HOSEA 14.

   Verse 1. O Israel, return unto the LORD your God; for you have fallen
   by your iniquity. Come back, poor wanderer! My Brother or my Sister, if
   your heart has grown cold toward your Lord and Master, return to Him
   this very hour! This message comes from God, Himself, through His
   servant the Prophet, "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God; for you
   have fallen by your iniquity."

   2. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away
   all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves
   of our lips. As if He feared that we could not find suitable words to
   speak to Him, He puts the right words into our mouths! Our Heavenly
   Father is so anxious to bring back His children when they wander from
   Him that He actually makes the prayer with which they may come back to
   Him--"Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we
   render to You the praise which is Your due, which shall come from our
   hearts, and which our lips shall express." If there are any of you here
   who have grieved your Heavenly Father by growing cold at heart, I do
   trust that the spirit of God will sweetly draw you back to your old
   standing and to something higher and nearer to God than even that was!

   3. Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will
   we say any more to the work of our hands, you are our gods. For in You
   the fatherless finds mercy. If you expect the Lord to smile upon you,
   you must have done with all your idols! You must put away all your
   false confidences and those other sinful things in which you have found
   even a little joy, and you must come back to your Father, throwing away
   those rivals which have been set up in your heart and asking Him to
   give you Grace to live henceforth for Him alone.

   4. I will heal their backsliding. "Nobody else can do it, but I can,
   and I will. I will not chide them anymore, I will not keep them at a
   distance from Me as unworthy to draw near to Me, but, 'I will heal
   their backslidings.'"

   4. I will love them freely. That is a grand sentence! God could not
   love us anyway else, for what price could you and I bring with which to
   purchase His love? And if His love were not free, it could never come
   to such unworthy ones as we are--"I will love them freely."

   4, 5. For My anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto
   Israel You know that in the East the dew is a great fertilizer, even
   more so than it is here. When a plot of ground is all browned by the
   hot sun, the dew makes it green and fruitful again. So God says, "I
   will be as the dew unto Israel."

   5. He shall grow as the lily. That is, upwards, bearing his flowers as
   near Heaven as he can--not groveling as he once did. He shall grow
   rapidly, as the daffodil lily does, which seems to start up, in the
   East, after a shower of rain and

   come to maturity at once! Lord, grant that we may bring forth lilies of
   Grace all of a sudden! May there be in us the beauty of holy Christian
   love which shall come all at once! "He shall grow as the lily."

   5. And cast forth his root as Lebanon. There will be rapid growth, but
   sure growth. The lily has frail beauty, but Lebanon has the permanent
   lasting cedar--and God can make the graces of His people to be as
   enduring as they are beautiful!

   6, 7. His branches shallspread, and his beauty shall be as the olive
   tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall
   return. His children, who were led into mischief by bad example, shall
   be drawn back again.

   7-9. They shallrevive as the corn, andgrow as the vine: the scent
   thereof shall be as the wine ofLebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I
   to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am
   like a green fir tree. From Me is your fruit found. Who is wise, and he
   shall understand these things? Prudent, and he shall know them? For the
   ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them but the
   transgressors shall fall therein.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Memorable Hymn

   (No. 2982)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."
   Matthew 26:30.

   The occasion on which these words were spoken was the last meal of
   which Jesus partook in company with His disciples before He went from
   them to His shameful trial and His ignominious death. It was His
   farewell supper before a bitter parting--and yet they must sing. He was
   on the brink of that great depth of misery into which He was about to
   plunge--and yet He would have them sing "a hymn." It is amazing that HE
   sang and, in a second degree, it is remarkable that THEY sang. We will
   consider both these singular facts.

   I. Let us dwell a while on THE FACT THAT JESUS SANG AT SUCH A TIME AS
   THIS. What does He teach us by this?

   Does He not say to each of us, His followers, "My religion is one of
   happiness and joy. I, your Master, by My example, would instruct you to
   sing even when the last solemn hour is come and all the glooms of death
   are gathering around you. Here, at the table, I am your Singing-master
   and set you lessons in music, in which My dying voice shall lead you,
   notwithstanding all the griefs which overwhelm My heart! I will be to
   you the Chief Musician and the Sweet Singer of Israel." There was a
   time when it would have been natural and consistent with the
   solemnities of the occasion for the Savior to have bowed His head upon
   the table, bursting into a flood of tears. Or, if ever theirs was a
   season when He might have fittingly retired from all company and have
   bewailed His coming conflict in sighs and groans, it was just then. But
   no, that brave heart will sing "a hymn." Our glorious Jesus plays the
   man beyond all other men! Boldest of the sons of men, He quails not in
   the hour of battle, but tunes His voice to loftiest Psalmody. The
   genius of that Christianity of which Jesus is the Head and Founder, its
   object, spirit and design, are happiness and joy--and they who receive
   it are able to sing in the very jaws of death!

   This remark, however, is quite a secondary one to the next. Our Lord's
   complete fulfillment of the Law of God is even more worthy of our
   attention. It was customary, when the Passover was held, to sing, and
   this is the main reason why the Savior did so. During the Passover it
   was usual to sing the 113th and five following Psalms which were called
   the "Hallel." The first commences, you will observe, in our version,
   with, "Praise you the Lord!" or, "Hallelujah!" The 115th and the three
   following, were usually sung as the closing song of the Passover. Now,
   our Savior would not diminish the splendor of the great Jewish rite
   although it was the last time that He would celebrate it. No, there
   shall be the holy beauty and delight of Psalmody--none of it shall be
   stinted--the "Hallel" shall be full and complete!

   We may safely believe that the Savior sang through, or probably
   chanted, the whole of these six Psalms. And my heart tells me that
   there was no one at the table who sang more devoutly or more cheerfully
   than did our blessed Lord. There are some parts of the 118th Psalm,
   especially, which strike us as having sounded singularly grand as they
   flowed from His blessed lips. Note verses 22, 23, 24. Particularly
   observe those words near the end of the Psalm and imagine you hear the
   Lord, Himself, singing them--"God is the Lord, which has showed us
   light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.
   You are my God, and I will praise You: You are my God, I will exalt
   You. O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good: for His mercy endures
   forever."

   Because, then, it was the settled custom of Israel to recite or sing
   these Psalms, our Lord Jesus Christ did the same, for He would leave
   nothing unfinished. Just as when He went down into the waters of
   Baptism, He said, "Thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness," so
   He seemed to say, when sitting at the table, "Thus it becomes us to
   fulfill all righteousness. Therefore let us sing unto the Lord, as
   God's people in past ages have done." Beloved, let us view with

   holy wonder the strictness of the Savior's obedience to His Father's
   will! And let us endeavor to follow in His steps in all things, seeking
   to be obedient to the Lord's Word in the little matters as well as in
   the great ones.

   May we not venture to suggest another and deeper reason? Did not the
   singing of "a hymn" at the supper show the holy absorption of the
   Savior's soul in His Father's will If, Beloved, you knew that at, say,
   ten o'clock tonight, you would be led away to be mocked, despised and
   scourged--and that tomorrow's sun would see you falsely accused,
   hanging, a convicted criminal, to die upon a cross--do you think that
   you could sing tonight, after your last meal? I am sure you could not
   unless with more than earth-born courage and resignation your soul
   could say, "bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the
   altar." You would sing if your spirit were like the Savior's
   spirit--if, like He, you could exclaim, "Not as I will, but as You
   will." But if there should remain in you any selfishness, any desire to
   be spared the bitterness of death, you would not be able to chant the
   "Hallel" with the Master! Blessed Jesus, how wholly were You given up!
   How perfectly consecrated! So that, whereas other men sing when they
   are marching to their joys, You sang on Your way to death! Whereas
   other men lift up their cheerful voices when honor awaits them, You had
   a brave and holy sonnet on Your lips when shame, spitting and death
   were to be Your portion!

   This singing of the Savior also teaches us the whole-heartedness of the
   Master in the work which He was about to do. The patriot warrior sings
   as he hastens to battle to the strains of martial music He advances to
   meet the enemy and even thus the heart of our all-glorious Champion
   supplies Him with song even in the dreadful hour of His solitary agony!
   He views the battle, but He dreads it not--though in the contest His
   soul will be "exceedingly sorrowful even unto death." Before it He is
   like Job's warhorse, "He says among the trumpets, Ha, ha and He smells
   the battle afar off." He has a baptism to be baptized with and He is
   straitened until it is accomplished. The Master does not go forth to
   the agony in the garden with a cowed and trembling spirit, all bowed
   and crushed in the dust, but He advances to the conflict like a Man who
   has His full strength about Him--taken out to be a Victim, (if I may
   use such a figure), not as a worn-out ox that has long borne the yoke,
   but as the firstling of the bullock, in the fullness of His strength!
   He goes forth to the slaughter with His glorious undaunted spirit fast
   and firm within Him, glad to suffer for His people's sake and for His
   Father's Glory!--

   "For as at first Your all-pervading look Saw from your Father's bosom
   to the abyss, Measuring in calm presage The infinite descent.

   So to the end, though now of mortal pangs Made heir, and emptied of
   Your Glory a while, With unaverted eyes You meet all the storm."

   Let us, O fellow-heirs of salvation, learn to sing when our suffering
   time comes, when our season for stern labor approaches! Yes, let us
   pour forth a canticle of deep, mysterious melody of bliss when our
   dying hour is near at hand! Courage, Brothers and Sisters! The waters
   are chilly, but fear will not by any means diminish the terrors of the
   river! Courage, Brothers and Sisters! Death is solemn work, but playing
   the coward will not make it less so! Bring out the silver trumpet--let
   your lips remember the long-loved music--and let the notes be clear and
   shrill as you dip your feet in the Jordan! "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."

   Dear Friends, let the remembrance of the melodies of that upper room go
   with you tomorrow into business! And if you expect a great trial and
   are afraid you will not be able to sing after it, then sing beforeit
   comes. Get your holy praise work done before affliction mars the tune!
   Fill the air with music while you can. While yet there is bread upon
   the table, sing, though famine may threaten. While yet the child runs
   laughing about the house, while yet the flush of health is in your own
   cheeks, while yet your goods are spared, while yet your heart is whole
   and sound, lift up your song of praise to the Most High God and let
   your Master, the singing Savior, be in this your goodly and comfortable
   example!

   II. We will now consider THE SINGING OF THE DISCIPLES. They united in
   the "Hallel"--like true Jews, they joined in the national song. Israel
   had good cause to sing at the Passover, for God had worked for His
   people what He had done for no other nation on the face of the earth!
   Every Hebrew must have felt his soul elevated and rejoiced on the

   Paschal night! He was "a citizen of no mean city," and the pedigree
   which he could look back upon was one compared with which kings and
   princes were but of yesterday.

   Remembering the fact commemorated by the Paschal Supper, Israel might
   well rejoice. They sang of their nation in bondage, trodden beneath the
   tyrannical foot of Pharaoh. They began the Psalm right sorrowfully, as
   they thought of the bricks made without straw and of the iron furnace.
   But the strain soon mounted from the deep bass and began to climb the
   scale as they sang of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lord
   appearing to Him in the burning bush. They remembered the mystic rod
   which became a serpent and which swallowed up the rods of the
   magicians. Their music told of the plagues and wonders which God had
   worked upon Zoan and of that dread night when the first-born of Egypt
   fell before the avenging sword of the angel of death, while they,
   themselves, feeding on the lamb which had been slain for them, and
   who's blood was sprinkled upon the lintel and upon the side posts of
   the door, had been graciously preserved. Then the song went up
   concerning the hour in which all Egypt was humbled at the feet of
   Jehovah, while as for His people, He led them forth like sheep, by the
   hand of Moses and Aaron, and they went by the way of the sea, even of
   the Red Sea. The strain rose still higher as they sang the song of
   Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb. Jubilantly they sang of the
   Red Sea and of the chariots of Pharaoh which went down into the midst
   thereof, and the depths covered them till there was not one of them
   left. It was a glorious chant, indeed, when they sang of Rahab cut in
   pieces and of the dragon wounded at the sea by the right hand of the
   Most High for the deliverance of the chosen people!

   But, Beloved, if I have said that Israel could so properly sing, what
   shall I say of those of us who are the Lord spiritually redeemed? We
   have been emancipated from a slavery worse than that of Egypt! "With a
   high hand and with an outstretched arm," has God delivered us! The
   blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God's Passover, has been sprinkled
   on our hearts and consciences. By faith we keep the Passover, for we
   have been saved--we have been brought out of Egypt--and though our sins
   did once oppose us, they have all been drowned in the Red Sea of the
   atoning blood of Jesus! "The depths have covered them. There is not one
   of them left." If the Jew could sing a "great Hallel," our "Hallel"
   ought to be more glowing still! And if every house in "Judaea's happy
   land" was full of music when the people ate the Paschal feast, tonight
   we have much more reason for filling every heart with sacred harmony
   while we feast upon Jesus Christ who was slain and has redeemed us to
   God by His blood!

   III. The time has now come for me to say HOW EARNESTLY I DESIRE YOU TO
   "SING A HYMN."

   I do not mean to ask you to use your voices, but let your hearts be
   brimming with the essence of praise. Whenever we repair to the Lord's
   Table, which represents to us the Passover, we ought not to come to it
   as to a funeral. Let us select solemn hymns, but not dirges. Let us
   sing softly, but none the less joyfully. This is no burial feast! These
   are not funeral cakes which lie upon this Table, and yonder fair white
   linen cloth is no winding sheet. "This is My body," said Jesus, but the
   body so represented was no corpse! We feed upon a living Christ! The
   blood set forth by yonder wine is the fresh life blood of our immortal
   King. We view not our Lord's body as clay-cold flesh, pierced with
   wounds, but as glorified at the right hand of the Father! We hold a
   happy festival when we break bread on the first day of the week. We
   come not here trembling like bondsmen, cringing before the Lord as
   wretched condemned serfs! They eat on their knees--we approach as
   freemen to our Lord's banquet, like His Apostles, to recline at length
   or sit at ease--not merely to eat bread which may belong to the most
   sorrowful, but to drink wine which belongs to men whose souls are glad.
   Let us recognize the rightness, yes, the dutyof cheerfulness at this
   commemorative supper and, therefore, let us sing a hymn!

   Being satisfied on this point, perhaps you ask, "What hymn shall we
   sing?''" Many sorts of hymns were sung in the olden time. Look down the
   list and you will scarcely find one which may not suit us now.

   One of the earliest of earthy things was the war-song. They sang of old
   a song to the conqueror, when he returned from the battle. "Saul has
   slain his thousands and David his ten thousands." Women took their
   timbrels and rejoiced in the day when the hero returned from the war.
   Even thus, of old, did the people of God extol Him for His mighty acts,
   singing aloud with the high-sounding cymbals--"Sing unto the Lord, for
   He has triumphed gloriously...The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His
   name." My Brothers and Sisters, let us lift up a war song tonight! Why
   not? "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?
   This that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of
   His strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." Come, let
   us praise our Emmanuel, as we see the head of our foe in His right
   hand! As we behold Him leading captivity captive, ascending up on high
   with trumpets' joyful sound, let us chant the song--let us shout the
   war-song-- "Io Triumphee" Behold, He comes, all glorious from the war!

   As we gather at this festive Table which reminds us both of His
   conflict and of His victory, let us salute Him with a Psalm of gladsome
   triumph which shall be but the prelude of the song we expect to sing
   when we get up--

   "Where all the angers meet"

   Another early form of song was the pastoral. When the shepherds sat
   down among the sheep, they tuned their pipes and warbled forth soft and
   sweet airs in harmony with rustic quietude. All around was calm and
   still. The sun was brightly shining and the birds were making melody
   among the leafy branches. Shall I seem fanciful if I say, "Let us unite
   in a pastoral tonight?" Sitting round the Table, why should we not
   sing, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie
   down in green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters"? If there
   is a place beneath the stars where we might feel perfectly at rest and
   ease, surely it is at the Table of the Lord! Here, then, let us sing to
   our great Shepherd a pastoral of delight. Let the bleating of sheep be
   in our ears as we remember the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for
   His flock!

   You need not to be reminded that the ancients were very fond of festive
   songs. When they assembled at their great festivals, led by their
   chosen minstrels, they sang right joyously, with boisterous mirth. Let
   those who will, speak to the praise of wine--my soul shall extol the
   precious blood of Jesus! Let who will, laud corn and oil, the rich
   produce of the harvest--my heart shall sing of the Bread which came
   down from Heaven, whereof, if a man eats, he shall never hunger! Do you
   speak of royal banquets and minstrelsy fit for a monarch's ears? Ours
   is a nobler festival and our song is sweeter by far! Here is room at
   this Table, tonight, for all earth's poetry and music, for this place
   deserves songs more lustrous with delight, more sparkling with gems of
   holy mirth than any of which the ancients could conceive!

   The love song we must not forget, for that is peculiarly the song of
   this evening. "Now will I sing unto my Well-Beloved a song." His love
   to us is an immortal theme and as our love, fanned by the breath of
   Heaven, bursts into a vehement flame! We may sing, yes, and we
   willsigamong the lilies, a song of love!

   In the Old Testament, we find many Psalms called by the title, "A Song
   of Degrees." This "Song of Degrees" is supposed by me to have been sung
   as the people ascended the Temple steps, or made pilgrimages to the
   holy place. The strain often changes--sometimes it is dolorous, but
   soon it is gladsome. At one season the notes are long drawn out and
   heavy. At another, they are cheerful and jubilant. We will sing a "Song
   of Degrees" tonight. We will mourn that we pierced the Lord and we will
   rejoice in pardon bought with blood! Our strain must vary as we talk of
   sin, feeling its bitterness and lamenting it--and then of pardon,
   rejoicing in its glorious fullness!

   David wrote a considerable number of Psalms which he entitled
   "Maschil," which may be called in English, "instructive Psalms." Where,
   Beloved, can we find richer instruction than at the Table of our Lord?
   He who understands the mystery of Incarnation and of Substitution is a
   master in Scriptural theology. There is more teaching in the Savior's
   body and in the Savior's blood than in all the world! O you who wish to
   learn the way to comfort and how to tread the royal road to heavenly
   wisdom, come to the Cross and see the Savior suffer and pour out His
   heart's blood for human sin!

   Some of David's Psalms are called, "Mchtam," which means "golden
   Psalm." Surely we must sing one of these! Our Psalms must be golden
   when we sing of the Head of the Church who is as much fine gold. More
   precious than silver or gold is the inestimable price which He has paid
   for our ransom! Yes, you sons of harmony, bring your most melodious
   anthems here and let your Savior have your golden Psalms!

   Certain Psalms in the Old Testament are entitled, "UponShoshannim,"
   that is, "Upon the lilies." O you virgin souls, whose hearts have been
   washed in blood and have been made white and pure, bring forth your
   instruments of song--

   "Here, then, your music bring, Strike aloud each cheerful string!"

   Let your hearts, when they are in their best state, when they are
   purest and most cleansed from earthly dross, give to Jesus their glory
   and their excellence!

   Then there are other Psalms which are dedicated "To the sons of Korah."
   If the guess is right, the reason why we get the title, "To the sons of
   Korah"--"a song of loves" must be this--when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
   were swallowed up, the sons of Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up,
   too--but the sons of Korah perished not. Why they were not destroyed,
   we cannot tell. Perhaps it was that Sovereign Grace spared those whom
   Justice might have doomed and "the sons of Korah" were ever after made
   the sweet singers of the sanctuary. And whenever there was a special
   "song of loves,"

   it was always dedicated to them. Ah, we will have one of those songs of
   love tonight, around the Table, for we, too, are saved by
   distinguishing Grace. We will sing of the heavenly Lover and the many
   waters which could not quench His love!

   We have not half exhausted the list, but it is clear that sitting at
   the Lord's Table, we shall have no lack of suitable psalmody. Perhaps
   no one hymn will quite meet the sentiments of all and, while we would
   not write a hymn for you, we would pray the Holy Spirit to now write
   the spirit of praise upon your hearts, that sitting here, you may
   "after supper" sing "a hymn."

   IV. For one or two minutes let us ask, WHAT SHALL THE TUNE BE?

   It must be a strange one, for if we are to sing "a hymn tonight, around
   the Table, the tune most have all the parts of music. Yonder Believer
   is heavy of heart through manifold sorrows, bereavements and watching
   by the sick. He loves his Lord and would gladly praise Him, but his
   soul refuses to use her wings. Brother, we will have a tune in which
   you can join--and you shall lead the bass. You shall sing of your
   fellowship with your Beloved in His sufferings--how He, too, lost a
   friend. How He spent whole nights in sleeplessness. How His soul was
   exceedingly sorrowful. But the tune must not be all bass, or it would
   not suit all of us tonight, for some can reach the highest note. We
   have seen the Lord and our spirit has rejoiced in God our Savior. We
   want to lift the chorus high, yes, there are some here who are at times
   so full of joy that they will need special music written for them!
   "Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I
   cannot tell," said Paul, and so have others said since, when Christ has
   been with them! Ah, then they have been obliged to mount to the highest
   notes, to the very loftiest range of song!

   Remember, Beloved, that the same Savior who will accept the joyful
   shouts of the strong, will also receive the plaintive notes of the weak
   and weeping. You little ones, you babes in Grace, may cry, "Hosanna,"
   and the King will not silence you. And you strong men, with all your
   power of faith, may shout, "Hallelujah!" and your notes shall be
   accepted, too.

   Come, then, let us have a tune in which we can all unite, but ah, we
   cannot make one which will suit the dead--the dead, I mean, "in
   trespasses and sins"--and there are some such here. Oh, may God open
   their mouths and unloose their tongues! But as for those of us who are
   alive unto God, let us, as we come to the Table, all contribute our own
   share of the music and so make up a song of blended harmony, with many
   parts--one great united song of praise to Jesus our

   Lord!

   We should not choose a tune for the Communion Table which is not very
   soft. These are no boisterous themes with which we have to deal when we
   tarry here. A bleeding Savior, robed in a vesture dyed with blood--this
   is a theme which you must treat with loving gentleness, for everything
   that is coarse is out of place. While the tune is soft, it must also be
   sweet. Silence, you doubts! Be dumb, you fears! Be hushed, you cares!
   Why do you come here? My music must be sweet and soft when I sing of
   Him. But oh, it must also be strong! There must be a full swell in my
   praise. Draw out the stops, and let the organ swell the diapason! In
   fullness let its roll of thundering harmony go up to Heaven! Let every
   note be sounded at its loudest. "Praise you Him upon the cymbals, upon
   the high-sounding cymbals; upon the harp with a solemn sound." Let the
   music be soft, sweet and strong.

   Alas, you complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master
   to tune the heart-strings. Those "Selahs" which we find so often in the
   Psalms are supposed by many scholars to mean, "Put the harp-strings in
   tune." Truly we require many "Selahs," for our hearts are constantly
   unstrung. Oh, that tonight the Master would enable each one of us to
   offer that tuneful prayer which we so often sing--

   "Teach me some melodious sonnet,

   Sung by flaming tongues above!

   Frame the mount--oh, fix me on it,

   Mount of God's unchanging love!"

   V. We close by enquiring, WHO SHALL SING THIS HYMN?

   Sitting around the Father's board, we will raise a joyful song, but who
   shall do it? "I will," says one. "And we will," say others. What is the
   reason why so many are willing to join? The reason is to be found in
   the theme we were singing just now--

   "When He's the subject of the song, Who can refuse to sing?"

   What? A Christian silent when others are praising His Master? No! He
   must join in the song. Satan tries to make God's people dumb, but he
   cannot, for the Lord has not a tongue-tied child in all His family!
   They can all speak and they can all cry, even if they cannot all
   sing--but I think there are times when they can all sing--yes, they
   must, for you know the promise, "Then shall the tongue of the dumb
   sing." Surely, when Jesus leads the tune, if there should be any silent
   ones in the Lord's family, they must begin to praise the name of the
   Lord! After Giant Despair's head had been cut off, Christians and Mr.
   Greatheart and all the rest of them brought out the best of the
   provisions and made a feast. And Mr. Bunyan says that after they had
   feasted, they danced. In the dance there was one remarkable dancer,
   namely, Mr. Ready-to-Halt. Now, Mr. Ready-to-Halt usually went upon
   crutches, but for once he laid them aside. "And," says Bunyan, "I
   guarantee you he footed it well!" This is quaintly showing us that the
   very sorrowful ones, the Ready-to-Halts, when they see Giant Despair's
   head cut off--when they see death, Hell, and sin led in triumphant
   captivity at the wheels of Christ's victorious chariot--I say they feel
   that even theymust for once indulge in a song of gladness! So, when I
   put the question tonight, "Who will sing?" I trust that Ready-to-Halt
   will promise, "I will!"

   You have not much comfort at home, perhaps. By very hard work you earn
   that little. Sunday is to you a day of true rest, for you are worked
   very cruelly all the week. Those cheeks of yours, poor girl, are
   getting very pale and who knows but what Hood's pathetic line may be
   true of you?--

   "Stitch, stitch, stitch

   In poverty, hunger, and dirt.

   Sewing at once, with a double thread,

   A shroud as well as a shirt."

   But, my Sister, you may surely rejoice tonight in spite of all this!
   There may be little on earth, but there is much in Heaven. There may be
   but small comfort for you here apart from Christ but oh when, by faith,
   you mount into His Glory, your soul is glad! You shall be as rich as
   the richest tonight if the Holy Spirit shall but bring you to the Table
   and enable you to feed upon your Lord and Master! Perhaps you have come
   here tonight when you ought not to have done so. The physician would
   have told you to stay in your bed, but you persisted in coming up to
   the House where the Lord has so often met with you. I trust that we
   shall hear your voice in the song. There appears to have been, in
   David's day, many things to silence the praise of God, but David was
   one who would sing. I like that expression of his where the devil seems
   to come up and put his hand on his mouth and say, "Be quiet!" "No,"
   said David, "I will sing!" Again the devil tries to quiet him, but
   David is not to be silenced, for three times he puts it, "I will sing,
   yes, I will sing praises unto the Lord!" May the Lord make you resolve,
   this night, that you will praise the Lord Jesus with all your heart!

   Alas, there are many of you here whom I cannot invite to this feast of
   song and who could not truly come if you were invited. Your sins are
   not forgiven. Your souls are not saved. You have not trusted Christ.
   You are still in Nature's darkness, still in the gall of bitterness and
   in the bonds of iniquity! Must it always be so? Will you destroy
   yourselves? Have you made a league with death and a covenant with Hell?
   Mercy lingers! Long-suffering continues! Jesus waits! Remember that He
   hung upon the Cross for sinners such as you are and that if you believe
   in Him, now, you shall be saved! One act of faith and all the sin you
   have committed is blotted out. A single glance of faith's eye to the
   wounds of the Messiah and your load of iniquity is rolled into the
   depths of the sea--and you are forgiven in a moment!

   "Oh," says one, "would God I could believe!" Poor Soul, may God help
   you to believe now! God took upon Himself our flesh. Christ was born
   among men and suffered on account of human guilt, being made to suffer
   "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." Christ was
   punished in the place of every man and woman who will believe on Him.
   If you believe on Him, He was punished for you--and you will never be
   punished! Your debts are paid, your sins are forgiven. God cannot
   punish you, for He has punished Christ instead of you--and He will
   never punish twice for one offense. To believe is to trust. If you will
   now trust your soul entirely with Him, you are saved, for He loved you
   and gave Himself for you.

   When you know this and feel it to be true, then come to the Lord's
   Table and join with us, when, AFTER SUPPER WE SING OUR HYMN--

   "'It is finished!'--Oh what pleasure, Do these charming words afford!
   Heavenly blessings without measure Flow to us from Christ the Lord--

   'It is finished!'

   Saints, the dying words record. Tune your harps anew, you seraphs, Join
   to sing the pleasing theme! All on earth, and all in Heaven, Join to
   praise Immanuel's name! Hallelujah!

   Glory to the bleeding Lamb!"

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--421, 439, 300.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 26:20-30; 1 CORINTHIANS 11:20-26.

   Matthew 26:20. Now when the evening was come, He sat down with the
   twelve. Why so many people celebrate the Lord's Supper in the morning,
   I cannot imagine, unless it is that they desire to do everything
   contrary to their Lord's command and example! "When the evening was
   come, He sat down with the twelve." I do not think there is any binding
   ordinance making the evening the only time for the observance of this
   ordinance--but to make the morning the only time is certainly not
   according to the Word of God!

   21, 22. And as they did eat, He said, Verily I say unto you, that one
   of you shall betray Me. And they were exceedingly sorrowful There was
   enough to make them sorrowful in the fact that their Lord had just told
   them that one of the 12 who were His bodyguard, His closest companions,
   His nearest and dearest friends, would betray Him. "They were
   exceedingly sorrowful."

   22, And began everyone of them to say unto Him, Lord, is it I It shows
   a beautiful trait in their character that they did not suspect one
   another and, least of all, I suppose, they did not suspect Judas, but
   each one asked, "Lord, is it I?" It is an admirable way of hearing a
   sermon to take it home to yourself, especially if there is a rebuke or
   a caution in it.

   23, 24. 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. The doom of the wicked
   is something far worse than non-existence, or Christ would not have
   said, concerning Judas Iscariot, "It had been good for that man if he
   had never been born." This is especially true of all those who, having
   for a while consorted with Christ, afterwards deny it and betray Him. O
   Brothers and Sisters, may all of us be kept from this terrible sin! May
   none of us ever betray our Master after all the fellowship we have had
   with Him! It would be better to die for Him than to deny Him--and it
   would be better never to have been born than to have been in intimate
   association with Him and then to have betrayed Him.

   25. Then Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said, Master, is it I?
   He said unto him, You have said. "It is even so." With a sorrowful
   gesture, He made it plain to His sad little circle of friends and
   followers that He knew all that was going to happen and that Judas was
   the man who was going to turn traitor.

   26. And as they were eating. As they were eating the Passover. The one
   ordinance gradually melted into the other-- "As they were eating."

   26, 27. Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to
   the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took the
   cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink you all of it.
   "Each one of you, My disciples, take a draught of this cup."

   28. For this is My blood ofthe new covenant, which is shed for many for
   the remission ofsins. They had had gross sin brought prominently to
   their minds. They had had a personal reminder of their own liability to
   sin and now they were to have a personal pledge concerning the pardon
   of sin--"For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for
   many for the remission of sin."

   29. 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. Taking, as it were, the great Nazarite vow to never taste of
   the fruit of the vine "until that

   day." He will keep His tryst with us, my Brothers and Sisters; and we
   shall drink the new vine of His Father's Kingdom with Him by-and-by.
   But until then, He waits.

   30. And when theey had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of
   Olives.

   1 Corinthians 16:20. When you come together, therefore, into one place,
   this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. Merely meeting together, each
   person bringing his or her own portion of bread and wine, and each one
   eating the provided portion, was notcelebrating the Lord's Supper.

   21. For in eating, everyone takes before others his own supper: and one
   is hungry, and another is drunk. Bad as some professing Christians are
   even now, they are not as bad as these Corinthians were! One was
   hungry, and another was drunk because they had turned the holy feast
   into a kind of banquet of a most disorderly sort! There was nothing in
   their conduct to indicate true Christian fellowship. The very meaning
   of the ordinance was lost in the fact that each one was feasting
   himself without fear.

   22. 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 The Lord's Supper is
   not to be made an opportunity for eating and drinking in disorderly
   self-enjoyment. It is a hallowed and holy institution, setting forth
   the fellowship of true Believers with one another, and with the Lord
   Jesus Christ. Paul was an Apostle, yet he had not been present at the
   institution of the Lord's Supper, so He had a special Revelation given
   to him concerning the way in which this ordinance is to be observed.

   23. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto
   you. That is the right kind of teaching which a man first receives from
   God, and then delivers to the people! Nothing is of authority in the
   Christian ministry unless we can say of it, "I have received of the
   Lord that which also I delivered unto you."

   23. That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed took
   bread. What a sad interest is given to the Lord's Supper by the fact
   that it was instituted "the same night in which He was betrayed." Never
   forget that! God grant that none of us may betray our Lord this night,
   or any other night! It would be the darkest night in our life should it
   ever be so. "The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed
   took bread."

   24, 25. 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 the new testament ' 'The New Covenant."

   26, 26. In My blood: this do you as often asyou drink it, in
   remembrance ofMe. For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this
   cup, you do show the Lord's death till He comes.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Wonderful Transformation

   (No. 2983)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 12,1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 3, 1875.

   "Your sorrow shall be turned into joy." John 16:20.

   You all know that at that time, our Lord was speaking of His death
   which would cause the deepest grief to His own people, while the
   ungodly world would rejoice and laugh them to scorn. So He bade them
   look beyond the immediate present into the future and believe that,
   ultimately, the cause of their sorrow would become a fountain of
   perpetual joy to them. It is always well to look a little ahead.
   Instead of deploring the dark clouds, let us anticipate the fruits and
   the flowers that will follow the descent of the needed showers. We
   might be always wretched if we lived only in the present, for our
   brightest time is yet to come. We are now, as Believers in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, only in the twilight of our day-- the high noon shall
   come to us by-and-by.

   But although our Savior's words, just then, related immediately to His
   death, He was such a wonderful speaker that everything He said had a
   wider meaning in it than one might at first imagine. Even the leaves of
   the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations--and even those
   words of Christ which have a direct application to a special occasion
   have a further wondrous power about them--and may be used on other
   occasions as well as upon the one when they were first uttered. I think
   I may fairly say that our Lord did not merely mean that just when He
   died, His children would have sorrow, but that we may take His words as
   a prophecy that all who truly follow Him will have their seasons of
   darkness and gloom. Our Lord Jesus Christ has nowhere promised to His
   people immunity from trial. On the contrary, He said to His disciples,
   "In the world you shall have tribulation." I cannot imagine a better
   promise for the wheat than that it shall be threshed--and that is the
   promise that is made to us if we are the Lord's wheat--and not the
   enemy's tares, "You shall have the threshing which shall fit you for
   the heavenly garner." You need not mourn, Beloved, that it is to be so.
   If you do, it will make no difference, for your Lord has declared that
   "in the world you shall have tribulation." Rest quite sure of that. If
   you could ask those Believers who are now in Heaven, they would tell
   you that they came through great tribulation--many of them not only
   washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, but they sealed their
   faithfulness to Him with their own blood!

   Our Lord meant His disciples to feel the sorrow that was to come upon
   them, for He said to them, "You shall weep and lament," and He did not
   express any blame upon them for doing so. I would not have any of you
   imaging that there is any virtue in stoicism. I once heard a woman who
   wished to show the wonders worked in her by the Grace of God, say that
   when her baby was taken from her, she was so resigned to the Divine
   will that she did not even shed a tear! But I do not believe that it
   ever was the Divine will that mothers should lose their babies without
   shedding tears over them. I thank God that I did not have a mother who
   could have acted like that. And I believe that as Jesus, Himself, wept,
   there can be no virtue in our saying that we do not weep. God means you
   to feel the rod, my Brother, my Sister. He intends you to sometimes
   weep and lament, as Peter says, "if need be, you are in heaviness
   through manifold temptations." It is not merely the temptation or trial
   for which there is a necessity, but that we should be in heaviness is
   also a necessary part of our earthly discipline. Unfelt trial is no
   trial! Certainly it would be an unsanctified trial. Christ never meant
   Christians to be stoics. There is a wide and grave distinction between
   a gracious acquiescence in the Divine will and a callous steeling of
   your heart to bear anything that happens without any feeling whatever.
   "You shall be sorrowful," says our Lord to His disciples, and "you
   shall weep and lament." It is through the weeping and the lamenting,
   oftentimes, that the very kernel of the blessing comes to us!

   Our Savior mentions one aggravation of our grief which some of us have
   often felt--"the world shall rejoice." That is the old story. David
   found his own trials all the harder to bear when he saw the prosperity
   of the wicked. He had been plagued all the day long and chastened every
   morning--he could have endured that if he had not seen that the ungodly
   had more than heart could wish! He found himself, sometimes, even
   troubled with the fear of death, but as for the wicked, he said, "There
   are no bonds in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not
   in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men." It
   makes our bitterness all the more bitter when the saints of God are
   afflicted and the enemies of God are made to dwell in ease. I daresay
   when you were a boy, you may have fallen and hurt yourself--and while
   you were smarting from your bruises, the other lads who were around
   you, were laughing at you! The pain was all the sharper because of
   their laughing. And the righteous are wounded to the quick when they
   see the ungodly prospering--prospering, apparently, by their
   ungodliness. And when these ungodly persons point the finger of scorn
   at them and ask, "Where is your God now? Is this the result of serving
   Him?" When this is your lot, remember that your Savior told His
   disciples that it would be so--and He has told you the same. While you
   are sorrowing, you shall hear their shouts of revelry. You shall be up
   in your own room weeping and you shall hear the sound of their merry
   feet in the dizzy dance. The very contrast between their circumstances
   and your own will make you feel your grief more. Well, if this is to be
   our lot, we must not count it a strange thing when it comes, but we may
   hear our Master say to us, "I told you that it would be so." When it
   happens to any of you, Beloved, you must say, "This is even as Jesus
   Christ said it would be."

   His first disciples, if they ventured out into the streets of Jerusalem
   after their Savior's crucifixion, and while He was lying in the tomb of
   Joseph, must have found it very trying to hear the jests and jeers of
   those who had put the Nazarene to death. "There is an end of Him now,"
   they said. "His imposture is exposed and His disciples--poor, foolish
   fanatics--will soon come to their senses and the whole thing will
   collapse." Just so. That was what Jesus said would happen, "you shall
   weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice."

   Now, what was the Savior's cure for all this? It was the fact that this
   trial was to last only for a little while--for a very little while. In
   the case of His first disciples, it was only to last for a few days and
   then it would to over, for they would hear the joyful announcement,
   "The Lord is risen, indeed, and has appeared to Simon." So is it to be
   with you and with me, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Our sorrows
   are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for
   immortal saints! They come, but, blessed be God, they also go like
   birds of the air--they fly over our heads but they cannot make their
   abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow!
   "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." But as
   for yonder laughing sinner, what weeping and wailing will be his
   portion unless he repents and weeps in penitence over his many sins!
   The prosperity of the wicked is like a thin layer of ice on which they
   always stand in peril. In a moment they may be brought down to
   destruction! And the place that knew them will know them no more
   forever. Our weeping is soon to end, but their weeping will never end.
   Our joy will be forever, but their joy will speedily come to an end.
   Look a little ahead, Christian pilgrims, for you will soon have passed
   through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and have come into the land
   where even the shadow of death shall never fall across your pathway
   again!

   In speaking those comforting words to His disciples, our Savior made
   use of this memorable sentence, "Your sorrow shall to turned into joy."
   As I read the whole passage, I pondered over those words and tried to
   find out their meaning. Perhaps you think, as you glance at them, that
   they mean that the man who was sorrowful would be joyous. That is part
   of their meaning, but they mean a great deal more than that. They mean,
   literally and actually, your sorrow, itself, shall be turned into
   joy--not the sorrow to be taken away and joy to be put in its
   place--but the very sorrow which now grieves you, shall be turned into
   joy! This is a very wonderful transformation and only the God who works
   great marvels could possibly accomplish it--could, somehow, not only
   take away the bitterness and give sweetness in its place, but turn the
   bitterness, itself, into sweetness!

   That is to be the subject of our present meditation and I am glad to
   have, in the communion at which many of us will presently unite in the
   highest act of Christian fellowship, an apt illustration of my theme.
   You know that the Supper of the Lord is not at all a funereal
   gathering, but it is a sacred festival at which we sit at our ease,
   restfully enjoying ourselves as at a banquet. But what are the
   provisions for this feast and what do they represent? That bread, that
   wine-- what do they mean? They represent, my dear Friends,
   sorrow--sorrow even unto death! The bread, separate from the

   wine, represents the flesh of Christ separate from His blood, and so
   they set forth death. The broken bread represents the flesh of Christ
   bruised, marred, suffering, full of anguish. The wine represents
   Christ's blood poured out upon the Cross amidst agony which only ended
   with His death. Yet these emblems of sorrow and suffering furnish us
   with our great feast of love! This is, indeed, joy arising out of
   sorrow! The festival is itself the ordained memorial of the greatest
   grief that was ever endured on earth. Here, then, as you gather around
   this Table, you shall see, in the outward signs and emblems, that
   sorrow is turned into joy!

   I. If you will keep that picture in your mind's eye, it will help me to
   bring out the meaning of the text. And our first point will be
   this--OUR SORROW AS TO OUR BLESSED LORD IS NOW TURNED INTO JOY. The
   very things that make us grieve concerning Him are the things which
   make us rejoice concerning Him!

   And, first, this comes to pass when we look upon Him as tempted, tried
   and tested in a thousand ways. We see Him no sooner rising from the
   waters of Baptism than He is led into the desert to be tempted by the
   devil. And we grieve to think that, for our sakes, it was necessary
   that He should there bear the brunt of a fierce duel with the Prince of
   Darkness. We see Him afterwards, all His life, tempted, tried and
   tested this way and that--sometimes by a scribe or a Pharisee,
   sometimes by a Sadducee. All sorts of temptations were brought to bear
   upon Him, for He "was in all points tempted like as we are." But, oh,
   how thankful we are to know that He was thus tempted, for those very
   temptations helped to prove the sinlessness of His Character! How could
   we know what there was in a man who was never tested and tried? But our
   Lord was tested at every point--and at no point did He fall. It is
   established, beyond all question, that He is the Lamb of God without
   blemish and without spot. You cannot tell what a man's strength of
   character is unless he is tried. There must be something to develop the
   excellence that lies hidden in his nature. And we ought to rejoice and
   bless God that our Savior was passed, like silver, through the furnace
   seven times and, like gold, was tried again and again in the crucible
   in the hottest part of the furnace yet there was found no dross in Him,
   but only the pure, precious metal without a particle of alloy! Therein
   do we greatly rejoice! He "was in all points tempted like as we are,
   yet without sin." He was tempted by Satan and contradicted by sinners,
   yet He was found faultless to the end and, thus, our joy arises out of
   that which otherwise would have made us mourn!

   Further, dear Brothers and Sisters, remember that the griefs and trials
   of our Lord not only manifested His sinless Character, but they made
   Him fit for that priestly office which He has undertaken on our behalf.
   The Captain of our salvation was made "perfect through sufferings." It
   was necessary that He who would really be a Benefactor to men should
   know them thoroughly and understand them. How can He sympathize with
   them in their sorrows unless He has, at least to some extent, felt as
   they do? So, our merciful and faithful High Priest is one who can be
   "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," seeing that He was
   tempted and tried even as we are. I think that had I been alive at the
   time, I would have spared my Lord many of His griefs had it been in my
   power--and many of you will say the same. He would never have needed to
   say, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of
   Man has not where to lay His head," for you would gladly have given Him
   the best room in your house! Ah, but then the poor would have missed
   that gracious Word of God which, I have no doubt, has often comforted
   them when they have been houseless and forlorn! You would not have
   allowed Him, if you could have helped it, to be weary, and worn, and
   hungry, and thirsty. You would have liberally supplied all His needs to
   the utmost of your power. But then He would not have been so fully in
   sympathy as He now is with those who have to endure the direst straits
   of poverty, seeing that He has passed through a similar experience to
   theirs. What joy it is to a sorrowing soul to know that Jesus has gone
   that way long before!

   I had a great grief that struck me down to the very dust, but I looked
   up and saw that face that was marred more than any other. And I rose to
   my feet in hope and joyful confidence and I said, "Are You, my Lord,
   here where I am? Have you suffered thus, and did you endure far more
   than I can ever know of grief and brokenness of heart? Then, Savior, I
   rejoice and bless Your holy name!" I know that you, Beloved, must often
   have grieved over your Savior's suffering, though you have been, at the
   same time, glad to remember that He passed through it all--because He
   thus became such a matchless Comforter, "who can have compassion on the
   ignorant, and on them that are out of the way" because of the very
   experience through which He passed--"for in that He Himself has
   suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted."

   The meaning of the text comes out even more clearly when we think of
   the sorrows to which our Lord had been referring, which ended in His
   death Oh, the griefs of Jesus when He laid down His life for His sheep!
   Have you not

   sometimes said, or at least thought, that the ransom price was too
   costly for such insignificant creatures as we are? Think of the agony
   and bloody sweat, the scourging, the spitting, the shame, the hounding
   through the streets, the piercing of the hands and feet, the mockery,
   the vinegar, the gall, the "Eloi Eloi, lama Sabachthani?" and all the
   other horrors and terrors that gathered around the Cross! We wish that
   this might never have happened and yet the fact that they did happen
   brings to us unspeakable bliss! It is our greatest joy to know that
   Jesus bled and died upon the tree! How else could our sins be put away?
   How else could we, who are God's enemies, be reconciled and brought
   near to Him? How else could Heaven be made secure for us? We might,
   from one aspect of Christ's sufferings, chant a mournful miserereat the
   foot of the Cross, but before we have done more than just commence the
   sad strain, we perceive the blessed results that come to the children
   of men through Christ's death--so we lay down our instruments of
   mourning and take up the harp and the trumpet--and sound forth glad
   notes of rejoicing and thanksgiving!

   Our sorrow about Christ's death is also turned into joy because not
   only do we derive the greatest possible benefit from it, but Jesus
   Himself, by His death, achieved such wonders. That precious body of
   His, that fair lily all stained with crimson lines where flowed His
   heart's blood must have been a piteous sight for anyone to see. I
   wonder how any artist could ever paint the taking down of Christ from
   the Cross, or the robing Him for the sepulcher? They were sorrowful
   sights for art to spend itself upon. Jesus, the final Conqueror, lies
   in the grave! The cerements of the tomb are wrapped about Him who once
   wore the purple of the universe! But we have scarcely time to sorrow
   over these facts before we recollect that the death of Christ was the
   death of sin! The death of Christ was the overthrow of Satan! The death
   of Christ was the death of death! And out of His very tomb we hear that
   pealing trumpet note, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is
   your victory? 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." I am glad that He fought with Satan in the Garden and
   vanquished Him. I am glad that He fought with sin upon the Cross and
   destroyed it. I am glad that He fought with grim death in that dark
   hour and that He seized him by the throat and held him captive. I am
   glad that He ever entered the gloomy sepulcher, for He rifled it of all
   its terrors for all His loved ones, tore its iron bars away and set His
   people free! So you see, it is all gladness, even as He said to His
   disciples, "Your sorrow shall be turned into joy."

   And whatever else there may be of sorrow that came out of Christ's
   Cross, we may all be glad of it, for now Christ Himself is the more
   glorious because of it It is true that nothing could add to His Glory
   as God, but seeing that He assumed our Nature and became Man as well as
   God, He added to His Glory by all the shame He bore! There is not a
   reproach that pierced His heart which did not make Him more beautiful!
   There is not a line of sorrow that furrowed His face which did not make
   Him more lovely--that marred Countenance is more to be admired by us
   than all the comeliness of earthly beauty! He was always superlatively
   beautiful. His beauty was such as might well hold the angels spellbound
   as they looked upon Him! The sun and moon and stars were dim compared
   with the brightness of His eyes. Heaven and earth could not find His
   equal and if all Heaven had been sold, it could not have purchased this
   precious Pearl! Yet the setting of the pearl has made Christ appear
   even brighter than before--the setting of His Humanity, the setting of
   His sufferings, His pangs, His shameful death has made His beauty shine
   out the more resplendent! The plant that sprang from Jesse's root is
   now the plant of renown! He who was despised at Nazareth is glorified
   in Paradise and the more glorified because, between Nazareth and
   Paradise, He was "despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and
   acquainted with grief." Blessed Savior, we rejoice that You have gained
   by all Your sorrows, for therefore has God highly exalted You, and
   given You a name which is above every name!

   II. But, now, secondly, and very briefly, I want to remind you that THE
   SORROW OF THE WHOLE CHURCH

   HAS ALSO BEEN TURNED INTO JOY.

   In speaking of the sorrows of the persecuted Church of Christ, I will
   not compare them to the sorrows of her Lord. But if anything could have
   been comparable to the suffering of the Bridegroom, it would have been
   the suffering of the bride. Think of the early ages of the Church of
   God under the Roman persecutions. Think of the Church of Christ among
   the Vaudois of the Alps, or in England during the Marian persecution.
   Our blood runs cold as we read of what the saints of God have suffered!
   I have often put up Foxe's Book of Martyrs upon the shelf and thought
   that I could not read it any more--it is such a terribly true account
   of what human nature can bear when faith in Christ sustains it. Yet,
   Brothers and Sisters, we are not sorry that the martyrs suffered as
   they did. Or if we are, that very sorrow is turned into joy at the
   remembrance of how Christ has been glorified through the sufferings of
   His saints! Even our poor humanity looks more

   comely when we recall what it endured for Christ's sake. When I think
   of the honor of being a martyr for the Truth of God, I confess that I
   would sooner be a martyr than be the angel Gabriel, for I think it
   would be far better to have gone to Heaven from one of Smithfield's
   stakes than to have been always in Heaven. What honor it has brought to
   Christ that poor, feeble men could love Him so that they could bleed
   and die for Him! Yes, and women, too, like that brave Anne Askew, who,
   after they had racked her till they had put every bone out of joint,
   was still courageous enough to argue on behalf of her dear Lord! When
   they thought that her womanly weakness would make her give way, she
   seemed stronger than any man might have been as she said to her
   persecutors--

   "I am not she that lyst

   My anker to let fall

   For every dryslynge myst;

   My shippe's substancyal"--

   and so defied them to do their worst! The Church of God may well
   rejoice as she thinks of the noble army of martyrs who praise the Lord
   on high for, among the sweetest notes that ascend even in Heaven, are
   the songs that come from the white-robed throng who shed their blood
   rather than deny their Lord!

   The Church of Christ has also passed through a fierce fire of
   opposition, as well as of persecution. Heresy after heresy has raged.
   Men have arisen who have denied this, and that, and the other Doctrines
   taught in the Scriptures. And every time these oppositions have come,
   certain feeble folk in the Church have been greatly alarmed but, in
   looking back upon them all up to the present, I think that they are
   causes for joy rather than sorrow! Whenever what is supposed to be a
   new heresy comes up, I say to myself, "Ah, I know you! I remember
   reading about you. There was an old pair of shoes, worn by heresy many
   hundreds of years ago which were thrown on a dunghill--and you have
   picked them up and refurbished them a little, and brought them forth as
   if they had been new." I bless the Lord that at this moment there
   scarcely remains anyDoctrine to be defended for the first time, for
   they have all been fought over so fiercely in years gone by that there
   is hardly any point that our noble forefathers did not defend! And they
   did their work so well that we can frequently use their weapons for the
   defense of the Truth today. Who would wish to have kept the Word of God
   from going through this furnace of opposition? It is like silver seven
   times purified in a furnace of earth. Philosophers have tried you, O
   precious Book, but you were not found wanting! Atheists have tried you!
   Sneering skeptics have tried you! They have all passed you through the
   fire, but not even the smell of fire is upon you to this day! And
   therein do we rejoice, yes, and will rejoice! And the day will come
   when the present errors and opposition will only be recorded on the
   pages of history as things for our successors to rejoice over just as
   we now rejoice over the past victories of the Truth of

   God!

   And once again, dear Friends, not only is it so with the persecutions
   and oppositions of the Church of Christ, but the Church's difficulties
   have also become themes of rejoicing. As I look abroad upon the world
   at the present time, it does seem an impossible thing that the nations
   of the earth should ever be converted to Christ. It is impossible so
   far as man alone is concerned, yet God has commanded the Christian
   Church to evangelize the world! Someone complains that the Church is
   too feeble and its adherents too few to accomplish such a task as this.
   The fewer the fighters, the greater their share of glory when the
   victory is won! In order to overcome indifference, idolatry, atheism,
   Mohammedanism and Popery, the battle must be a very stern one, but who
   wants Christ's followers to fight only little battles? My Brothers and
   Sisters, let us thank God that our foes are so numerous! It matters not
   how many there may be of them--there are only the more to be destroyed!
   What said David concerning his adversaries? "They compassed me about;
   yes, they compassed me about; but in the name of the Lord I will
   destroy them." When the Last Great Day shall come and Jehovah's banner
   shall be finally furled because the Book of the Wars of the Lord shall
   have reached its last page, it will be a grand thing to tell the story
   of the whole campaign! Then it will be known to all that the fight for
   the faith was not a mere skirmish against a few feeble folk, nor was it
   a brief battle which began and ended in an hour--but it was a
   tremendous conflict "against principalities, against powers, against
   the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
   in high places." They gather, they gather, my Brothers and Sisters,
   thick as the clouds in the day of tempest, but, out of Heaven Jehovah,
   Himself, will thunder and give battle and scatter them--and they shall
   fly before Him like the chaff before the wind!

   III. Now, lastly, to come down from those high themes to minor matters,
   OUR OWN PERSONAL SORROW

   SHALL BE TURNED INTO JOY.

   When I think of the sorrows of Christ and the sorrows of His Church as
   a whole, I say to myself, "What pin pricks are our griefs compared with
   the great gash in the Savior's side, and the many scars that adorn His
   Church today!" But, dear Friends, whatever our sorrows may be, they
   will be turned into joy. Sometimes we witness this wonderful
   transformation. Poor old Jacob sorrowed greatly when he thought that he
   had lost his favorite son, Joseph. "An evil beast has devoured him," he
   said. "Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces." And he wrung his hands
   and wept bitterly for many a day over his lost Joseph. Then came the
   famine and the poor old man was dreadfully alarmed concerning his large
   family. He must send some of his sons into Egypt to buy corn, and when
   he sends them there, they do not all come back, for Simeon is detained
   as a hostage--and the lord of the land says that they shall not see his
   face again unless they bring Benjamin with them--Benjamin, the dear and
   only remaining child of the beloved Rachel! Jacob cannot bear the
   thought of parting with him, so he says to his sons, "You have bereaved
   me of my children; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take
   Benjamin away: all these things are against me." Poor old soul, what a
   mistake he made! Why, everything was as much for him as it could
   possibly be! There was his dear Joseph, down in Egypt, next to Pharaoh
   on the throne and ready to provide for his poor old father and all the
   family during the time of famine! Then there was the famine to make him
   send down to Egypt and find out where Joseph was, so that he might go
   and see his face again, and confess that the Lord had dealt graciously
   with him. You dear children of God who get to fretting and are troubled
   should carry out Cowper's good advice--

   "Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

   But trust Him for His Grace--

   Behind a frowning Providence

   He hides a smiling face!"

   You have quite enough to cry over without fretting concerning things
   that, some day, you will rejoice over! The Lord will put your tears
   into His bottle and when He shows them to you, by-and-by, I think you
   will say, "How foolish I was ever to shed them, because the very thing
   I wept over was really a cause for rejoicing if I could but have seen a
   little way ahead." It is so sometimes, in Providence, as you will find
   over and over again between here and Heaven!

   Our sorrows, dear Friends, are turned into joy in many different ways.
   For instance, there are some of us who are such naughty children that
   we never seem to come close to our Heavenly Father unless some sorrow
   drives us to Him. We ought to be more with Him in days of sunshine, if
   it were possible, than in days of storm, but it is not always so. It is
   said that there are some dogs which, the more you whip them, the more
   they love you. I should not like to try that plan even on a dog, but I
   fear that some of us are very much like dogs in that respect, if the
   saying is true. When we have a great trouble, or get a sharp cut, we
   seem to wake up and say, "Lord, we forgot You when all was going
   smoothly. We wandered from You, then, but now we must come back to
   You." And there is a special softness of heart and mellowness of spirit
   which we often get through being tried and troubled. And when that is
   the case, you and I have great cause to rejoice in our sorrows, if they
   draw us nearer to God and bring us to a clear and more careful walk
   with Him. If they draw us away from worldliness, self-sufficiency and
   self-complacency, our sorrows, if we are wise men and women, will be
   immediately turned into joy!

   Again, there is no doubt that, to many, sorrow is a great means of
   opening the eyes to the preciousness of the promises of God. I believe
   that there are some of God's promises of which we shall never get to
   know the meaning until we have been placed in the circumstances for
   which those promises were written. Certain objects in Nature can only
   be seen from certain points of view. And there are precious things in
   the Covenant of Grace that can only be perceived from the deep places
   of trouble. Well, then, if your trouble brings you into a position
   where you can understand more of the loving kindness of the Lord, you
   may be very thankful that you were ever put there and may thus find
   your sorrow turned into joy.

   Again, sorrow often gives us further fellowship with Christ There are
   times when we can say, "Now, Lord, we can sympathize with You better
   than we ever did before, for we have felt somewhat as You did in Your
   agony here below." We have sometimes felt as though that prophecy had
   been fulfilled to us, "You shall indeed drink of My cup, and be
   baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with." For instance, if
   friends forsake you--if he that eats bread with you lifts up his heel
   against you, you can say, "Now, Lord, I know a little better what Your
   feeling was when Judas so basely

   betrayed You." You cannot so fully comprehend the griefs of Christ
   unless, in your humble measure, you have to pass through a somewhat
   similar experience. But when you perceive that you can sympathize more
   with Christ because of your own sorrow, then, for certain, your sorrow
   is turned into joy.

   Sorrow also gives us fellowship with our Lord in another way--when we
   feel as if Christ and we had become partners in one trouble. Here is a
   cross and I have to carry one end of it. But I look around and see that
   my Lord is carrying the heavier end of it--and then it is a very sweet
   sorrow to carry the cross in partnership with Christ! Rutherford says,
   in one of his letters, "When Christ's dear child is carrying a burden,
   it often happens that Christ says, 'Halves, My love,' and carries half
   of it for him." It is indeed sweet when it is so. If there is a ring of
   fire on your finger and that ring means that you are married to Christ,
   you may well be willing to wear it, whatever suffering it may cause
   you. Those were blessed bolts that fastened you to the Cross even
   though they were bolts of iron that went right through your flesh, for
   they kept you the more closely to your Lord! Our motto must be,
   "Anywhere with Jesus, nowhere without Jesus." Anywhere with Jesus! Yes,
   even in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace! When we have the Son of God with us,
   the glowing coals cannot hurt us--they become a bed of roses to us when
   He is there! Where Jesus is, our sorrow is turned into joy.

   I must not fail to remind you that there is a time coming when "the
   sorrows of death" will get hold upon us and I want you, Brothers and
   Sisters, to understand that unless the Lord shall come first, we shall
   not escape the sorrow of dying, but it will be turned into joy. It has
   been my great joy to see many Christians in their last moments an earth
   and I am sure that the merriest people I have ever seen have been dying
   saints! I have been to wedding feasts. I have seen the joy of young
   people in their youth. I have seen the joy of the merchant when he has
   made a prosperous venture and I have, myself, experienced joys of
   various kinds, but I have never seen any joy that I have so envied as
   that which has sparkled in the eyes of departing Believers! There rises
   up before me now a vision of the two eyes of a poor consumptive
   girl--oh, how bright they were! I heard that she must soon die, so I
   went to try to comfort her. To comfort her? Oh, dear, she needed no
   comforting from me! Every now and then she would burst forth into a
   verse of sacred song and when she stopped, she would tell me how
   precious Jesus was to her, what love visits He had already paid her,
   and how soon she expected to be with Him forever! There was not, in all
   the palaces of Europe, or in all the mansions of the wealthy, or in all
   the ballrooms of the happy, such a merry and joyous spirit as I saw
   shining through the bright eyes of that poor consumptive girl who had
   very little here below, but who had so much laid up for her in Heaven
   that it did not matter what she had here!

   Yes, Beloved, your sorrow will be turned into joy! Many of you will not
   even know that you are dying--you will shut your eyes on earth and open
   them in Heaven! Some of you may be dreading death, for there is still a
   measure of unbelief remaining in you, but also in your case, death will
   be swallowed up in victory! Just as when some people have to take
   medicine which is very bitter, it is put into some sweet liquid and
   they drink it down without tasting the bitterness, so will it be with
   all of us who are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ when we have to
   drink our last potion. In a few more days, or weeks, or months, or
   years--it does not matter which, for it will be a very short time at
   the longest--all of us who love the Lord will be with Him where He
   is--to behold His Glory and to share it with Him forever! Have any of
   you any sorrows that you still wish to talk about? Some of you are very
   poor and others of you are very much tried and troubled in many ways,
   but, my dear Friends, when you and I get up there--and we shall do so
   before long--I think you will have the best of it! If there is any
   truth in that line--

   "The deeper their sorrows, the louder they'll sing"-- the more sorrows
   you have had, the more will you sing! Nobody enjoys wealth like a man
   who has been poor. Nobody enjoys health like a man who has been sick. I
   think that the most pleasant days I ever spend are they that follow a
   long illness when I, at last, begin to creep outside and drink in the
   sweet fresh air again. And, oh, what joy it will be to you poor ones
   and you sick ones and you tried ones to get into the land where all is
   plentiful, where all is peaceful, where all is gladsome, where all is
   holy! You will be there soon--some of you will be there very soon. Dr.
   Watts says that--

   "There, on a green and flowery mount,

   Our weary souls shall sit.

   And with transporting joys recount

   The labors of our feet."

   That is to say, the very sorrows that we pass through in our earthly
   pilgrimage will constitute topics for joyful conversations in Heaven. I
   do not doubt that it will be so.

   In Heaven we shall be as glad of our troubles as of our mercies!
   Perhaps it will appear to us, then, that God never loved us so much as
   when He chastened and tried us. When we get home to Glory, we shall be
   like children who have grown up, who, sometimes say to a wise parent,
   "Father, I have forgotten about the holidays you gave me. I have
   forgotten about the pocket money you gave me. I have forgotten about a
   great many sweet things that I very much liked when I was a child, but
   I have never forgotten that whipping which you gave me when I did
   wrong, for it saved me from turning altogether aside. Dear Father, I
   know you did not like to do it, but I am very grateful to you for it
   now--more grateful for that whipping than for all the sponge cakes and
   sweetmeats that you gave me." And, in like manner, when we get home to
   Heaven, I have no doubt that we shall feel and perhaps say, "Lord, we
   are grateful to You for everything, but most of all for our sorrows. We
   see that had You left us unchastised, we would never have been what we
   now are and, thus, our sorrows are turned into joy."

   As for you who are not Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, I want you
   to ponder most solemnly these few words and carry them home with you.
   If you remain ass you are, your joys will be turned into sorrows. God
   grant that they may not be, for Jesus Christ's sake Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Silly Dove

   (No. 2984)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1863.

   "Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart." Hosea 7:11.

   THE race of Ephraim is not extinct. Men are to this very day very much
   like what they were in the days of the Prophets. The same rebukes are
   still suitable, as well as the same comforts. As man has altered very
   little, if at all, in his outward bodily conformation, so has he not
   varied in the inner constitution--he is much the same today as he was
   in the time of Hosea. In this congregation, in the midst of the city of
   London, we have too large a company of those who are "like a silly dove
   without heart."

   To proceed at once with the text, I want you to notice four things.
   First--a saintly similitude. Secondly--a secret distinction. Thirdly--a
   severe description. And lastly, a serious consideration.

   I. Here we have A SAINTLY SIMILITUDE--"Ephraim is like a dove!"

   The people are not compared here to the eagle that soars aloft and
   scents its prey from afar, nor to the vulture which delights to gorge
   itself with carrion. They are not likened to any foul and unclean bird
   which was put aside under the Law of God, but the very figure which is
   constantly chosen to set forth the beauty of holiness, to describe the
   Believer, and to picture the whole Church--no, that very emblem by
   which we set forth Him who is Holiness, itself, God the Holy
   Spirit--that same comparison to a dove is here used to describe those
   who were without heart. "Ephraim is like a dove"--it is a saintly
   similitude.

   Let me remind you that in all congregations there are those who are
   like doves, but not Christ's doves, who never build their nests in the
   clefts of the rock, in the bosom of the Savior. They are like
   doves--you can never tell them from genuine Believers and, like doves,
   they are perfectly harmless. They do no mischief to others in all their
   lives. Track them, if you will, you will never find them in the
   alehouse. They sing not the song of the drunkard. No man ever lost
   anything in business by them. Men may have their pockets picked in the
   streets, but never by them. Persons may go staggering home under a
   wound, but that wound never comes from their hands--there is no
   uncleanness in their heart and no slander on their tongue--they are
   amiable, admirable. We might almost hold them up for examples of
   propriety. Alas, alas, that we have only to look withinto find that
   they are not what they seem!

   Moreover, being like doves for harmlessness, they are also like them
   for loving good company. We find not the dove flying with a host of
   eagles, but it consorts with its own kind. Some of you are never
   happier than when you are either in the Tabernacle or else in some of
   the classes formed by various members of the congregation. You also
   find such a pleasant excitement in the Prayer Meeting that you are not
   absent from it except when you are prevented by business. You love
   being where God's people go--their hymns are sweet to your ears. In
   their prayers you find some sort of comfort and in the ministry of the
   Word you take delight. You fly like a cloud and like doves to their
   windows, and it is a joy to us to see you do it. And yet it may be that
   although you know how to congregate like doves, you are simply "like a
   silly dove without heart."

   Moreover, these persons are still more like the dove in that they have
   the same meekness, apparently, as distinguishes the dove. They hear as
   God's people hear and sit as His people sit. They are not skeptics.
   They never object to the exposition of the Doctrines to which they
   listen. They pick no holes in the preacher's coat--they have no
   particular fault to find either with the style or the matter of his
   discourse. They decorously frequent the House of God and behave
   themselves in a seemly manner when there. No, more than that, they seem
   with meekness to receive the Word, though

   they do not receive it as engrafted into their own hearts. They even
   receive it with joy when the Seed is scattered on them, but having no
   root in themselves, the good Seed comes to nothing. O my dear Hearers,
   it is a great subject for thanksgiving that so many of you are ready
   and willing to listen to the Word with deep and profound respect! But I
   do beseech you to remember that you may, in this, be like the dove, and
   yet, after all, you may be taken in the same net and destroyed with the
   same destruction as that which fell upon the Ephraimites who were "like
   a silly dove without heart!"

   The dove, you know, is a clean feeder, and so we have many who get as
   far as that. They know the distinction between the precious and the
   vile--they will not feed on Law--they can only live on Grace. They have
   come to know the Doctrines of the Gospel and they feed on them--upon
   pure corn, well winnowed. You have only to bring in a little free will
   and straightway they know the chaff from the wheat and refuse to
   receive it! They cast it away as refuse metal which is of no value to
   them. But, while they have an orthodox head, they have a heterodox
   heart--while they know the Truth of God and feel it, yet it is still
   not the right kind of feeling--they have never so received it as to
   incorporate it into their very being. They have accepted it with the
   same sort of belief and in somewhat the same manner as Simon did in
   Samaria. But, after a while, when trouble and persecution shall come,
   and waxes too hot, they will turn aside.

   But I have to add yet further that there are some of these persons who
   are like doves in another respect still more singular--as a dove is
   molested by all sorts of birds of prey, s o these persons do, for a
   time, share the lot which befalls the people of God! Why, there are
   some who for the mere coming to the House of God, get nicknamed,
   "saints." They are not saints, but they have to bear the scoffing which
   is given to saints. And I know some who have turned out to be great
   sinners, who have, for a time, put up with much scoffing and rebuke for
   the sake of Christ! When pointed at in the street, it has been part of
   the manliness of their character to acknowledge that they did frequent
   such a place of worship. Though their soul has never been stricken by
   the Divine Word, yet it has become so sweet in their ears that they are
   willing to bear some degree of reproach for the sake of it! I should
   not like to be compelled to say precisely wherein the saint is to be
   distinguished by outward signs, for really, the counterfeits nowadays
   are so much like the genuine that it needs the Wisdom of the Infallible
   God, Himself, to discern between the one and the other! We can have
   false faith, false repentance, false hope and false good works. We have
   all sorts of things--paint, varnish, tinsel--and we may so grain that a
   skillful eye will scarcely know whether it is the genuine wood or the
   artist's skill. There are many ways of preparing metals and sometimes
   the alloy seems to have in it, for some purpose, qualities which the
   unalloyed metal lacks. O Lord, the great Searcher of hearts, do search
   us lest we should have applied to us saintly names and pass the saintly
   reputation and character--and hold saintly offices--and after all be
   cast away with the rubbish over the wall and left to be consumed
   forever and ever! But, enough on that point.

   II. I have now to call your attention to A SECRET DISTINCTION--"Ephraim
   is like a dove without heart."

   This implies a lack of understanding. The dove knows but little and
   experience scarcely teaches it anything. We may almost spread the snare
   in the flight of that bird and yet it will fly to it, it is so silly.
   It does not seem to possess, at least to the outward eye, the wits and
   sense of some others of the feathered tribe. It has little or no
   understanding. And oh, how many there are who are, spiritually, like
   the dove! They have no real knowledge of the Truth of God! They rest in
   the letter and think that is enough. I solemnly believe that there are
   those who have not the shadow of an idea of the meaning of the words
   which they hear every Sabbath in a form of prayer! They repeat those
   prayers without any appreciation of the sense of them. They would
   probably not notice if the words were put in any other way. Doubtless
   they would get as much good out of them if they were thrown together in
   wild disorder, as they do out of the beautiful and magnificent array in
   which they are marshaled! Many who come and hear the most simple
   Truths, go away and say, "It is a riddle to us. We cannot understand
   how people can sit and listen to that." Either they condemn the
   preacher's words as trite or else as fanatical--they cannot understand
   them.

   You may fetch a clodhopper and set before him the masterpiece of an
   eminent old painter and tell him, "That picture is worth sixty thousand
   pounds." He looks, opens his mouth, starts again and says he can't make
   anything of it. He can't see where the money could go. He'd sooner have
   carts, and horses, and pigs, and cows, and sheep. Well, now, to some
   extent we might almost sympathize with him, but the high-art critics
   despise the man at once for having no soul above his clod. And it is
   just the same in spiritual things! Exhibit the glories of the Person of
   Christ and the matchless wisdom of the plan of salvation--that man can
   see nothing in it. "It is, no doubt, a very good and very proper
   thing." He will attend to it and so on--and then he goes to church and
   thinks he is pious, sits in his seat and goes through the routine--

   and then supposes he is reconciled to God! Oh, how many such silly
   doves we have fluttering in and out of our places of worship! As a
   quaint old preacher said, there were scarcely seats enough for the
   saints on account of the number of simpletons that came to listen!

   But, again, they were silly doves without heart, because, lacking an
   understanding heart, they also lacked a decided heart. Sometimes,
   however, the dove would be slandered if we should use her as a metaphor
   in this respect. Have you not seen the dove when, from afar, with her
   quick eyes she has seen her cot, fly straight away, over miles of sea
   and land, straight to her beloved home? There, she could not be used as
   a metaphor of the ungodly--but of a child of Jesus who thus flies to
   Him over the wild waves of sin. But, perhaps, you have seen the dove as
   first she rises in the air and then flies round and round. She
   deliberates in order to find out which is the right direction and, when
   she has made up her mind, away she flies straight as an arrow to the
   goal. But, while she is fluttering about, she is an apt emblem of some
   men. They are undecided whether for God or Baal. They halt, to use
   Elijah's figure, between two opinions. "How long halt you between two
   opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow
   him." On Sundays, they go to church, but on Mondays, they put off their
   religious habits--the weather is too rough, or something else prevents
   them from going to the Prayer Meeting. On Sunday, they say--

   "My willing soul would stay

   In such a frame as this,

   And sit and sing herself away

   To everlasting bliss"--

   but, on Monday or Tuesday, the sound of the wheels in the street and
   the noise of them that buy and sell put the music of Jerusalem out of
   their ears and they would gladly go back to the world again! Ah, they
   are silly doves without understanding and without decision!

   No, there are some who may be said to have a sort of decision for a
   time, but they are like the dove in that they are without resolution.
   The doves seeks to fly in one direction. Somebody claps his hands and
   she changes in a moment. Or else he sprinkles a handful of barley on
   the ground and, though she was flying yonder, she is over here again!
   How many persons there are of that kind, setting their faces to Zion,
   intending to join the church--perhaps they have seen the elders and the
   pastor and been accepted--but, after a little time, they say, "Well,
   they did not know all about it. There are more frightful things than
   they dreamt of in it!" Like Pliable, they would go to Heaven, but they
   get into the Slough of Despond and there is strange stuff there that
   gets into the ears and mouth--and so they get out on the side nearest
   home and tell Christian he may have the brave country all to himself,
   for they don't like the miry places on the way. Or, it may be that some
   old companion comes up from the country and he will treat them to some
   place of amusement. Or, perhaps, it may be that there is a prospect of
   gain to be got in some branch of business that is not quite as honest
   as it might be. But does not the money count as well? Isn't it as good
   to spend? Will not other men think it worth twenty shillings to the
   pound, however it may have been gained? These people who seemed so true
   and warm-hearted are like the silly dove without resolution--and fly
   away again to their old haunts and become just what they used to be.

   So likewise there are many, like a dove, without bold hearts. They
   never turn upon a persecutor. They never stood in the gap with Mr.
   Valiant-for-Truth, holding the sword in their hand. They cannot open
   their mouth to speak for Jesus, but they run away when they ought to
   stand out like a lion against their foes. They never give a reason for
   the hope that is in them. We have plenty of Baptist churches educating
   cowards by the score! They never come out before the whole church--that
   would be too trying for their nerves! They are never expected to come
   out boldly on the Lord's side. Too often, Baptism is administered
   somewhere in a corner, when as few as possible are present and, in that
   way, where we ought to have lion-like men, we breed those who hide
   their principles and are ready to amalgamate with any sect of people so
   long as they can but bear the name of Christians! I would to God, dear
   Friends, we had bolder men for our Lord and Master! Be as full of love
   as you can, but take care that you mix iron with your constitution!
   Silly are the doves that have no bold heart for God. The day will come
   when only the bold heart shall win, for the fearful and unbelieving are
   to have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone!

   Too many, also, there are like a silly dove, in that they have a
   powerless heart If you visit a great factory where there is a large
   engine, you will notice that the amount of power used in the factory is
   proportionate to the capacity of the steam-engine. If that should work
   but feebly, then the wheels cannot revolve beyond a proportionate
   rate--and every

   part soon discovers that there is some lack of motive force. Now, man's
   heart is the great steam-engine of his whole being--and if he has a
   heart that palpitates with swift strokes, it will put his whole nature
   in motion and that man will be mighty for his Lord and Master! But if
   he has a little, insignificant heart that never did glow, and never did
   burn, and never did know anything about the warmth, life, heat, power
   and benediction of God's Love, then his will fritter away his time,
   knowing the right and doing the wrong, loving in some sort the thing
   that is beautiful, but still following that which is deformed, giving
   his name to God and giving what little strength he has to the other
   side! Brothers and Sisters, I would to God there were not so many in
   all our communities that have but a pigeon's heart, or a dove's heart,
   or no heart at all!

   The root of the master lies here--these Ephraimites have not renewed
   hearts and so they fail. Verily, verily, it is true to this hour, as in
   Jesus' day, "except a man be born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of
   God." Many strive to see it in their own way, but, until the effectual
   Grace of God comes down to turn their hearts from the great and
   extraordinary confidence which their proud flesh has in their own
   works, they never will see, they never can see, the Kingdom of God! How
   many like Ephraim, then, have the heart altogether wrong because it is
   not renewed? Therefore it has none of those qualifications which tend
   to make the man what he should be.

   III. With great brevity, we notice, in the third place, A SEVERE
   DESCRIPTION--"Ephraim is like a sillydove."

   It is a fine word, that word, "silly." Hardly do I know another that is
   so eminently descriptive. There may be some sort of dignity in being a
   fool--but to be silly--to attract no attention except ridicule--is so
   utterly contemptible that I do not know how a more sarcastic epithet
   could be applied!

   "Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart." And why silly? Why, it is
   silly, of course, to profess to be a dove at all, unless a dove at
   heart!Silly of you to enslave yourselves with the customs of a country
   of which you are not a citizen--to bind yourselves with the rules of a
   family of which you are not a member! We find men, when they go to
   another country, if there is a conscription there, only too willing to
   plead their own nationality in order to escape it! And yet we have
   persons who will serve in the Christian conscription, who give as God's
   people give and outwardly do what God's people do--and yet they are not
   of the godly nation, but are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel! Is
   not this silly--to take the irksome toil and not to get the joy and the
   benefit of it? You are silly to go and work in the vineyard, though you
   have never eaten of the clusters, and never can unless your heart is
   right in the sight of God.

   Isn't it silly, then, to profess to be a dove at all, and yet not to be
   a dove? Isn't it silly, again, to think you can pass muster when your
   heart is wrong--to fancy that if you go with the crowd, you shall enter
   Heaven without being seen? Do you think to deceive Omniscience? Do you
   think Infallible Wisdom will not discern you? Do you think to enter
   Heaven while your soul is estranged from God? Then, indeed, you are
   worse than a fool! You are "silly" to think such a thing! How can you
   thus hope to deceive your God? What is more silly than to play fast and
   loose in this way--first, to sing the song of Zion, and then the song
   of lasciviousness! There is something dignified even in the devil,
   himself--there is something awful about the grandeur of his wickedness
   because he is consistent in it! But there is nothing of that
   consistency in you because you are here and there, everywhere and
   nowhere--everything by turns, and nothing long.

   Some of you are so silly as to hasten your own condemnation. You know
   that to be without God and without Christ will ruin you, and yet you do
   that which keeps you from going to Christ! You hug the sins that
   prevent your laying hold on Him and still dandle upon your knee the
   lusts which you know will shut the gates of Heaven against you! Like
   Ephraim, you are silly enough to trust in that which will be your ruin.
   Some of you rest upon good works, or hope to be saved by good feelings.
   The two powers which had oppressed Ephraim--Egypt and Assyria--were
   still the powers in which he trusted. Do not imitate his folly by
   trusting to that which will ruin you!

   You are silly, again, because when there is so much danger, you do not
   fly to the place of shelter. O silly dove, when the hawk is abroad, not
   to seek the clefts of the rock to hide yourself! And how silly are some
   of you! Day after day, year after year, Satan is hawking after you! The
   great fowler is seeking your destruction, but the wounds of Christ are
   open to you and the invitation of the Gospel is freely given to
   you--and yet, you are so silly that though you know better, you prefer
   the pleasures of the day to the joys of eternity! Yet I know not that
   you do prefer them, only somehow or other you are too silly to prove
   your preference and go on, like a child that is playing on the hole of
   the cockatrice, making mirth over your damnation--too silly to make up
   your minds to choose either Heaven or Hell! I know there are some such
   people in this house--would God that the arrow might find out the right
   persons, but, too often, these doves are so silly,

   in another respect, that they will not let the appeal of the Gospel
   come home to them. They say, "it cannot be for me, for I go to Mr. A's
   or Mr. B's class! It cannot be for me, for I go to the Prayer Meeting,
   I contribute to the College and every good work!" Yet all the while it
   means just you who act upon your own whims, but not for God, who give
   God anything but your heart, who are ready to make a sacrifice of all,
   except that you refuse that which He asks of you! "My son, give Me your
   heart." It was considered to be a sign of great calamity when the Roman
   prophet slew a bull and found no heart--and it is the worst of all
   calamities when a man has no heart to give to God! "This people draws
   near unto Me with their mouth, and honors Me with their lips; but their
   heart is far from Me," is one of the complaints against Israel of old,
   and one of the sins which made the Prophets weep and caused Jerusalem
   to be plowed like a field.

   IV. I close with just a few words upon the fourth point, and that is, A
   SERIOUS CONSIDERATION. There are one or two things I would say
   solemnly, softly and hopefully. Oh, that they may stick in the memory
   and the conscience of many of you!

   Those of you, my Hearers, who have been long sitting in this
   Tabernacle--some of you ever since it was built and before then in
   other places under our ministry--yet are just the same as you used to
   be, ought to recollect how sadly we look on those who are not saved. It
   is no rare thing to find the attendant of the sanctuary an unbeliever.
   It is a common thing to find the child of converted parents, the lad
   educated at the Sunday school, the man who has always had a seat in
   God's House, still having no hope and without God in the world. Think
   of that! Be not deceived--the Gospel will harden such people as you
   are! Speaking after the manner of men, (for with God, all things are
   possible, and a Sovereign God does as He wills), it does seem less and
   less probable that you ever should be called by Grace after you have
   sat and listened to the Word so long. The voice that once startled you
   now soothes you! The manner that once attracted the eyes, and sometimes
   seemed to touch the heart, fails to do either! And the very Truths of
   God that once went over your heads like a crash of thunder has so
   little force in them now that you even sleep under the sound of them!
   Think of that, you who are like a silly dove without heart!

   Remember, too, that some of the vilest sinners that have ever livedhave
   been manufactured out of this raw material Some of the worst men were
   once, apparently, meek-hearted hearers of the Word, but they sat under
   the preaching of the Gospel till they grew ripe enough to deny God and
   curse Him. The unsanctified hearing of the Gospel has sometimes
   produced more gigantic specimens of sin than the deaf ear of the adder.
   Beware, my Hearer! I know that you will say with Hazael, "Is your
   servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Yes, there is dog
   and devil enough in you unless you have been changed by Grace, to do
   that thing and 20 other things that you have never dreamt of yet! Think
   what multitudes of souls in Hell there are like you--silly doves
   without hearts! Many of the population of that place of wailing once
   heard the Gospel, heard it with gladness and appeared to receive it for
   a time--but they had no root, and so the impression withered away. They
   never had been called effectually by Grace and never had been renewed
   in heart, although they had all the outward semblance of holiness1 They
   are gone! Even now, your soul may listen to their groans and moans, the
   lesson of all which would be, "Make your calling and election sure, and
   be not satisfied with the name to live while you are dead."

   May the Spirit of the living God stir you up to this, for, if not, I
   have one more consideration to urge upon you. Remember how soon you may
   be in Hell And they who go there, if they have been such as you are, go
   there with a vengeance. To go from under the shadow of the pulpit to
   the Pit is terrible. To go from the Communion Cup, to drink the cup of
   devils--from the song of saints to the weeping, and wailing, and
   gnashing of teeth of lost souls--from all the hallowed joys of God's
   Sabbath, of God's House and of His Word, down to the unutterable infamy
   of spirits that have no love of God, but curse Him day and night--my
   Hearers, that may be your lot within an hour, a week, a year! It
   matters not what the period may be, for if it ever is your lot, the
   time past shall seem to have been but the twinkling of an eye for its
   joy, though it may appear to you to have been ages for the awful
   responsibility which the day of mercy will have entailed upon you.
   Repent and be baptized, everyone of you!" As Peter said, so say I! If
   you have not as yet received Christ, lay hold on eternal life and oh,
   that the Spirit of the living God, while I preach the Word generally,
   may apply it particularly, finding out His own chosen and gathering
   them out of the ruins of the Fall, that they may be jewels in the crown
   of the Redeemer! The Lord make us doves, but God forbid that we should
   be "silly doves without heart."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   www.spurgeongems.org

   PSALM 88:10-61; 1 PETER 4:1-13.

   The story of how the children of Israel behaved themselves towards
   their gracious God.

   Psalm 88:10-16. They kept not the Covenant of God and refused to walk
   in His law; and forgot His works, and His wonders that He had showed
   them. Marvelous things did He in the sight of their fathers, in the
   land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea, and caused
   them to pass through, and He made the waters to stand as a heap. In the
   daytime also He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light
   of fire. He clave the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as
   out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the Rock, and
   caused waters to run down like rivers. In such a scene of miracles,
   surrounded by such prodigies of goodness, what did they do?

   17. And they sinned yet more against Him byprovoking the most High in
   the wilderness. What a fierce fire must sin be that it is even fed by
   the rivers of God's goodness and burns by means of that which ought to
   have quenched every spark of it! Yet there is such a fire as that
   raging in our hearts and even God's mercies will make us more sinful
   unless His abounding Grace comes with them to teach us how to use them
   rightly.

   18. And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust.
   Not for their needs, but "for their lust." It is a dreadful thing when
   prayer, itself, is prostituted and the Mercy Seat becomes a place for
   the expression of sinful desires which ought never to have been in our
   hearts. It was so, however, with these children of Israel.

   19. Yes, they spoke against God. As you read that "they spoke against
   God," you naturally suppose that they uttered some blasphemy, or some
   denial of His Deity. Listen and learn!

   19. They said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness That is
   speaking against Him--to speak unbelievingly-- to speak in a
   questioning way concerning His power. I am afraid that there are very
   few of us who can plead innocence on this score.

   20. Behold, He smote the Rock, that the waters gushed out, and the
   streams overflowed; can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for
   His people These things, which they lusted after, they also turned into
   subjects for unbelief. And they even misused the miracle which they
   dared not deny.

   21. 22. Therefore the LORD heard this, and was angry: so a fire was
   kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel Because
   they believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation. This was
   the provoking sin. The Lord would not endure such wanton and wicked
   unbelief as this. After He had turned the rocks into rivers, could He
   not turn the stones into bread, and the dust of the desert into flesh
   if He chose to do so?

   23-32. Though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the
   doors of Heaven, and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had
   given them of the corn of Heaven. Man did eat angels' food: He sent
   them meat to the full. He caused an east wind to blow in the Heaven:
   and by His power He brought in the south wind. He rained flesh also
   upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea: and
   He let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their
   habitations. So they did eat, and were well filed: for He gave them
   their own desire; they were not estranged from their lust. But while
   their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them,
   and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel
   For all this they still sinned. Mercy failed to move them, and judgment
   failed too. The right hand of God's gifts and the left hand of His
   chastisement were equally ignored.

   32-34. And believed not for His wondrous works. Therefore their days
   did He consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When He slew
   them, then they sought Him: and they returned and inquired early after
   God. Perhaps some of them fought Him even while they were dying and the
   remnant that survived trembled and, "returned and inquired early

   after God."

   35, 36. And they remembered that God was their Rock, and the high God
   their redeemer. Nevertheless they did flatter Him with their mouth, and
   they lied unto Him with their tongues. Oh, this is terrible! One would
   have thought that they would have been sincere when they were broken
   down with sorrow, but it was not so. And I fear that the kind of
   religion which has to be whipped into us is never good for much. It
   must have in it the element of spontaneity if it is to be sincere. It
   was not so with these people.

   37-41. For their heart was not right with Him, neither were they
   steadfast in His Covenant. But He, being full of compassion, forgave
   their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yes, many a time He turned His
   anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath. For He remembered that
   they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and comes not again. How
   often did they provoke Him in the wilderness, and grieve Him in the
   desert! Yes, they turned back and tempted God, and

   limited the Holy One of Israel In their unbelieving imagination, they
   circumscribed His power. They thought that He could do something, but
   not everything. They believed Him one day and doubted Him the next.

   42-45. They remembered not His hand, nor the day when He delivered them
   from the enemy. How He had worked His signs in Egypt, and His wonders
   in the field of Zoan: and had turned their rivers into blood; and their
   floods, that they could not drink. He sent divers sorts of flies among
   them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. All these
   judgments fell upon their enemies, but they failed to remember them.

   46-56. He gave also their increase unto the caterpillar, and their
   labor unto the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their
   sycamore trees with frost. He gave up the cattle also to the hail, and
   their flocks to hot thunderbolts. He cast upon them the fierceness of
   His anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels
   among them. He made a way to His anger; He spared not their soul from
   death, but gave their life over to the pestilence, and smote all the
   first-born in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of
   Ham: but made His own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in
   the wilderness like flock. And He led them on safely, so that they
   feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. And He brought them
   to the border of His sanctuary, even to this mountain, which His right
   hand had purchased. He cast out the heathen also before them, and
   divided them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to
   dwell in their tents. Yet they tempted and provoked the Most High God,
   and kept not His testimonies. Oh, these terrible "yets"! Though God was
   faithful to the end and kept His Covenant, and brought them into the
   land which He swore to their fathers that He would give them, yet they
   tempted and provoked the Most High God, and kept not His testimonies."

   57-61. But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they
   were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked Him to anger
   with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their graven
   images. When God heard this, He was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel:
   so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed
   among men; and delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory
   into the enemy's hand.

   1 Peter 4:1. Forasmuch then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh,
   arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for He that has suffered in
   the flesh has ceased from sin. Brethren, we have a Savior who suffered
   for us. As the Head was, such must the members expect to be. Let us,
   then, be resolutely determined that, suffer as we may, we will never
   turn aside from our Lord, for, inasmuch as we suffered in Him, yes, and
   died in Him, we ought to reckon that we are henceforth dead to sin and
   that we have ceased from it, and can no longer be drawn into it. "He
   that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin."

   2. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to
   the lusts of men, but to the will of God. The doctrine of Substitution
   is the strongest possible argument for holiness. You lived in sin once,
   but Christ died for your sin, so you must reckon that, in Him, you died
   to sin, seeing that He died in your place. And the argument is that,
   henceforth, your life is to be a life in Him, a life of holiness, to
   the praise and glory of God.

   3. For the timepast of our life may suffice us to have worked the will
   of the Gentiles. Suffice? O Brothers and Sisters, let it do much more
   than that! Let it make us cry, "Would God that we had never worked the
   will of the Gentiles at all!" Some young people foolishly say that they
   must have a little space in which they can "see life." Ah, those of you
   who have been converted in later years regret that you ever saw what
   men call, "life," which is but the alias for corruption and death! "For
   the time past of our life may suffice us to have worked the will of the
   Gentiles."

   3, 4. When we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excesses of wine,
   revellings, banquets and abominable idolatries. Wherein they think it
   strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking
   evil of you. What a strange world this world is! It speaks evil of men
   because they will not do evil! Yet it has always been so. The men, "of
   whom the world was not worthy," have been the very people of whom
   worldlings have said, "Away with such fellows from the earth! It is not
   fit that they should live." The world's verdict concerning Christians
   is of little value.

   5, 6. Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick
   and the dead. For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that
   are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but
   live according to God in the spirit. This is a very difficult passage
   to expound, but I suppose the meaning is that the Gospel was preached
   to those departed saints who had been called to die for Christ's sake
   and that it was preached to them for this very reason, that while they
   were judged by wicked men, and were by them condemned to die, they
   still live a far more glorious life than they lived here, because they
   were thus enabled, by their martyr death, to consummate their
   consecration to God.

   7, 8. But the end of all things is at hand; be you therefore sober, and
   watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among
   yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. It covers
   them sometimes by not seeing them, for, where there is much love, we
   are blind to many faults which, otherwise we might see. We do not
   exercise the sharpness of criticism which malice would be sure to
   exercise. Besides that, when love applies herself to prayer, and when,
   in addition to prayer, she kindly gives admonition to a beloved friend,
   it often happens that true Christian love does really prevent a
   multitude of sins. The Apostle does not mean that by loving another
   person I shall cover my own sin; nor does he mean that the exercise of
   charity, in the common acceptation of that word, can cover my sin! But
   if I have much love to others, I may be the instrument, in the hand of
   God, for covering many of their sins in one or other of the senses I
   have mentioned.

   9, 10. Use hospitality, one to another, without grudging. As every man
   has received a gift, even so minister the same, one to another, as good
   stewards of the manifold Grace of God. Whatever "the gift" is, whether
   it be money, or talent, or Divine Grace, "even so minister the same,
   one to another, as good stewards of the manifold Grace of God." God
   gives much to you that you may give it to others--it is only meant to
   run through you as through a pipe. You are a steward and if a steward
   should receive his lord's goods, and keep them for himself, he would be
   an unfaithful steward. Child of God, see to it that you faithfully
   discharge your responsibility as one of the "good stewards of the
   manifold Grace of God."

   11-13. If any man speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any
   man ministers, let him do it as of the ability which God gives: that
   God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be
   praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Beloved, think it not
   strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some
   strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice, inasmuch as you are
   partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when His glory shall be
   revealed, you may be glad, also, with exceeding joy. If you do not
   share in Christ's humiliation, how can you expect to share in His
   exaltation? But if worldlings begin to rebuke and reproach you, take it
   for granted that they can discern something of Christ in you. Dogs do
   not usually bark at those who live in the same village with them--it is
   only at strangers that they bark. And when ribald tongues are lifted up
   against you, you have reason to hope that you are a stranger and a
   foreigner to the citizens of this world, for they love their own, as
   our Savior reminded His disciples, "If you were of the world, the world
   would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have
   chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you"
     __________________________________________________________________

Messages to Sinners and Saints

   (No. 2985)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 10, 1875.

   "For thus says the Lord GOOD, the Holy One ofIsrael, In returning and
   rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your
   strength. But you would not." Isaiah 30:15.

   THIS message related to the invasion of the land of Judah by
   Sennacherib. The approach of the enormous hosts of the Assyrian king
   put almost the whole nation into a state of great alarm. They wanted to
   make an immediate alliance with the king of Egypt and to ask that
   mighty monarch to send his forces to drive back the army of
   Sennacherib. But Isaiah the Prophet was sent to warn them of the folly
   and sin of such an alliance and to tell them that their strength was to
   sit still. They were to confide alone in the Most High and not to look
   for any other helper, but to cast themselves upon the faithfulness of
   the God who had never failed them. If they did so, they would suffer no
   harm--but just in proportion as they turned away from the unseen
   Jehovah and began to rely upon an army of flesh--they would be sure to
   find trouble.

   We might have supposed that these people would have gladly accepted the
   very cheering message. Surely it was a good thing for them not to have
   to go to war with the Assyrians and not to need to despoil themselves
   and their Temple in order to send gold to the king of Egypt, but simply
   to rest in God who had promised to be a wall of fire round about them
   and the Glory in the midst of them. But, Brothers and Sisters, faith is
   an exotic in any heart where it is made to flourish--it does not grow
   there by nature--it must be planted by Grace. We are, all of us,
   idolaters by nature. We need something to look at in our worship even
   though God has forbidden it to us in the strongest terms. And as to our
   life, we are always pining for the arm of flesh, needing to rely upon
   something tangible and visible. We cannot, except as God's Grace
   enables us to do so, cast ourselves absolutely upon the unseen and
   trust ourselves to a God whose way we cannot trace! Yet, when His
   gracious Spirit teaches us this sacred art, it is well with us. The
   soul is elevated above gross materialism, above selfishness and
   self-confidence, above fear, alarm and trepidation--and brought into a
   condition of strength, power and peace. This is what the text tells
   us--that in returning and rest we shall be saved, and in quietness and
   confidence shall be our strength! As it was with God's ancient people
   in the days of Sennacherib, so is it with us. This principle holds good
   all along--the faith that relies upon God will bring to us both
   salvation and strength.

   I purpose to take my text out of its context and to address two
   different classes of hearers, using one of the sentences of my text as
   a message concerning the salvation of sinners. And using another
   sentence as a message concerning the strength of saints.

   I. First, then, here is A MESSAGE CONCERNING THE SALVATION OF
   SINNERS--"In returning and rest shall you be saved."

   Dealing, first, with the matter of returning to God, let me ask you a
   few questions. Have you played the prodigal? Have you got far away from
   your father's house. Have your joyous days all ended? Is your money all
   spent? Is your strength all but gone? Have your so-called "friends"
   forsaken you? Are you brought very low? Is there a mighty famine in the
   land and have you begun to be in need? There is but one thing for you
   to do--and that is to return. There is nothing more required of you
   than that you should return to God and rest in Him. Returning, however,
   is your first business. I would that you would say, as the prodigal in
   his hunger said, "I will arise and go to my father." You will never get
   right till you get back to God. You cannot do without the God who made
   you. You may try to do so as much as you will, but a creature apart
   from the Creator is nothing but vanity, a man apart from his Maker is
   in utter misery!

   You never will rest--it is impossible that you should do so--till you
   rest on the Rock of Ages, you will be continually tossed about and
   disquieted until you come there.

   Possibly you say to me, "But how am I to return? How can I come back to
   God?" There is a way made for you. He has filled up the valleys and cut
   down the mountains! Christ is the way of approach to the Father and the
   only way, for no man comes to the Father but by Him. And along that way
   innumerable pilgrims have traveled and they have reached God through
   Jesus Christ. Behold before you the ladder which Jacob saw in his
   dream--the foot rests just where you are, but its top reaches to the
   Covenant God in Heaven! It is by the way of the Person, work and merits
   of the Incarnate Son of God that you must climb into His Father's
   bosom! By the way of His shameful Cross, by the way of His death and
   burial, and Resurrection, you must come back to God. Again I remind you
   that this is the only way! There is no other entrance to Heaven and to
   the heart of God!

   "I know that," says one, "yet I still feel as if I could not return."
   Why not? "My sin lies heavy upon me. I would that I could shake it off
   and then return." Ah, my Friend, that is not the way to return to God!
   If you were to come back to God having somehow got rid of your sin by
   your own efforts, you would come self-righteously and boastfully--but
   the right way to get back to Him is the way the prodigal took when the
   first words he uttered were these, "Father, I have sinned against
   Heaven, and in your slight, and am no more worthy to be called your
   son." Come back to God with a full confession of your sin! Whisper into
   His august but condescending ear the sad story of the many
   transgressions of the days that are past--sins against His Law, sins
   against His Gospel, sins against the Light of God, sins of ignorance,
   sins against Him, against His Son and sins against His Spirit. Come
   back to God, laden with guilt, full of woe and confess all before Him,
   through Jesus Christ, His Son--and forgiveness shall be yours, for it
   is written in His Word, "He that covers his sins shall not prosper: but
   whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy."

   "Yes," says one, "but that is my difficulty, for I observe that I am to
   forsake my sin as well as to confess it." It is truly so, my Hearer. If
   you will come back to God through Jesus Christ, who is the only way to
   the Father, He will enable you to forsake your sin. Before our Savior's
   birth, the angel said to Joseph, "You shall call His name, Jesus: for
   He shall save His people from their sins." The salvation which Jesus
   gives is salvation from unbelief, salvation from a seared conscience,
   salvation from pride, from lust, from malice, from envy, from evil of
   every kind! Which of your sins do you wish to keep? Is there one so
   fair that you have the desire to spare it? Come, Brother, let us take
   these sins of yours, one by one, and let us ask the Lord to lend us the
   sword of Divine Justice that we may slay them and hang them up before
   the Lord, for they are accursed things! Be not tender of heart
   concerning any one of them, even though, like another Agag, it comes to
   you delicately and says, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." Put
   the sword to the throat of every sin! Though each one should be like a
   prince, yet slay it and hang it up upon the Cross. There stands the
   gallows whereon they hanged your Lord, so hang up the traitor sins
   there and let them all die. I think I hear you say, with good Dr.

   Watts--

   "'Twas for my sins my dearest

   Lord hung on the cursed tree,

   And groaned away a dying life

   For thee, my Soul, for thee!

   Oh, how I hate those lusts of nine

   That crucified my God!

   Those sins that pierced and nailed His flesh

   Fast to the fatal wood!

   Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die--

   My heart has so decreed!

   Nor will I spare the guilty things

   That made my Savior bleed."

   Remember that if you do not kill them, they will kill you! Returning to
   God includes turning from sin. Do you think that the prodigal, when he
   came back to his father, brought his dice in one hand and some other
   implement of sin in the other? He may come foul with the filth of the
   wine. He may come wretched through hunger and famine. But he must leave
   his riotous living, his wine-cup, his debauchery in the far
   country--these cannot be tolerated in his father's house!

   Neither can he receive the kiss of forgiveness till he has said,
   "Father, I have sinned." And the fact that he stands before his father,
   separated from his former sins, proves that he has forsaken them!

   "Well," says one, "I have yet another difficulty. I have confessed my
   sin to God and I have resolved, by His Grace, to forsake it. But how
   can I get rid of the guilt of my past sin?" I will tell that directly,
   but, for the present, my text says, "Return." In returning to God you
   shall be saved and you may return to Him, now, by simply trusting Him.
   Come, Man, the cause of all your sin is that you do not trust Him! If
   you did trust Him, you would obey Him and you would prove that
   happiness comes through obedience to Him! You did not believe that this
   was true and, therefore, you have gone away into disobedience under the
   mistaken notion that you could find greater happiness. But even now, if
   you will believe, all things are possible unto you if you will do God
   the bare justice of believing that in this quarrel between you and Him,
   He is right and you are wrong! If you will capitulate to Him, yielding
   up your weapons of rebellion and say, "'Tis all ended, good Lord. I do
   believe that You are just, and true, and gracious. I know not how You
   can be just and yet pardon me, but, anyhow, I come to You and I rest
   myself upon You--I dare not be Your adversary any longer. Should You
   give me Heaven, itself, I could not be content with it unless I were
   reconciled to You, my God, my Creator, my Preserver, my Father, my
   All-in-All. My heart longs to come to You. I cannot rest till I am with
   You. I seek You with my whole soul." There lies the way of salvation!
   No, dear Heart, if what I have been saying for you is really true, your
   salvation is already assured, for he who longs after God is no more
   God's adversary! God's Grace has already been operating upon you and it
   is even now drawing you to Him--or else those ardent pangs of strong
   desire would never possess your soul.

   Now turning to the second half of this portion of my text, let me speak
   of resting in the Lord, as well as returning to Him, for His
   declaration is, "In returning and rest shall you be saved." What you
   need, in returning to God, is to rest in Him. Here is the answer to the
   question which we asked just now concerning your sin. "Listen," says
   God, "do not let your past sin keep you back from Me, for I laid My sin
   upon the shoulders of My Son. I allowed Him to be scourged as though He
   had been the guilty one. I gave Him up to the executioners as though He
   had been a malefactor. I even drew My own sword from its scabbard and
   smote My well-beloved Son with it. While He was bearing your sin, I
   left Him alone till He cried, in His anguish, 'My God, My God, why have
   You forsaken Me?' I gave Him up to endure the bitter pangs of death
   that He might bear the wrath that was due to you. Now, then, as He has
   borne the punishment for all your sin, come unto Me and rest in Me.

   My dear Hearers, I shall be very unhappy if while I am preaching to
   you, some of you are not following me and doing just what I am urging
   you to do. I am hoping that while I am speaking many of you are
   returning to your God, drawn by the gracious influence of the Holy
   Spirit. If you are returning to Him and are still troubled by the
   remembrance of your past sin, rest in what He has done on behalf ofjust
   such sinners as you are! He has set forth Christ to be a Propitiation
   for sin. Therefore, rest in Him. Say, however timidly you may utter the
   words, "I do trust alone to the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus, and for all
   my guilt I rest my soul on Him." This is how you will be saved--not by
   your works, not by your weeping, not even by your praying, but by thus
   resting on the Lord! It is true that you willwork and you will'weep.
   And you will pray and holy deeds will, I trust, be abundant in your
   life. But, in order to be saved you have simply to come to Jesus and to
   rest on Him! Can you not do that? If you cannot, I will tell you why.
   It is not because you are too weak, but because you are too strong! It
   is strength that keeps a man from resting! It is weariness that makes
   him recline. The more faint and feeble he is, the more readily does he
   lean upon another. It is your strength that will destroy you--it is
   your supposed goodness that will ruin you--it is your own works that
   will be your destruction! Come now, and lean wholly and alone upon that
   almighty Savior whose heart was pierced for you, and then it shall be
   well with you! After you are saved, you will labor for the Lord with a
   mighty God-given force, but just now, return to the Lord and rest in
   Him, for "in returning and rest shall you be saved."

   "Yes, but my present state is so bad," says one, "I am not so much
   troubled over my past sin, because I believe that God has forgiven
   it--but I grieve over my present hardness of heart and distance from
   God." Come along, my Brother, come speak to the Lord, for your heart
   will never get any softer through staying away from Him! How many
   hundreds of times have I said from the pulpit that if you cannot come
   to Christ with a broken heart, come to Him fra broken heart! If you
   cannot come as you should, come anyway that you can, in order that you
   may be taught to come as you ought! It is quite true that your
   condition is bad, but then Christ "came not to call the righteous, but
   sinners to repentance." Those open sores and bleeding wounds of yours
   only prove that you need the care and skill of a wise physician. Do not
   stay away from Him till you are cured, but come to Him to be cured, and
   come to Him now! And when you do come to Jesus, just leave your
   case--past, present and future--in His hands. Rest on Him! Say, "I
   believe that as He is able to forgive my past sin, so is He able to
   remove my present hardness of heart--to take away the heart of stone
   out of my flesh and to give me a heart of flesh."

   "It is the future that troubles me," says another. "I am anxious to
   return to the Lord and to rest in Him, but I am afraid that I shall sin
   in days to come. I cannot feel sure that I shall not go back to my old
   life, even if I try to leave it." It is a good thing, my Friend, when
   you realize that you can no longer trust in yourself--and that is the
   very reason why you should put your trust in One who can never fail
   you! Therefore, come to the Lord Jesus Christ and rest in Him
   concerning the future, as well as the past and the present. Did you
   never hear those words that Paul wrote to Timothy, "I know whom I have
   believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
   committed unto Him against that day?" This is what you have to do,
   then--commit yourself to Christ for all the future, with all its
   temptation and its trials, its sorrows and its sins--and rest there.

   Here is salvation for the past, the present and the future! Here is
   complete salvation, and the way to get it is to return to God and rest
   in Him! Oh, that the Holy Spirit would graciously lead many of you to
   do this! I feel that I must keep on preaching the Gospel to you very
   simply. God forbid that I should ever try to bring before you any other
   theme, or even seek for goodly words in which to tell forth that theme!
   No, I feel that I must keep on telling you--

   "The old, old story of Jesus and His love." After this morning's
   service, I looked upon the corpse of a beloved friend who was with us a
   little while ago, who died yesterday afternoon. As I knelt by his bed,
   with his mourning wife and brother, I could not help feeling that there
   was a loud call to me, from those silent lips, to keep on preaching
   Christ and nothing else but Christ as long as I live! My friend, who
   has been thus suddenly called Home, was in the very prime of life and
   his death has quite stunned me. As I gazed at him, I could hardly
   believe that his lips were really silent and that his eyes would never
   be opened any more in this world. If this summons had come for any of
   you who have not believed in Jesus, it would have been a still more
   bitter sorrow for us to know that you were dead in trespasses and sins
   when you were taken from us--and so must perish forever and ever. Now,
   Soul, will you have Christ as your Savior, or will you not have Him? If
   this were a thing which required hard tugging and toiling, it would be
   well worth the effort. But when the Gospel message is simply, "Believe
   and live," and when Christ is willing, if you will only trust Him, to
   give you a force with which you shall be able to shape a new and nobler
   life--a Divine Power by which you shall rise superior to sin and be, in
   His good time, made like unto Himself, will you refuse these great
   blessings? Will you despise the heavenly banquet and stay outside and
   starve? Then, if so, your blood will be upon your own head! But may
   God, in His Infinite mercy, prevent you from that which would be
   spiritual suicide and save you, by His Grace--and He shall have the
   praise for it world without end.

   I have read of a great man who was once taken around the French
   galleys. He was an ambassador from a foreign country and the French
   king wished to do him honor, so he told him that when he went to the
   galleys, he might set free any one of the convicts whom he pleased. So
   the ambassador took the following method of finding out to whom he
   would give this free pardon. He began by asking the first man, "How
   came you here?" The man said that he had done wrong, but that he had
   been entirely led into it by other people and they were to blame more
   than he was. So the ambassador went on to another man, who said that he
   was perfectly innocent. He had never committed any crime at all, but he
   had been condemned through perjured witnesses and so on. The ambassador
   found quite a number of "innocent" men of that sort, but, at last, he
   came to a man who frankly confessed that he deserved to be there. What
   had he done? Well, he had committed such crimes that he was ashamed to
   mention them. But, in answer to many questions, he did mention them and
   he said, "I very richly deserve all that I have to suffer here, and I
   think myself happy that I was not condemned to die, for I well deserved
   it." "Well," said the ambassador, "you are evidently too bad a fellow
   to be here with all these 'innocent' men, so I shall give you a free
   pardon." He had the right to give it to whomever he pleased and he made
   his choice in that way. And when the Lord, who has the right to give
   pardon to whom He pleases, gives it to anybody, if there is any choice,
   it generally is given to the man who feels that he does not deserve it,
   but admits that he deserves the wrath of God. "Ah," says the Lord, "you
   are the man who shall receive the free pardon which you admit that you
   do not deserve."

   II. Now I want, for a little while, to speak to God's people and to
   give them THE MESSAGE OF THE TEXT TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD--"In quietness
   and in confidence shall be your strength." O Beloved, what a blessed
   message is this!

   This is true concerning all the trials and troubles of this mortal
   life--"In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength! I will
   suppose that you are passing through some business trouble. There are
   many tremors in the commercial world just now. Perhaps they are causing
   some of you to shake and tremble. But if so, be not too easily carried
   away by secondary matters--be not either excited or depressed by them.
   Sit loosely by all worldly things, but take a firm grip of the unseen
   God! You will get no good by fretting, worrying and hurrying. Be calm
   and quiet, for all will yet be well with you if you are the Lord's
   children! Perhaps your trial takes the form of personal sickness. If
   so, nothing can be better for you than quietness and confidence. The
   doctor will tell you that you will make a good patient if he can keep
   your mind quiet and restful. All the worrying in the world will not
   make you well, though worrying will help to keep you ill. You will be
   ill just as long as God appoints, but if anything could help to heal
   you, it would be quietness and confidence of heart. Have you lost a
   friend? Is there a great sorrow at home? Have you, in the cemetery,
   some loved one lying in a newly-made grave? Well, my Brother, or my
   Sister, you cannot bring the dear one back and you ought not to wish to
   do so! It is wise to submit to the inevitable. It is gracious to bow to
   the will of your ever-gracious God. You cannot do anything that will be
   so helpful to your own sorrowing spirit as to exercise quietness and
   confidence. It will, indeed, be your strength.

   Have you what I think is a sorrow fully equal to that of bereavement?
   Have you a loved one who daily suffers? Have you one who seems, week
   after week, to be lying upon the brink of the grave? Is that the kind
   of living cross that you have to carry? Well, Brother, it is no use
   fretting over it and it can do you no good to rebel against it. Let us
   not only submit to the will of the Lord, but let us ask Him to grant us
   Grace to acquiesce in it, for in quietness and in confidence shall be
   our strength. We often want to do too much and we often really dotoo
   much--and so we spoil everything! We fret and we worry, but nothing
   good ever comes of all our fretting and worrying. But if we would learn
   to wait upon the Lord, we would renew our strength--we would mount up
   with wings as eagles! We would run and not be weary! We would walk and
   not faint. I am addressing God's tried children just now and whatever
   their condition may be, I press the message of the text upon their most
   earnest consideration.

   Fretting is weakening. Whoever gathered an atom of strength by fretting
   and fuming, plotting and planning, or doing this and that in haste and
   confusion? You must have noticed, in reading the Book of Genesis, what
   a great descent there was from Abraham to Jacob. What a grand man
   Abraham was! He was every inch a king--no, kings were but dwarfs in
   comparison with the Patriarch who was so great because He believed God!
   But look at Jacob--a pettifogging, bargaining man, constantly cheating
   or being cheated! Jacob might be regarded by some people as by far the
   better man of business--such a keen, shrewd man. Yes, he was a cunning
   man and very crafty, but Abraham had that kind of wisdom which is
   better than craft and cunning! He was so trustful that he never thought
   of chaffering and bargaining with his God as Jacob did. Quiet majesty
   is the characteristic of the man of faith, just as unquiet weakness is
   the characteristic of the unbeliever. May God make you strong, Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, by taking from you the fret and the worry in
   which you have too long indulged--and by giving to you the quietness
   and confidence which shall be your strength for the future!

   Moreover, fretting and worrying distract us, but quietness and
   confidence help us in many an emergency. I have known a merchant who
   was losing money, feel very agitated and restless. The perspiration was
   upon his brow and if he had gone on much longer in that fashion, he
   would have lost a great deal more money. But I have known that same man
   pull up in an instant, slip aside into some quiet corner, breathe a
   brief, earnest prayer to God and then go back to his post feeling "I am
   ready for any of you"--cool, calm, quiet. While he was forgetting his
   God, he was distracted, and all about him were his masters, but when he
   had told the Lord about his troubles, he came back, not self-reliant,
   but God-reliant, which is a very different thing and a much better
   thing! There he was, cool, calm, with all his wits about him, ready to
   meet those who, a little while before, would have been more than a
   match for him. Trust in God, Beloved, for faith in Him will keep your
   vision clear and your judgment sound. Trust in God and then, in the day
   of stern conflict, there shall be no man's arms that shall be as strong
   as yours. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."

   Besides, this quietness and confidence often prevent us from wasting
   our strength in efforts which might end in failure. Oh, the fussy
   efforts many of us have made! I know that I have and I will make the
   confession. I have had various matters to put right and I have tried,
   and tried, and tried, but all my trying has only made them get worse
   and worse. They are like our good Sister's thread that was in a tangle,
   the other day, and she was in such haste to get it disentangled that
   she got it into a mass of knots that nobody in this world could untie!
   But another time when there was a tangle, she just took it calmly and
   quietly--and slipped this thread through here--and that thread through
   there and it was all unsnarled very speedily! Her quietness helped her
   to see the way out of the difficulty! But we are often in such a hurry
   to get things done that it takes us three times as long to undo the
   mischief that we worked in our haste as it would have taken us if we
   had, in the first place, asked God to help us to do the thing properly!

   I know that the Grace of God is needed to bring us into this state of
   quietness and confidence, but, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, when you
   are brought into it, I pray you to keep in it and to walk so close to
   God as never to lose the consciousness of it. I always admire the
   spirit which is characteristic of the Society of Friends. As a general
   rule, the spirit of the Quaker is calm, quiet, deliberate. That kind of
   spirit is not absolutely perfect. I can see something that is lacking
   from it. Still, that sort of spirit is a long way ahead of that which
   is manifested by some of my friends whom I might easily name. I wish
   that we all had more of that spirit--calm, quiet, self-possessed or,
   rather, God-possessed. I believe that is the best spirit for preachers
   to have. We can do most by way of moving others when we ourselves are
   firmly fixed upon a solid base. You need not fluster yourself, young
   man, in the way that you often do. You will not save souls by stamping
   your foot, thumping your Bible and shouting at the top of your voice.
   From the very bottom of your heart, in an earnest Spirit, tell your
   hearers something that is worth their hearing and pray God to put His
   blessing upon it! You will find, even in preaching, that in confidence
   and quietness shall be your strength. Thunder is not lightning and you
   may make a great noise and yet not do much good. But if you calmly, yet
   earnestly, proclaim the Truth of God, and with sober sense press it
   upon men's consciences, you may reasonably hope that God will send a
   blessing upon your message.

   I believe that the rule laid down in our text applies not only to the
   trials and troubles of life, but that it holds good with regard to many
   other matters. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength"
   when you are involved in discussion and meet with opposition. Some of
   us are often obliged to bring forth arguments in favor of what we
   believe to be the Truth of God--and there is one thing at which I
   always aim when I take part in a discussion--and that is to never let
   my opponent cause me to lose my temper. I know that in proportion as I
   get excited and angry, I am losing strength. I must seek to overcome my
   adversary by the power of the Truth of God, but, let him say what he
   will, I must not let him make me feel annoyed. For if he does, then to
   that extent he has conquered me. You may make this a rule in all your
   conversations with the ungodly. If you are a Christian woman and your
   husband is unconverted, when he speaks to you in angry tones, do not
   answer him in the same style, but remember that "in quietness and in
   confidence shall be your strength." If sometimes his words seem to
   stagger you and you fear that you will fall, clutch at this precious
   Truth--lay hold of Christ, rely upon the almighty Grace of God--but do
   not reply. Be quiet. You know the old proverb about "a still tongue." I
   will turn it around, for I am not sure that "a still tongue makes a
   wise head," but I am quite sure that a wise head makes a still tongue,
   especially in family masters! You Christian wives and Christian
   husbands may do a heap of mischief if, as you think, you get angry for
   Christ's sake. It will be far better if, for Christ's sake, you bear
   quietly and calmly all that you have to endure! You should also do this
   for the sake of the one who vexes you, for how do you know, O wife, but
   that you may be the means of saving your unbelieving husband, and that
   you, O husband, may be the means of bringing to Christ your unbelieving
   wife by Christian quietness like that which Christ Himself manifested
   when He was upon the earth?

   There is a woman here--I do not know just where she is, but she is
   here--and her husband has complained to me that she not only comes here
   twice on the Sabbath, but that she is also here at all the weeknight
   services, neglecting her husband and family and home duties as no
   Christian woman ought to do. "Oh," says someone, "I wonder who that
   woman is?" Well, there may be more than one to whom that description
   applies, and if the cap fits you, I hope you will wear it. But I beg
   you not to let your Christianity become a needless cause of offense to
   others. Do try to so adapt your mode of life to those who are around
   you that no unconverted person shall be able to truly say, "My life is
   made utterly miserable because my wife is a Christian," or, "because my
   husband is a Christian." Try to make your husband twice as happy as he
   would be with an unconverted partner and then, after a while, he will
   be obliged to say, "My wife is a strange

   woman to be so fond of going to listen to preaching, but, bless her,
   she does make our home a happy one! Nobody else would ever look after
   the children as she does." If you are a Christian husband, you may win
   your wife. If you are a Christian father, you may win your child. Or if
   you are a Christian child, you may win your father by that quietness
   and consistency of behavior which shall tell in the long run. "In
   quietness and in confidence"--not by bitterness of speech, not by
   "nagging" and wrangling--but "in quietness and in confidence shall be
   your strength."

   Lastly, in all Christian labor, and in all Christian conflict,
   quietness and confidence will be our strength. When we go forth seeking
   to win souls for the Lord Jesus Christ, let us not go as if we were
   poachers creeping on the sly on somebody else's ground to steal his
   game. No, my Friends, "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness
   thereof," and when God calls us to go anywhere for Him, let us not go
   as if we were trespassers, for every part of the earth belongs to
   Christ! When you go to that lodging house to preach or speak to the
   residents, do not go as if you had to ask leave to live, but deliver
   your message courageously, as becomes a man who is sent to be an
   ambassador for Christ! As for that ungodly man whom you heard swear the
   other day, speak to him when a notable opportunity presents itself--not
   intrusively, but modestly, yet not slavishly as though you begged his
   pardon for talking to him in God's name. We must take high ground
   here--we who love the Lord and whom He sends forth on His missions of
   mercy--as He does send forth everyone of us who has heard the Gospel
   call, for He has said, "Let Him that hears say, Come." Go then, and say
   to the people, "Come to Jesus" and, being sent to them by Christ, who
   is Lord of All, do not approach them on bended knee!

   Many years ago, the Emperor of China insisted that all ambassadors who
   approached his majesty should crouch on the ground before him. One of
   our admirers happened to have a little business with him which would
   require a few gunboats in order to settle it. And when he had an
   interview with the Emperor, he told him that an Englishman would not
   crouch down before him. So, when you go into the world--you young men,
   especially--do not go sneaking into the shop as though you were ashamed
   of your religion. If anybody has cause to be ashamed, it is the man who
   has not any religion! Make him feel that it is so, or, at any rate, do
   not let him make you feel that you have any reason to be ashamed that
   you are a Christian! If you were the son of a lord, I do not suppose
   that you would be anxious to conceal your pedigree and afraid to have
   it known. So, if you are a child of God, do not wish to conceal that
   blessed fact. You need not be ostentatious in displaying your religion,
   but, at the same time, do not be slavishly afraid to confess that
   Christ is your Lord and Savior! Speak out for God with a holy boldness,
   yet with due humility of spirit giving to Him all the glory for the
   Grace which He has bestowed upon you!

   Life's labor will soon be over and life's warfare, too. In due season
   we shall die unless our Lord shall first return. The appointed hour for
   each of us is drawing near--what shall we do then? Why, then, Beloved,
   trusting in Jesus, quietness and confidence will still be our strength!
   We shall not send our friends running to fetch a "priest" to perform
   some mysterious ceremony over us. Christ is all we need and as we have
   Him, we can die any day with perfect serenity! I love to see a
   Christian die a calm serene death. The idea of Bengel, the expositor,
   the author of "The Gnomon," concerning death, always strikes me as
   being very beautiful. He said, "I do not think there ought to be any
   scare-making about death. We ought to so live and to so die daily, that
   when death comes, it will be only a part of life--not a flourish of
   trumpets at the finish, but just a natural closing of the whole scene."
   He also said, "I should like to die just as I might retire from this
   room when, being engaged with company, a message is brought to me
   saying that I am needed and I go out quietly and say nothing about
   it--and my friends presently discover that I have gone." That was
   precisely how he died. Finishing the proof sheets of the last page that
   he wrote of his exposition, he was suddenly gone from earth and present
   with the Lord whom he loved. Oh, blessed way of dying!

   I have often told you what my dear old grandfather said, not long
   before he died. My uncle James began quoting to him that hymn by Dr.
   Watts--

   "Firm as the earth Your Gospel stands, My Lord, my hope, my trust"

   "Ah, James!" he said, "that verse won't do for me now, for the earth is
   not firm at all! I find it slipping away from beneath my feet. And now
   that I am about to depart and to meet my God, I need something firmer
   than the earth to rest upon. Yes, James," he added, "I like the good
   old doctor better when he says--

   "Firm as His Throne His promise stands,

   And He can well secure

   What I've committed to His hands, Till the decisive hour."

   "That is it, James," he said, "there you have Divine Sovereignty and
   Sovereign Grace! That kind of doctrine will do to rest your soul upon,
   my son, both in life and in death." Calmly uttering such words as
   those, full of restful confidence in the faithful, Immutable God he had
   so long served, he closed his eyes and went Home, like a laboring man
   does when his day's work is done--just as you and I, Beloved, will soon
   go home. I do not know how long we may remain here--some of you may go
   very soon, and so may I--it does not much matter when we do go so long
   as we are ready. When I said, the other day, "So-and-So has gone Home,"
   a dear old friend said to me, "Where could he go better?" Ah, just so!
   Where could he go better than go Home to his father and his God? Well,
   I trust that in those last days we shall neither fret, nor worry, nor
   trouble, nor question, nor doubt, nor fear--but in quietness and
   confidence shall be our strength! The Lord grant that it may be so, for
   Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

One Aspect of Christ's Death

   (No. 2986)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 3, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   14, 1875.

   "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
   his friends." John 15:13.

   I FELT, today, after a very weary and, in some respects, a very
   sorrowful week, as if I could not preach tonight--or that if I did
   stand up to speak, it must be upon some very easy and simple theme and,
   at the same time, it must be some great subject which would give me
   plenty of sea-room. I think the text I have read to you fulfills both
   these conditions. And, although I shall not attempt to sail across it,
   or to fathom it, for that would be impossible, yet, at any rate, there
   will be no fear that I shall run aground, or need to exercise great
   skill in threading my way through a tortuous channel, where, perhaps,
   one might be on the rock or the sandbank before he was aware of his
   danger. If there is anything about which Christians are sure--and
   concerning which they can speak with confidence, surely it is the love
   of Christ! And though that is one of the simplest things in the world,
   yet it is also the very sweetest. Whenever you spread the table for any
   meal, you are pretty sure to put bread and salt upon it. And whenever
   we preach, if we preach as we should, we are sure to have something of
   the savor of the love of Christ in our preaching. I have heard that in
   a certain country, the way in which a stranger is welcomed is by giving
   him just bread and salt--nothing more. That is what I am about to do.
   We will have bread and salt on the table--the essential things, the
   common things--but, blessed be God, with a fullness of nourishment and
   a savor of tastefulness in them which those who are taught of God will
   be able to relish!

   The death of Jesus Christ may be viewed in many aspects, but we,
   Brothers and Sisters, have learned to see very clearly the
   substitutionary character of it. It is our delight to believe that
   Christ laid down His life for the sake of His friends, thereby
   rendering complete satisfaction to offended Justice, presenting Himself
   as a vicarious Sacrifice in their place, that they might be reconciled
   to God and might be "accepted in the Beloved." We are quite sure about
   this Truth of God. We do not gather it from this particular verse which
   I have selected for my text, but from the whole run and tenor of
   Scripture, but especially from such a passage as this, "Forasmuch as
   you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver
   and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
   fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
   blemish and without spot."

   This Doctrine of Redemption tallies with the types of the old Jewish
   dispensation and corresponds with the prophetic descriptions of the
   promised Messiah, especially those wonderful chapters in Isaiah and
   Ezekiel in which His Character is so accurately foretold. This view of
   Christ dying as the great substitutionary Sacrifice for sinners cannot
   be dispensed with for a single moment--it seems to us to be the very
   essence of the Gospel. Cloudiness with regard to this great central
   Truth of God involves mistiness concerning everything else. And the
   poet was quite right when he wrote--

   "You cannot be right in the rest Unless you think rightly of Him." If
   you have any question about that great Truth, you will have your brain
   more or less muddled concerning every other Doctrine in the Word of
   God. And I would take this Doctrine just as I would the Doctrine of
   Justification by Faith, as being the test of a standing or falling
   church, and of a God-sent ministry!

   Yet, Brothers and Sisters, there are other aspects of the death of
   Christ beside the one I have mentioned and a Christian's eyes should
   see both the greater objects and also the smaller ones. I am always
   glad that a painter does not merely give us the foreground of his
   picture, but gives us the background, too--and even when his painting
   is a portrait and he desires to have all our attention fixed upon the
   portrait--yet he does not neglect the little accessories of the

   picture. They may be unimportant, but if they are properly painted,
   they will not distract attention from the main subject of the picture,
   but will rather help to point to it. Now, the death of Christ was the
   greatest possible display of the love of God to men. Never forget that
   it was not merely Infinite Justice that blazed forth from the Cross,
   but also Infinite Affection! Indeed, the Cross displayed all the
   attributes of God and they can still be plainly perceived by those
   whose eyes have been Divinely opened. God revealed Himself there,
   through the dying Savior, in a very wonderful way. If I may use such an
   image--and I think I may--through the smoked glass of the humanity of
   Christ, the Deity of God in all its fullness can be better seen by us
   than if we could, with our naked eyes, gaze upon the excessive
   brightness of that Glory. Indeed, blindness would follow upon a vision
   of absolute Deity--if such a vision were even possible. To dwell long
   upon the Doctrine of the Trinity, and to vex your mind with the various
   theories of that mysterious subject which men have imagined, is the
   sure road to Socinianism or some other heresy! But, to see God veiled
   in human flesh and especially to see Him revealed in the Person of the
   dying Mediator, is to see God in the only way in which He canto seen by
   mortal men! We do, not, therefore, for a moment forget that Christ's
   death was the greatest possible display of God's love to men.

   It was, doubtless, also necessary to complete the perfect example of
   our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He would have set before us a grand
   example of self-denial and disinterested love, even if He had not died
   for us, for it was no little thing that He should make Himself of no
   reputation and take upon Himself the form of a Servant and be made in
   the likeness of men and humble Himself as He did. Still, becoming
   "obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross," was the crown of
   His life. It was because He endured the Cross, despising the shame,
   that Paul wrote to the Hebrews, "Consider Him that endured such
   contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint
   in your minds." We also may remember that we "have not yet resisted
   unto blood, striving against sin," but Christ has done this and more
   than this! He knows what it is to be made perfect through sufferings. I
   have no doubt that they speak the truth who say that the death of
   Christ was the climax of His example, but I am going to call your
   attention to another aspect of His death, namely, as a display of His
   own love to His own people--"Greater love has no man than this, that a
   man lay down his life for his friends." This is, I believe, what Christ
   meant--that His love to His friends was to be most clearly made
   manifest by His dying for them!

   There is no need, with such a subject as this, for the use of grand
   periods and eloquent language, even if I ever indulged in that kind of
   thing. But I shall just give utterance to a few simple Truths of God
   which you already know, trying to stir up your pure minds by way of
   remembrance. And, first, let us contemplate the love of Christ
   resplendent in the act of death, l aying down His life for His friends.
   Secondly, let us see that love enhanced by a consideration of the
   friends for whom He laid down His life. And then, thirdly, let us see
   the love of Christ reflected and reproduced by His friends. This,
   however, will have to be done outside this place--I can only make the
   rough outline of the picture which is to be drawn by all of you who are
   the friends of Christ. My text reminds us of one of the strongest
   reasons why we should love one another even as Christ has loved
   us--"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life
   for his friends."

   I. Let us, then, first SEE CHRIST'S LOVE RESPLENDENT IN THE LAYING DOWN
   OF HIS LIFE FOR HIS

   PEOPLE.

   When He says, "Greater love has no man than this," He seems to me to
   imply that there are manifestations of His love which are not as great
   as this. The love of the Lord Jesus Christ to His people is always
   great. I may truly say that it is always greater than any other love. I
   might even say that it is always in the superlative degree--the
   greatest love there ever was, or is, or can be! Yet there are displays
   of that love which can be rightly described as great, greater,
   greatest. Our Lord had already displayed His love to His people in the
   great and the greater forms of it--now He was about to display it in
   the highest and greatest of all ways.

   It was great love that made Him come to this earth and be Incarnate
   here. Have you ever thought of the greatness of the love of Christ in
   being a Child, a Youth, a Man and of His love in being willing to live
   in obscurity and retirement as the Son of Mary for 30 years? Wondrous
   love was there in that arrangement by which He was able, from His own
   experience, to sympathize with retiring Christians and with young
   Believers whose duties do not cause them to be conspicuous in the
   world. The thought of God in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth is to me
   very wonderful. As Moses took off his shoes at the sight of God in the
   burning bush, we may well manifest our awe and reverence as we see the
   Son

   of God, the express image of His Father's Person, in the midst of the
   implements used by the village carpenter! That was truly great love.

   Then, when the time arrived for Him to come forth from His obscurity,
   He showed great love to His friends in calling them to Him one by one.
   His mind was altogether unique. He had the tenderness of a woman, yet
   He was to the highest degree, manly. Indeed, all the attributes of a
   perfect man and a perfect woman appear to have been blessedly blessed
   in His perfect Humanity. We might have supposed that He would have
   looked for companions somewhat like Himself, though I know not where He
   could have found them, but He seems to me to have looked for those
   whom, in a wondrous way, He could make to be like Himself rather than
   for those who were already like Himself! So He finds some
   fishermen--very rough fellows to be associated with the gentle Jesus!
   He finds a tax-gatherer--commercial, grasping-- a strange companion for
   Him who cared not one farthing for gold or silver! The Apostles, as a
   whole, were a motley crew. Speaking after the manner of men, one could
   almost account for Jesus choosing John and there are some points in
   Peter that are very lovable, yet, as a band of men called to such
   exceptional service, they were rough and coarse! We might have thought
   that Christ would have looked for more refinement in those who were to
   be His daily companions for three years--and had He been thinking only
   of Himself, He might have sought others than He did seek. Certainly,
   Brothers and Sisters, in my own case, I have often felt that I could
   adopt the language of Faber, which we sang just now--

   "Howmany hearts You might have had More innocent than mine! How many
   souls more worthy far Of that pure touch of Thine! Ah, Grace! Into
   unlikeliest heart It is your boast to come-- The glory of your light to
   find In darkest spots a home."

   So Jesus Christ showed His love to His friends in the very act of
   calling them to be His friends. And He also showed His love in fitting
   them for the position to which He had called them. He laid Himself out
   to teach them, to train them, to build up their characters upon a firm
   foundation and to infuse into their minds right principles and noble
   sentiments so that they could be fully qualified to be the servants of
   the churches and the glory of Christ--vessels to be used no longer for
   merely worldly purposes, but to be meet for the Master's use! With what
   singular wisdom He trained them! With what patience He bore with them!
   Had they had any other master, they would, many a time, have been
   liable to be discharged for their stupidity, but He simply said, "Have
   I been so long a time with you, and yet have you not known Me, Philip?"

   This was a proof of great love on His part, yet He seems to me to have
   shown even greater love when, towards the end of His life, He bade
   these friends of His sit and eat and drink with Him at His Table and
   expressed His desire that His friends should continue, in all later
   ages, thus to remember Him. Then, after the Supper, He rose from the
   table, laid aside His outer garment, took a towel and girded
   Himself--poured water into a basin and washed His disciples' feet! Oh,
   this was great love indeed!

   Still, our text talks about a greater display of Christ's love than
   this, so we conclude that while to choose and call, to instruct and
   edify, to entertain and refresh was proof of very great love on
   Christ's part--to die for His friends was evidence of still greater
   love. There are, in this world, many persons who will lay themselves
   out to help their fellow creatures to resist temptation and to struggle
   out of the ways of vice into the path of virtue and who would, with
   heroic self-denial, bring themselves well-near to the grave's mouth to
   accomplish these ends--but they will not lay down their lives for their
   fellows. If they did, it would be the greatest thing they could
   possibly do for them, for the text is true, "Greater love has no man
   than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

   But our Lord was willing to die for His friends. Some people might lay
   down their lives for their friends, but it would be quite unwillingly
   that they would do so. They might make the supreme sacrifice under the
   force of some strong compelling passion, yet they would escape if they
   could. But look at our blessed Lord and Master! When the time came for
   Him to go out of this world unto His Father, He did not make the
   slightest effort to escape from death. Judas knew

   the place where He was in the habit of going for private meditation and
   prayer--and to that very place our Master went, as He had often gone
   before, although He knew that He would meet the traitor there. When the
   officers and men from the chief priests and Pharisees came there with
   lanterns and torches and weapons, a word from Him made them fall to the
   ground! He could, therefore, in an instant, have driven them all out of
   the garden and have escaped from them. But He did not do so. He could
   never have been delivered up to be put to death, either by Jews or by
   Romans, if He had not been perfectly willing to die! From the time when
   they took Him to Annas to the moment when they nailed Him to the Cross,
   one solitary wish on His part would have scattered all His foes and He
   could have gone wherever He pleased--but He would not express such a
   wish, or even cherish it. Admire the wonderful reticence of Christ!
   That He did not speak in His own defense, was marvelous, but, that He
   did not even wish to escape, or think of escaping, is still more
   amazing, for a thought would have been sufficient to have procured His
   release! How wonderfully Omnipotence held in check Omnipotence! How
   majestic does that almighty attribute appear when it proved its power
   over itself by not using the power which it manifestly possesses!

   More than that, remember that our Lord Jesus Christ was under no sort
   of necessity to die. When a man lays down his life for his friend--and
   how seldom has that been done--he only anticipates the debt of Nature
   which, in any case, he has to pay before long. If you were to die for
   me, or I were to die for you, tomorrow, we would, both of us, only do a
   little earlier what we must both ultimately do! Death will, before
   long, claim everyone of us, and to the sepulcher we must all descend
   unless our Lord should speedily come. But He possessed inherent
   immortality! No sentence of death was written across His brow--He could
   live on forever even when He was in the grave--corruption could have no
   dominion over Him. He could say, with an emphasis that the Psalmist
   could not use, "You will not leave My soul in Hell; neither will You
   suffer your Holy One to see corruption." So Jesus Christ's laying down
   of His life for His friends was beyond anything that could ever happen
   in any other man's life, a voluntary act and, consequently, a more
   wonderful display of love than could ever be given in any other case.
   "Greater love has no man than this."

   We must also remember that our Lord Jesus Christ had been accustomed,
   for many years, to contemplate the laying low of His life before He
   actually did so. No, I must not speak of years--doubtless from
   eternityHe had foreseen that terrible time when He would have to do
   battle on His people's behalf, with all the powers of Darkness. He had
   looked forward to that hour with the strong glance of the eyes that
   could weep for sorrow, but could not grow dim with fear. And, often,
   when He was here below, He seemed to long for the time when He could
   make the master-sacrifice of His life. He said, "I have a baptism to be
   baptized with and how am I straitened till it is accomplished!" His
   face was set, not merely once, but in very deed always, steadfastly to
   go unto Jerusalem, knowing well all that would befall Him there. Now,
   what man is there who could look death in the face, for the sake of his
   friend, year after year, and even contemplate it with ardent desire? We
   might, in an outburst of strong affection, in a moment of unusual
   excitement, be willing to leap into the gulf of death in order to
   rescue a sinking friend, but as for the quiet resolution that could
   calmly think it all over and weigh every circumstance--and ponder over
   every detail and then deliberately give oneself up to death--where
   could you find such a spirit as that? It is only to be seen in Him who
   has given the grandest display of love that was ever manifested on
   earth or even in Heaven--and whose death was the grandest manifestation
   of that love!

   Let me also further remind you that our Lord Jesus Christ did actually
   die for His friends. He was not merely willing to do so and long
   contemplated dying, but He didreally die and He died under
   circumstances that rendered the laying down of His life for His friends
   the more remarkable! He died for them, yet they had all forsaken Him in
   the hour of His greatest need, after having fallen asleep and left Him
   to endure in utter loneliness the agony of bloody sweat. When He was
   arraigned before His enemies, Peter, the boldest man in His little band
   of disciples, was so cowed with fear that he denied, with oaths and
   curses, that he even knewHim! These "friends" of His were quite
   unworthy of His love, yet He died for them. Do men generally die for
   such "friends" as they proved themselves to be? No, but they have often
   cried with Job, "Miserable comforters are you all." Yet Christ died for
   His friends though they forsook Him when He most needed their sympathy
   and support.

   And He had to die for them under a criminal charge. I believe that
   there are many of us who would not be nearly as much startled by death
   as by a criminal accusation. When I have seen some good man whom I have
   highly esteemed, charged falsely, as I think, with high misdemeanors, I
   have felt that I would sooner die than be guilty of the crime of which
   he has been accused. But here is our gracious Lord and Master willingly
   giving Himself up to death although He is

   innocent of the crime's laid to His charge--sedition against the State
   and blasphemy against God. It is a felon's death that He must die--not
   merely a death like that of a felon, but the death of a felon, for the
   verdict of one tribunal after another is that He is worthy of
   death--and the popular voice applauds the verdict, and cries, "Let Him
   be crucified!" O You blessed Son of God, were You thus numbered with
   the transgressors? Yes, He was. And this was the greatest manifestation
   of His love.

   Let us not forget, too, that Christ's death was attended by cruelties
   of the grossest sort. I will not harrow up your feelings with any
   description of that terrible flagellation which He received at the
   hands of the Roman lictors. Yes, Christ did suffer intensely in many
   ways, as the Prophet Isaiah had foretold that He would--"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 the sufferings of Christ's--physical, mental, and
   spiritual--which were attendant upon His death, are to be regarded by
   us with awestruck and grateful emotions, for they help to make up the
   perfection of His wondrous work of laying down His life for His
   friends!

   Remember, too, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, as I have already
   reminded you, that Christ, although He was absolutely innocent, did die
   as the Substitute for sinners. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "For He
   (that is, God) has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we
   might be made the righteousness of God in Him." And to the Galatians He
   wrote, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a
   curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a
   tree." To a pure mind, contact with sin in any form is truly horrible.
   I can imagine the Savior being willing to suffer and even being willing
   to die--but His holy Nature must have revolted at the thought that He
   must stand in the sinner's place, that He must be reckoned as the
   sinner, that against Him the sword of Divine Justice must be drawn and
   that in His heart it must find a sheath! The great terror of Christ's
   death upon the Cross must have been that it was the penalty for
   sin--the execution of the righteous judgment of God against
   unrighteousness and iniquity! None of us can even guess--perhaps the
   lost souls in Hell cannot tell--what it must have been for Christ to
   have come thus under the wrath of God because of the sins of His
   people. When we have been deeply convinced of sin, we may have had some
   slight conception of what it was, but our most vivid imagination must
   have been dim and feeble compared with the terrible reality!

   Above all else, let us remember that our Savior died forsaken of His
   God. Even the martyrs were not obliged to do that. They stood at the
   stake and clapped their hands--they even sang songs of triumph amidst
   the fury of the flames! But Jesus had to cry, "My God, My God, why have
   You forsaken Me?" That is the pitiful wail of a broken heart and a
   sinking spirit. It does not surprise us that "the earth did quake and
   the rocks split"--it would have been a greater wonder if they had not
   been stirred at the sound of such grief as His! O Beloved, greater love
   has no man than this, that he will even dare to die forsaken of his
   God! I thank God that we are not asked to do this! But Jesus did it for
   us, His friends. Oh, what amazing love is His! There is much more that
   might be said upon this stupendous theme, but I must ask the Holy
   Spirit to lead you into the mystery of those unknown deeps of suffering
   by which Christ manifested His love to His friends.

   II. Now, secondly, I want to show you that THE LOVE OF CHRIST, IN
   LAYING DOWN HIS LIFE, WAS GREATLY ENHANCED BY THE CHARACTER OF THOSE
   FOR WHOM HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE, namely,

   "His friends."

   Let it never be forgotten by us that this sacred title is one which our
   Lord Himself gave to His disciples--"I have called you friends." If we
   are His disciples, we are also His friends. Our original title would
   have been enemies, for that is what we were--but He has transformed us
   into His friends, for, "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God
   by the death of His Son." The text would not be true if you were to put
   the emphasis in the wrong place. "Greater love has no man than this,
   that a man lay down his life for his friends," for Christ manifested
   greater love than that in laying down His life for His enemies. It is
   indeed surprising that He should have laid down His life for those who
   were His enemies and who are only His friends because He has made them
   so. You scorned Him, you despised Him, you crucified Him, your sins
   were the nails and the spear that pierced His hands, feet and side--yet
   He died for you! He was the sandalwood tree, and yours was the hand
   that held the axe that wounded Him, yet He perfumed the axe, and also
   the hand that wielded it--and healed that hand of all its
   leprosies--yes, healed your whole being of whatever disease it had.
   Thank God for love like that!

   Then, putting aside the fact that we were once His enemies, think of
   the greatness of His love is laying down His life for such
   insignificant people as we are. I have heard the argument used by
   unbelievers that it is not feasible--considering the immense size of
   the universe and the inconceivable number of starry worlds in it, that
   this little inconsiderable speck of a globe, which, in proportion to
   the rest of the universe, is as a single atom of dust to the entire
   chain of the Alps--to think that Christ should come to redeem the
   inhabitants of such a poor little world as this is and that if He came
   to the earth at all, many of the poorest and meanest of the people
   would be the peculiar objects of His choice! Well, it is marvelous! It
   is a marvelous instance of the condescension of Christ--and while it
   may stagger the faith of some, it certainly inflames the love of
   others! We feel that if He condescends to choose us, our love shall
   rise to the utmost heights that it can reach--and we will bless and
   magnify the name of the Lord in that, while He took not up angels, He
   took up the seed of Abraham! While He left the fallen angels to perish
   without hope, He has come to save us, the fallen sons of Adam, and has
   laid down His life for us!

   There is, however, a Truth of God that is even more significant and
   instructive than that. It is not merely true that we were once Christ's
   enemies and that we were also utterly insignificant and unworthy of His
   notice, but it is amazing that He should lay down His life for such
   unworthy friends, even as friends, as we are. There are some professing
   Christians who can speak of themselves in terms of admiration, but,
   from my inmost heart I loathe such speeches more and more every day
   that I live. Those who talk in such boastful fashion must be
   constituted very differently from me. While they are congratulating
   themselves upon all the good things that they find within themselves, I
   have to lie humbly at the foot of Christ's Cross and marvel that I am
   saved at all, for I know that I am saved. I have to wonder that I do
   not believe Christ more and equally wonder that I am privileged to
   believe in Him at all--to wonder that I do not love Him more, and
   equally to wonder that I love Him at all--to wonder that I am not
   holier and equally to wonder that I have any desire to be holy at all
   considering what a polluted, debased, depraved nature I find still
   within my soul notwithstanding all that Divine Grace has done in me! If
   God were ever to allow the fountains of the great deeps of depravity to
   break up in the best man that lives, he would make as bad a devil as
   Satan, himself, is. I care nothing for what these boasters say
   concerning their own perfections--I feel sure that they do not know
   themselves, or they could not talk as they often do! There is tinder
   enough in the saint who is nearest to Heaven to kindle another Hell if
   God should but permit a spark to fall upon it. In the very best of men,
   there is an infernal and well-near infinite depth of depravity! Some
   Christians never seem to find this out. I almost wish that they might
   not do so, for it is a painful discovery for anyone to make--but it has
   the beneficial effect of making us cease from trusting in ourselves and
   causing us to glory only in the Lord.

   Why should Christ ever have loved us? Why should He ever have loved us?
   When at His Table, we often have wandering thoughts. Even in our faith
   we often find a mixture of unbelief. Even when we love Him, we grieve
   that we do not love Him more. Even when we are closest to Him in
   communion, we have to smite our breast and mourn that we do not enjoy
   the nearness we might have, and ought to have, for, after being so
   greatly loved by Christ, we ought to be sinless! Under such obligations
   to Christ as we have, we ought to be wholly sanctified--spirit, soul,
   and body--and never have a wandering thought or an unholy desire. But
   that we are not what we ought to be is very clear. And the wonder is
   that Jesus Christ should ever have laid down His life for such
   miserable "friends" as we have proven ourselves to be! Beauty, you
   know, will often win affection against a man's better judgment, for
   there is something about it which is so attractive that it overcomes
   him. But Christ's love to us was not won by any beauty that He saw in
   us. When He says to us as the Bridegroom in the Song of Solomon says to
   His bride, "Turn away your eyes from Me, for they have overcome Me."
   And when He says, "You are all fair, My love; there is no spot in you,"
   I think He must see Himself mirrored in us and that this is why He
   loves us, for certainly there is nothing lovable in us but what He has
   bestowed upon us by His Grace! I do not know what you, Beloved, say
   concerning this theme upon which I have been speaking, but I think you
   will agree with me when I say that, to me, the superlative point of the
   love of Christ is that He laid down His life for me, unworthy as I have
   been even since I have been His friend!

   III. I must speak very briefly upon the last point which is that THIS
   GREAT LOVE OF CHRIST IS TO BE

   REFLECTED AND REPRODUCED BY HIS FRIENDS.

   Christ is the sun in our heavens and His Church is the moon. Why does
   the sun shine upon the moon? For the moon's sake? Yes, in part, but
   also for the sake of the earth, which would be dark at night if the
   moon did not reflect the light it

   receives from the sun. Brother, Sister, the light of Christ's love has
   fallen upon you, not only that it may benefit you, but also that you
   may reflect it.

   First, reflect it upon Christ. He has loved you, so love Him in return!
   It is a blessed thing, sometimes, to do nothing but love Christ for a
   while. It is well, at least now and then, for us not to think so much
   of what we are going to do for Christ as of what He did for us and what
   He is to us. If I ever try to secure a quiet half-hour's meditation
   upon His love to me, somebody is pretty sure to come and knock at the
   door. But if I can keep the door-knocker still, and get alone with my
   Lord and only think about His love to me--not trying to elaborate any
   theories, or to understand any doctrines, but just sitting down with
   the view of loving Him who gave Himself for me--I tell you, Sirs, that
   this thought is positively inebriating to the soul! It not merely
   refreshes, quickens, consoles, but it absolutely overcomes us with
   intense delight till we feel as though we could only fall upon our face
   and worship the Lamb who was slain for us! At such times we have to
   make our expressive silence mean His praise, for our soul is so full of
   His love that we cannot possibly express it. That is the first thing
   for Christians to do--as Christ is shining upon you with His
   love--shine back upon Him with your love!

   Then, next, He said to His disciples, "This is My commandment, That you
   love one another, as I loved you." As you have received the light of
   Christ's love, pass it on to your fellow Christians. Do you want to
   know where to find Christ? He is dwelling in His people and especially
   in His poor people, in His suffering people, in His tried people! So,
   when your heart is full of love to your Lord, let some of the light of
   it shine upon them. Perhaps this is a dark time with them and a kind
   word from you, or a kind action, will be like the light of the moon to
   them in the middle of the night, and will cause them great gladness.
   The moon cannot shine as brightly as the sun does, and you cannot love
   as much as Christ does-- but you can be like the moon and shine with
   borrowed light--you can reflect upon others the light of the love which
   Christ has shed upon your own soul.

   And when you have done that, remember that your light will be even more
   needed in the dark world of the ungodly. "Christ died for the ungodly,"
   and that is what you were once! O Beloved, I pray you, love the sons of
   men! Somebody has asked, "How are we to convert sinners?" That is not
   our work. It is only the Spirit of God who can do that. But what we can
   do is this, we can love sinners to Christ. That is the way in which God
   says that He worked--"I drew them with words of a man, with bands of
   love." I will give you this message as a text for you to preach upon
   practically all your life--Love sinners to Christ! Love the enmity out
   of them if they hate the Gospel. Love the prejudice out of them if they
   cannot bear to hear it preached. Love them out of their vices! Love
   them up from their degradation, for love is of God, and God is Love and
   God dwells in love. That which is in Him and comes from Him, is the
   best thing in the world to draw people to Him! So use no other cords
   but the cords of a man, and no bands but the bands of love. When you
   really love souls, it is amazing how wise you will be in dealing with
   them.

   I have never heard that anybody has opened a school for teaching young
   mothers how to manage their first babies, but, somehow or other, when
   love is in the mother's heart, she finds out the proper way to care for
   her baby. And better than any College training for the home or the
   foreign field of service for the Savior is it to get your heart full of
   love to your Lord. Then you will know how to do His work--it will come
   to you by a sort of sacred instinct. You will know when you are to tell
   them of the terrors of the Law, and when to speak of the loveliness of
   Christ, and just how to deal with them under all manner of
   circumstances. The love of Christ will teach you how to do this if it
   is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit which is given unto
   you.

   Oh, that all men knew, by happy personal experience, what the love of
   Jesus is! I have not said much to you unconverted people who are
   present, but I have often thought that when we are preaching about
   Christ, even if we do not say much directly to you, the subject itself
   speaks to you. It is like spreading a dinner where there are hungry
   people near. You have only to say to such persons, "You are welcome to
   all there is on the table," and there is no need of a sermon, or any
   eloquence. Their mouths begin to water while you are laying the cloth
   and the sight of the provisions makes them begin to eat as soon as you
   say, "Come along." What big slices they take! Well, poor starving
   souls, here is the great Gospel feast--may your mouths water for a
   taste of it! All I have to say is--

   "Come and welcome, sinner, come." Come and taste the great love of God
   which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. May His gracious Spirit bring you,
   for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   8 One Aspect of Christ's Death Sermon #2986
     __________________________________________________________________

The "Beau Ideal" of Life

   (No. 2987)

   A SERMON ESPECIALLY TO YOUNG MIEN, PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 17, 1875.

   "O satisfy us earl/ with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad
   all our days." Psalm 90:14.

   MOSES saw, with deep regret, that the great host which came out of
   Egypt would have to die in the wilderness. Every day there were many
   funerals, for a vast multitude of men, women and children had to be
   buried in the wilderness. And tears of sorrow and sympathy must
   continually have stood in the eyes of the great leader of the children
   of Israel. After speaking about their days being passed away in God's
   wrath, Moses offered a prayer which, under the circumstances, was most
   natural and most wise. It was in substance this--"Lord, if we must die
   in this desert. If this whole generation (except Caleb and Joshua) must
   pass away in the wilderness, then, at any rate, give us the fullness of
   Your favor now, that we may spend all our remaining days--whether they
   are to be few or many--in gladness and rejoicing." Now, seeing that we,
   also, are all passing away and that whether young or old, we, too, must
   be carried to the grave unless the Lord should first return, this seems
   to me to be a very wise prayer for us to put up--"Lord, satisfy us with
   Your mercy now, that we may waste no more of our life in sinful
   dissatisfaction, but that from this hour to the last moment of our
   life, we may be filled with Your favor, and may rejoice and be glad all
   our days.

   I. Just for a minute or two, I want, in the first place, to show you
   that Moses has here set before us THE "BEAU IDEAL" OF LIFE.

   If one could have just such a life as he desired, could he desire
   anything better than to be satisfied early with God's favor? Would it
   not be a very delightful thing if the whole of his life could be spent
   exactly as it ought to be and could be spent in the enjoyment of the
   highest degree of happiness of which we are capable? "O satisfy us," is
   the prayer of the text--"O satisfy us early with Your mercy." If the
   young man--instead of seeking after something which he will still
   continue to seek after if he is spared to reach the prime of life--and
   will still seek after even when he grows gray, could get that which
   would content him at once. If he could get something which would
   immediately fill his soul and make it run over with thankfulness and
   joy--would it not be a great blessing to him, especially if he could
   get it, as Moses says, "early"--soon--in the very beginning of his
   life? Many men, even good men, have wasted the early morning of their
   days. And some have had the painful experience of looking back, in the
   afternoon of life, upon the best part of their day and even the
   noontide, all gone--and there has been for them only the evening and,
   sometimes, only a very short evening to spend in complete satisfaction
   and real joy. It is a pity that so many Christian's lives should, for
   all practical purposes, be influential at the end of their stay on
   earth--that as far as their influence upon others is concerned, they
   should be merely like the candle-ends that we put upon the
   save-alls--but the whole candle has never been consumed in giving light
   in the sanctuary of God. It is a thing to be desired beyond measure
   that from the first to the last of life, God's blessing should rest
   upon us and that we should enjoy peace and happiness without any
   intermingling of the distress which is caused by sin. This, as I have
   said, seems to me to be the beau ideal of life--and I think that all
   Christians, at least, will agree with me.

   It is a poor way of building a house to have a flaw in the foundation,
   for, however carefully we may build the superstructure, we can never
   make a satisfactory building because of the flaw down below. It is poor
   weaving on the part of the man at the loom, when he has a flaw at the
   beginning of his work--however carefully he may weave the latter
   portion of it, he will always know that he cannot get that old flaw
   out--that the piece of cloth will never be perfect. In

   contrast to this kind of building and weaving, it would be a blessed
   thing to have such Grace and such wisdom given that the very first
   course of the foundation of the house of life should be well and truly
   laid, and that the whole building should be to the praise and glory of
   God! And it would be equally blessed that the very first throws of the
   shuttle of the web of life should be in accordance with the right rules
   for weaving, so that the whole piece of cloth might be pronounced
   perfect after its kind. I think this is the meaning of the prayer of
   the text, "O satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and
   be glad all our days."

   II. Secondly, as we judge this satisfaction to be the beau ideal of
   life, let us consider HOW SOME PEOPLE HAVE SOUGHT TO ATTAIN IT.

   I do not hesitate to say that the first part of the text is the cry of
   all men--

   "O satisfy us, satisfy us, satisfy us!" But there is a kind of
   horse-leech in every man's soul that is not easily satisfied. It is
   like death, the grave and the sea. Whatever may be cast into the mouth
   of death, it is as hungry as it was before! And the sepulcher is never
   satisfied and, throw what you will into the sea, it is always ready to
   receive more. So is it with the hearts of men. "O satisfy us," is the
   world's cry as the heathens shout to their idol gods and as the priests
   of Baal cried to their lifeless image. "O satisfy us," is the world's
   cry today, for man's hunger is insatiable, though he disdains the only
   food which would satisfy his cravings. "O satisfy us," is the cry which
   is heard in every quarter of the globe--alas, not ascending to Heaven,
   as it should, but going out to the things of time and sense! Still do
   men seek satisfaction in that which Solomon calls "vanity of vanities."

   Wise young men pray, in the words of the text, "O satisfy us early.''"
   They want to get that which is to be the source of their joy, not when
   they can no longer enjoy it, but now, so they cry, "satisfy us early."
   They do not ask for God's mercy merely as a sort of pension for their
   old age, but they want to have it now. At any rate, I know that I did,
   for I wished to obtain whatever of gladness and joy could be had even
   in my youthful days. There is nothing wrong in desiring to be happy.
   There is nothing wrong in offering the prayer, "O satisfy us early," so
   long as that prayer is completed in the way in which my text completes
   it--"O satisfy us early with Your mercy."

   Many have tried to satisfy themselves by gaining money. This is a
   pursuit in which a man may lawfully engage if it is not the chief
   objective of his life, as so many make it. They believed that they
   would be satisfied when they had acquired a certain amount, but they
   were not. I might confidently ask every man of wealth, now in this
   world, whether he was satisfied when he reached the amount which he had
   himself fixed as the limit of his desire? Did he not then feel that he
   must have more than that amount? Of course he did! So he set before him
   another sum and he said that when he had accumulated thatamount, he
   would be content. But was he? Is not the desire for wealth a thing
   which grows with that it feeds upon, so that the more a man has, the
   more he wants? There never did live and there never could live, a man
   whose entire nature could be satisfied with his worldly possessions.
   You know that we call the man who delights in hoarding up riches--a
   miser. Why do we call him by that name unless it is because he is truly
   miserable? The very name for the man who is engrossed with avarice
   signifies unhappiness--and when you need to describe somebody who is
   both aged and wretched, you say, "He is like an old miser." Yes, so he
   is. Men may amass as much wealth as they will, but if, with the money,
   they have not acquired something better than the best metal that ever
   came from the mint or the mine, they will still go on crying, "O
   satisfy us! O satisfy us!" The Indians of South America believed that
   the Spaniards' god was made of gold and well they might when they saw
   the strangers' devotion to their idol! They once poured molten gold
   down a Spaniard's throat, saying, "You have thirsted for it, now you
   shall have enough of it." But if a man could eat gold, drink gold,
   sleep with gold, walk with gold and be robed in gold, yet, still, what
   is there in that metal which could satisfy the cravings of the highest
   part of man's nature--that mysterious spiritual thing which is called
   the soul? No, there is no solid satisfaction for the soul in all the
   wealth in the world!

   Others have despised this gross pursuit and they have said that
   satisfaction is to be found in fame. We, all of us, like respect,
   esteem, honor. It is false for any man to say that he does not like
   praise, for he does. And if anyone is pleased at being told that he
   does not like flattery, he is there being more highly flattered than at
   any other time of his life--and he is enjoying the sensation! Some men,
   to gain honors and distinction in various ways, have made complete
   slaves of themselves. They have supposed that if they could but get the
   honors--perhaps the honor of a degree at the university, or the honor
   of a certain rank in the profession of the law, or even in the church,
   they would be satisfied. But no man was

   ever yet satisfied with honors. They are but as a puff of wind which
   can never fill an immortal soul. If you read the histories of those
   statesman who have risen to the greatest heights of fame, you will, as
   a rule, find that the most famous man in the kingdom is generally the
   greatest slave. He has, from the very weight of his honors, the heavier
   burden of responsibility to bear. As "uneasy lies the head that wears a
   crown," so, in its degree, uneasy lies the head that wears the laurel
   or the crown. There is no contentment to be found in fame, as those
   have proved who have won the most of it. There was a time when the
   flattery of two or three poor people in a village would have satisfied
   them, but now the plaudits of a whole nation seem as nothing to
   them--and when the whole world is ringing with their renown, they sit
   down in despondency, wring their hands in misery, and cry, with
   Solomon, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

   Others have said, "But surely there is something solid and satisfying
   in learning." Well, there is more to be said for this than for either
   of the other two things that I have mentioned and, as far as I am
   concerned, I would sooner seek satisfaction in my library than in the
   marble halls of the wealthy or in the courts of kings! To study, to
   read, to make discoveries, to furnish the brain, to enrich the
   mind--there is something worth doing in all this, yet Solomon, who
   carried out this idea as far as it could be carried out in his day,
   recorded his very emphatic verdict concerning it, "Much study is a
   weariness of the flesh." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," is very
   apt to also be your utterance with regard to study, for you always have
   the dreary thought that even if you could know more than all other men
   in the world, when your turn came to sleep in the grave, there would be
   no difference between you and the peasant of whom Wordsworth wrote--

   "A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was
   nothing more."

   If the peasant rises no higher than that, however learned any of us may
   be, we have only risen a little above him for a time--and in the common
   dust we, too, shall sleep with him! If there were no eternal futures,
   what would all the joys of earthly knowledge be worth to us?

   Others seek satisfaction in pleasure. I may be addressing some young
   man who says, "I do not care for wealth. I shall never trouble myself
   to hoard it. On the contrary, I love to spendit! I do not want to use a
   rake--give me a shovel and I will soon scatter all my father's
   substance!" There are some men who are very proficient in scattering
   what others have gathered with great diligence. These people say
   concerning study, "Let us get out of these crowded rooms into the pure,
   fresh air! We mean to go in for pleasure and to enjoy ourselves while
   we can." This looks, at first sight, as if it were a prudent thing to
   do and, certainly, there is a deal more sense in enjoying ourselves in
   a rational fashion than there can be in pinching and starving ourselves
   in order to hoard up money for heirs who will ridicule if they do not
   actually curse those who have provided so bountifully for them!
   Remember what Solomon says about others who seek what they call
   pleasure--"Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has
   babbling? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? They
   who tarry long at the wine; they who go to seek mixed wine." There is
   no satisfaction there! The merriest man who ever lived--the man who
   drained the wine-cup of mirth even to its dregs--has dashed it to the
   ground in his fierce indignation and cursed the day in which he tried
   to find satisfaction there! Look at those who have gone to the house of
   the strange woman and see what comes of their sinful sojourning
   there--even if it is only for a little while. Does not dissipation
   bring disease and decay upon nature sooner than necessary? There is no
   satisfaction there, young man! So, if you want to really enjoy
   yourself, there is a nobler and a surer way of doing so. The way of
   so-called "pleasure" is a delusion and a snare, and the end thereof is
   sorrow, suffering and woe! Alas, that so many should continue to walk
   in a way which has such a sad end!

   When a man plays the fool, let him do it for something that is worth
   having. Some time ago, when we were looking for a place for Messrs.
   Moody and Sankey to preach and sing, two of our Brothers went to see
   whether a certain building could be rented and, while they were waiting
   there, a man came up to them and presented his card--"Mr. So-and-So,
   clown." He thought our Brothers had gone to engage the place for some
   amusements! They told him that they had come to engage it for religious
   services and one of them said to him, "What a pity it is that you
   should play the fool for money!" I think the clown made a very sensible
   remark in reply, for he said, "You had better go and talk to those who
   play the fool and make nothing by it, for there issome sense in playing
   the fool for money." To play the fool and make nothing by it, is a very
   mild description of the folly of which I have been speaking! But how
   many play the fool and lose

   money by it?What is it that clothes so many people in rags? What is it
   that makes so many have red eyes, trembling limbs and even delirium
   tremens What is that but playing the fool and losing by it? And what
   will it be when such a man comes to die--a man who has lived without
   God, without Christ and who will be without hope in his death? That
   will be playing the fool with a vengeance! And the Truth of God will
   come home to him that the eternal ruin of his soul is the cost of his
   folly!

   If you were to realize what this kind of "pleasure" means, you would
   have nothing to do with it! When Mount Vesuvius suddenly began pouring
   forth its lava upon Pompeii, most of the inhabitants were assembled in
   the amphitheatre. I have seen the ruins of the place where they were
   gathered. I do not know what spectacle was on at the time, but however
   interesting it may have been, there was not a man, or woman, or child
   who did not run as fast as they could to wherever they hoped they might
   find a place of refuge! A few persons remained in their habitations, or
   were unable to escape--and there they are to this day. Some of their
   bodies have been lately discovered in the very positions in which they
   were overtaken by the eruption. If men were wise, the merriest play
   that ever was acted upon the face of the earth, the richest golden
   gains that ever lay before a merchant, the choicest pleasures that ever
   tempted the human heart would never induce them to tarry till they were
   forever lost--but they would be up and away and never rest till they
   had escaped from the wrath to come!

   Some seem to have no real objective in life. I think I hear someone
   say, "Well, I have cared for none of those things that you have
   mentioned." Where then, my Friend, have you tried to find satisfaction?
   "Oh, I have not troubled my head about that! I just plod along from day
   to day, working hard to earn my daily bread. I do not know that I have
   any ambition in this world except to pay my way, have enough to eat and
   to drink, and clothes to put on, and bring up my children as well as I
   can." Rest assured, my Friend, that I do not despise you for having
   such desires. At the same time, I do think that it is a pity for an
   immortal soul not to have some aim and objective higher and brighter
   than that, for it is pretty nearly the objective of a mill-horse that
   goes round and round in its daily course and never aims at anything
   higher. Your objective is very much like that of a swallow, or a
   sparrow which builds its nest, and lays its eggs and hatches them, and
   sees its young flying off on their own account. Your ambition might be
   suitable for a dog, or a horse, or a cat, but it is not worthy of
   you--a being of a higher order! When I look at you and remember that
   you were made in the image of God, I think that, surely, there must be
   something worth living for--something nobler than this poor ambition of
   yours! I ask you honestly to say whether you have found satisfaction
   there--and I am fully persuaded that you have not.

   There are some who argue that the Gospel cannot bless them. I
   frequently hear this kind of talk from poor working people. One says,
   "Well, Sir, if I were well-to-do, then I think I ought to be a
   Christian, but religion is not for the poor." That is in direct
   opposition to the declaration of Christ, Himself, that "the poor have
   the Gospel preached to them." And to the Inspired question, "Has not
   God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith?" Yet many people will
   have it that the Gospel is not for them because they are so poor!

   I have also heard some say that they are so ignorant that they cannot
   be saved. One says, "I cannot read," and another says, "I can read, but
   I cannot understand what I read in the Bible. And when I go to hear a
   sermon, I cannot make out what is meant by it." They make out that they
   are almost idiots with regard to spiritual matters, yet, on any other
   subject, they would stick up for themselves and try to prove that they
   are almost philosophers! Yet their plea that ignorance prevents them
   from being saved is directly contrary to Scripture, for the Apostle
   Paul, Inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote to the Corinthians, "For you
   see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
   not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God has chosen the
   foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen
   the foolish things of the world to confound the things which are
   mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised,
   has God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to nothing
   things that are: that no flesh should glory in His Presence."

   Then, again, others say that they are too busy to be saved! At least
   that is the practical meaning of their excuse. One says, "Now, do not
   bother me about religion, for I really have not time to think about
   such things as that. See, I have to be up early in the morning and to
   work hard till late at night." Another says, "My business cares are so
   numerous that I cannot get away from the counting-house to go to a
   Prayer Meeting." Ah, dear Friends, but how many people who have not
   been able to find time to pray, have had to find time to die? And how
   very frequently do we see that the very people

   who say that they have not had time to think about the things of God,
   have found plenty of time for indulgence in vice and sinful pleasures!
   That excuse, like the others I have mentioned, will not avail any of
   those who make it. There is time enough for the most hard-worked man to
   lift his eyes to Heaven and to cry, "O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake,
   accept me, for I come to You trusting in His atoning Sacrifice!" With
   many, the excuse is only an excuse, for they do not want Christ and
   they do not believe that there is anything for them in Christ and,
   therefore, they make these vain excuses.

   I have known some even to say that they are too sinful to come to
   Christ--other people may be saved, but they could never be--they have
   gone too far into sin and they are too much involved in sin. They are
   so old and they have so many friends and connections on the side of
   evil. Perhaps they are in a business that is not honest and they are so
   interlaced with bad men that they cannot get out of it. So they
   say--and they will say anything so as to hide that which is really at
   the bottom of their hearts--which is that they do not want Jesus Christ
   to save them. They would rather that He should leave them alone to go
   quietly on their own way, even though that way will inevitably lead
   them to everlasting destruction!

   III. Now, in closing my discourse, I want to tell you WHERE REAL
   SATISFACTION CAN BE FOUND. It came in answer to the prayer of the text.
   "O satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad
   all our days."

   Let me try and teach you, as plainly as I can, the way to find solid
   satisfaction. Friend, you are young and life is before you. You would
   gladly make it a whole life, altogether happy. Begin, then, by
   realizing that there is need for you to seek satisfaction from God. If
   you were an animal, you could be easily satisfied. Sheep and oxen are
   perfectly satisfied if you turn them into a field where there is plenty
   of grass. They never stand and cry, "O satisfy us," but they eat as
   much as they need and then they are perfectly content. But you, though
   placed in a world of wondrous beauty and though, as a man, you are made
   capable of great happiness, have not obtained it! So you may as well
   begin your search for it by the confession that you are a fallen
   creature. You have lost the peerless jewel of innocence. Your first
   father, Adam, lost it as your representative and you have also lost it
   on your own account. If you had not lost it, you would not need to pray
   to God, "O satisfy us early with Your mercy," for you would already be
   satisfied! Adam was satisfied as long as he kept from sinning against
   God--and you, also, would be satisfied if there were no sin in you. Let
   this confession be made by each one of you, "Lord, I am unsatisfied
   because I am unholy. I have not attained to satisfaction because I have
   not attained to perfection."

   Then, remember that if you are ever to get satisfaction, you will have
   to get it from God--and it must come from Him as the gift of His mercy.
   The text says, "O satisfy us early with Your mercy." God has so made us
   that we cannot get on without Him. It is both a blessing and a curse
   that it is so--it is a blessing that we cannot be satisfied without
   God, for that necessity helps to draw us to Him--but it is a curse if
   we continue to try to be satisfied without Him. As the planet needs the
   sun, so man needs his God. As the eye is nothing without light, so your
   spirit is nothing without God. You must have God! Yet, up till now,
   some of you have not even thought of Him. Getting what you needed here
   below has occupied all your attention! But as for God, perhaps you have
   not thought of Him, or if you have thought of Him, you have only done
   so to wish that there were no God. The thought of God has been a
   troublesome subject to you--you wish you could dismiss it altogether
   from your mind. But, my Friend, if you are ever to get satisfaction,
   this state of things must be altered! You must recognize that, as a
   creature, you must be at peace with your Creator. I do not ask you to
   take my word for this assertion, but I do urge you to search the
   Scriptures to see whether it is not so. There you will learn that until
   the quarrel between you and God is ended--until you submit to God and
   are at peace with Him--your soul cannot find rest any more than Noah's
   dove could find rest as she flew over the wild waste of waters and
   discovered no place for the sole of her feet to rest.

   Do not forget that you cannot come back to God unless God shall display
   His mercy to you! If you appeal to Divine Justice, you will find that
   it must punish you, for, young as you are, you have broken God's holy
   Law. You have committed sins which have provoked the Lord to anger and
   jealousy--and before you can be reconciled to Him and have His love
   shed abroad in your heart, these sins of yours must be forgiven. They
   can be forgiven, for God delights in mercy! They can be forgiven now,
   for He waits to be gracious. They can be forgiven without money and
   without price, for He freely pardons all those who put their trust in
   Jesus Christ, His Son!

   But suppose your past sins were all forgiven? You could not, even then,
   get satisfaction because there would still be in you a natural tendency
   to sin. You can, all of you, sin without being taught to do it. There
   is no need to found an institution for the purpose of teaching the
   practice of vice, or to employ agents to excite men to commit crime--he
   natural bias of the human heart is in that direction! Now, as long as
   you love sin and your heart has a bias towards evil, God and you cannot
   walk together. Thousands of years ago He asked the question, "Can two
   walk together except they are agreed?" It is necessary, therefore, that
   there should be a complete change in your nature, for it can never be
   content as it is. Whatever God might give it, even if He were to give
   it Heaven, itself--your nature would never be satisfied while it
   remained as it now is. Your nature is diseased and must be
   healed--otherwise it will be with you as it would be with a sick man if
   you piled up his room with gold, or heaped up learned volumes all
   around him and bade him study them! They would not take away his
   pains--it is the disease, itself, that needs to be cured.

   So is it with the malady of your spirit. You must be make right with
   God or, as Christ Himself put it, you must be born-again. Now, if you
   could be made a new creature with a will perfectly conformed to God's
   will, with a heart that loved what God loved and hated what God hated,
   with a spirit within you as pure as God, Himself, is, with a mind which
   sought only after purity and abhorred everything that was evil, and if,
   in addition to that, all your past sins could be forgiven, would not
   that be a grand and a blessed thing? There is many a man who has lived
   a life of crime and shame, who, when he sees a little curly-headed boy
   kneel down to say his prayers at his mother's knees, remembers when he
   did the same and wishes that he could be put into a mill and be ground
   young again. That is the kind of thing that would give you
   satisfaction--and that is just what Jesus Christ came to do for those
   who believe in Him, for He has come into the world to "save His people
   from their sins." That is, not merely to save them from being punished
   for sin, but to deliver them from the sin itself! He can give you, my
   Friends, a new heart and a right spirit. He says, "Behold, I make all
   things new," and those who believe in Him are made new creatures in
   Christ Jesus!

   "Oh," says one, "I wish I were a new creature in Christ." Why should
   you not be? He that believes in Jesus has the witness of the Spirit
   within his heart and this is a sure sign that he is a new creature in
   Christ Jesus, for the first result of regeneration is true saving
   faith! So, if you trust in Jesus, that is a positive proof that you are
   born-again. Then see what will come of this great change. You will
   begin your new life with a new nature, a nature that loves God and
   hates evil--a nature that longs for conformity with the will of God!
   You will begin your new career "accepted in the Beloved," with a life
   within you that can never die and with a pardon granted to you that can
   never be reversed! You shall be so completely saved that you shall
   never return to the old follies and sins in which you formerly lived
   because you will not be saved because somebody has persuaded you to
   live in a different fashion, but because you have been made altogether
   a new creature!

   "What?" asks someone, "Shall I be perfect when this change comes?" No,
   there is a nature in you which will still remain and with which you
   will have to fight and wrestle. But the new life, which Christ will
   give you, will enable you to overcome it. "Well," says one, "I do not
   see how that is to bring me satisfaction." But it will! This is a great
   mystery, but it is a great Truth of God. Possibly you are dissatisfied
   because you cannot bring the contents of your pocket up to the height
   of your wishes. But if you bring your wishes down to the level of the
   contents of your pocket, you will be satisfied with what you now have!
   You cannot get all that you want, but suppose that your wants are
   reduced to your actual needs? How will it be, then? You cannot, at
   present, expect to have all that your heart desires, but suppose your
   heart is renewed by Grace so that you do not desire what God does not
   see fit to give you--will not that be the way for you to obtain
   satisfaction? If the mountain cannot come to Mahomet, Mahomet had
   better go to the mountain! And if we cannot change our outward
   circumstances, we had better be content with such things as we have.

   We have been born into a world where there is much sin and much sorrow,
   where no man can have all that he wishes--and it is a grand thing when
   our wishes get changed, our desires get altered and we become
   altogether different from what we used to be! This is the path that
   leads to satisfaction! Some people seem to think that if they had what
   I have, they would be perfectly content. But I am quite certain that if
   they had it, they would be utterly dissatisfied with my portion! Yet I
   am perfectly satisfied with it--not perfectly satisfied with myself,
   for that I never shall be while I am down here--but I am perfectly
   satisfied with what God does for me and with me. That satisfaction is
   what every Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has a right to enjoy! And
   when he lives as a Believer should live, he doesenjoy it, and he can
   sing with good Mr. Watts--

   "I would not change my blest estate For all that earth calls good or
   great!

   And while my faith can keep her hold, I envy not the sinner's gold."

   The garden of such a man as I am just now describing is a very little
   one, but he walks in his rich neighbor's park and he thanks God that it
   does not belong to him, for he has not the trouble and expense of
   keeping it in order, yet he can probably enjoy it quite as much as its
   owner can! He goes to the top of a hill and he knows that all he can
   see is in a certain king's dominions, but he is glad that he is not the
   king, for he does not want the trouble of ruling a kingdom! He thanks
   God for the beauties of Nature which are all his--he knows that the
   mountains and the valleys, the sea and the sky are all his because they
   are his Father's, so he may enjoy them to the fullest. He thanks God
   that he does not need to put the sun into his pocket, nor to keep the
   moon in a cupboard all to himself--all things in the world are his as
   much as he needs them, but he rejoices to know that his fellow
   creatures may also enjoy them as much as he does.

   He is brought, by the Grace of God, into such a state of mind that the
   joy of others is his joy, and that the sorrow of others is his sorrow.
   And he would not wish to forego this enlargement and expansion of his
   mind. The Grace of God has put him into such a condition of heart and
   soul that, on the land or on the sea, on a bed of sickness or walking
   about with the elasticity of health, he says, "It is all right, for my
   Father has ordained it all. He gives or He takes away. He kills or He
   makes alive and as He does it, all is well and I am perfectly satisfied
   with it--and as long as I live, I will bless His holy name." Now, that
   is the truly happy man and this is the only way to be really happy!
   Trust in Jesus, rest wholly upon Him and He will renew your spirit and
   change your heart--and with that change of heart He will give you
   capacities for happiness which you never can have in any other way!

   My dear young Friends, I want to speak these last few words especially
   to you. If my older friends here are not yet converted, I pray that
   they may soon be saved and I thank God that we have seen many such
   saved. No old man or old woman has any need or reason to despair! I
   have seen people of 70 and 80 years of age--and more than
   that--converted to Christ. He does not limit His Grace to any age. If
   you were 5,000 years old, I would be bound to preach the same Gospel to
   you as if you were a little child--whatever your age, believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved! But, at the same time, we
   cannot make you old people begin life again. We cannot take you back to
   the years of youth. Possibly you wish that we could! But as for you
   young people, we long for you to be satisfied early with God's mercy,
   that you may rejoice and be glad all your days! Are you fifteen, or 16
   years of age? There was a time, I daresay, when you thought your
   brother was wonderfully old because he had got into his teens--but you
   do not feel very old, do you? But you think you will have reached a
   great age when you get to be forty! Perhaps, then, you will think that
   it is the people of sixty, or seventy, or eighty, or 90 years of age
   who are getting old, and not you! But let me assure you that now, now,
   NOW is your time!

   I would not, God knows, deceive you about this matter for all the
   wealth there is in the world. I have known the Lord, blessed be His
   name, since I was 15 years of age, and there has never been a moment
   since then, in which I have regretted putting my trust in Him. A great
   many times I have mourned that I did not trust Him sooner and that I
   have not trusted Him better--but never once have I wished to go back to
   my former condition and leave my dear Lord and Master! You know that we
   sometimes hear servants speak well of their master before other
   people's faces--when they think their master will hear of it. But when
   they get together, a lot of them around the fire, no telling what they
   say about their master, then! But when you gather around the fire, or
   when you meet with any of my particular friends, ask them whether they
   ever heard me say a word, in public or in private, against my Master!
   On the contrary, I love to tell everybody how kind and good He has been
   to me--and to my most intimate friends I delight to relate all that I
   know about Him. I can tell you one thing, if a man serves a master who
   treats him badly, he will not be likely to bring his boy to that place
   of business--but it is my greatest delight to see my two boys serving
   my dear Lord and Master! If He had been a bad Master to me, I would
   have said to them, "Now, boys, do not, either of you, make the mistake
   that I have made in serving the Lord Jesus Christ as I have done." Oh,
   no, they have never heard me talk like that! They know how I rejoiced
   when I found them believing in Jesus Christ and afterwards beginning to
   do what they could in His service! Young people, your godly mothers and
   fathers would not be anxious to make you miserable. You have no idea
   that they want you to be wretched and sad, have you? No, but it is
   because they have found such supreme delight in the service of God that
   they want you to find your delight in it, too! I have gone up and down
   this country and traveled a good deal in other countries, too, and I
   think I may say, without exaggeration, that I have talked with many
   thousands of Christians

   and I have heard some strange things from some of them--but, up to this
   moment, I have never met with any Christians who have said to me, "We
   are all mistaken, after all. There is no solid satisfaction to be found
   in Jesus Christ."

   I have seen some of these Christians at the time when men's hearts
   speak out, if ever they do! I have seen them die. I have visited the
   dear consumptive girl in her last hours and I have been with the
   gray-headed saint who has passed his fourscore years, when the time
   came for him to die! It has been my lot to stand by many death beds and
   I can honestly say that if I wanted to enjoy the most intense pleasure
   that is possible on earth, I would seek out some dying saint that I
   might witness his rapturous joy and hear his gladsome and cheering
   testimony to his Lord and Savior! A man usually speaks the truth when
   he comes face to face with death and eternity is opening before him.
   Most men put off their masquerading, then, and appear in their true
   colors. And it is then that Christians speak best concerning Christ!
   And often the loudest songs and the sweetest praise that they have ever
   given to Him, they lay at His feet, then, just before they go away from
   earth to go to be with Him forever!

   Dear young Friends, the way of the highest happiness is the way of
   absolute trust in Jesus, giving yourself up to the renewing of the Holy
   Spirit that you may become new creatures in Christ Jesus! May God, in
   His Infinite mercy, grant that this great work of Grace may be worked
   in every unsaved soul in this assembly before you leave this building!
   And it will be if you simply rely upon the finished work of the Lord
   Jesus Christ, who will then take you by the hand and make all things
   new to you. God grant it, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.

   --Adapted from The C. HI. 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.
     __________________________________________________________________

Great Pardon for Great Sin

   (No. 2988)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1862.

   "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great."
   Psalm 25:11.

   THIS striking prayer is hemmed in, as it were, between two promises. It
   looks like a fossil embedded in a mass of stone! What is the meaning of
   it being here? Why is it put in such a peculiar position? The Psalmist
   is both praising and preaching--how is it that he turns to praying?
   Beloved, I think it was to teach us that prayer is never out of place.
   When the Apostle Paul was writing the most doctrinal of his Epistles,
   he sometimes paused in the midst of them to offer a supplication, as
   when he said, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our
   Lord Jesus Christ." When engaged in any holy duties, you may even
   refrain from praise for a moment in order to present a prayer to God.
   Nor would it be amiss for us, sometimes, to break the thread of a
   sermon, that the people might pause and join with the preacher in
   asking God's blessing upon the message of mercy and upon all who hear
   it. Certainly, my dear Friends, you will never find any time
   inopportune for prayer if your heart is true and your faith in full
   force.

   The Mohammedans have their fixed hours for prayer and when they hear
   the signal from the minaret of the mosque, wherever they may be--in the
   street or in the market place--they bow their heads to Allah and repeat
   their form of prayer. Without their boastful showiness, you may "pray
   everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting." We need
   not be confined to special seasons when a summons is given, but, at all
   times and in every place, we may "continue in prayer, and watch in the
   same with thanksgiving." When your hands are measuring out your goods,
   when they are pushing the plane, or driving the nail--when you are
   driving the plow, or threshing the corn--if you are speeding along the
   iron way, or walking among the cornfields, your heart may have
   fellowship with Him--

   "Who is within no walls confined, But habits the humble mind"-- who
   counts all places holy where men are holy, and all spots suitable
   places for prayer when the heart is in a prayerful frame! My Soul, wait
   upon God in your daily calling and think not that you can ever approach
   Him at an unseasonable hour, or lift up your cry to Him when He is
   otherwise engaged, so that He cannot attend to your petition!

   Were it necessary to my present purpose to explain the connection of
   this prayer with the scope of the Psalm, it would not be difficult. The
   promise that the Psalmist had just recited is, "unto such as keep His
   Covenant." It was the besetting sin of Israel to break the Covenant. Do
   you not see that the condition here mentioned would shut the door of
   hope to many? The greatness of the promise often stirs up our deepest
   anxieties, lest any of us should seem to come short of it. Depend upon
   it, Brothers and Sisters, that the prayer for pardon which is never
   unfitting at any time, can never be more fitting than when our hearts
   are lifted up with the loftiest apprehension of God's Covenant!

   My principal aim tonight, however, is to bring my Hearers and myself,
   all of us, to feel with David that our iniquity is great. When I have
   done this, I shall very briefly try to show how the very greatness of
   our iniquity may become a plea with God--"Pardon my iniquity, for it is
   great." And I shall close with some earnest entreaties to those who
   have never sought pardon for sin, to seek it now.

   I. Well then, first, DAVID DECLARED THAT HIS INIQUITY WAS GREAT.

   The word used in the original conveys the idea of quantity as well as
   of quality. Not simply was his sin great in its atrocity, but there was
   very much of it! Any one sin was great, but it was not merely one, but
   ten thousand times ten thousand in multitude! His sin was as great in
   its bulk as it was black in its heinousness. Now, I do not know,
   although

   David had one very terrible fall, that any humble-minded person here
   would consider himself to be superior to David. He was a man after
   God's own heart and, notwithstanding the great blot upon this sun, we
   would not hesitate to say he is a sun for all that. For David presents
   a character so admirable, so all but matchless in the harmony of the
   different Graces that we think he certainly approaches very near to his
   great Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly, if David felt his iniquity
   to be great, it would be very foul presumption in any of us to think
   ours to be little! At any rate, we must come out, one by one, and say,
   "I reckon myself to be a better man than David was," or else we ought
   to subscribe heartily with our hand to the Truth of God that if David's
   was great, our iniquity must be great, too!

   But leaving David out of the question--not comparing ourselves with
   others--we will draw some few pictures by which the greatness of our
   iniquity may be seen. Our sin is great when we consider against Whom it
   is committed. In an army, if a soldier strikes his comrade, it is, of
   course, a misdemeanor. But if he should strike some petty officer, it
   is considered to be a more grievous offense. And if he should strike
   the commander-in-chief, it would become so great a crime that I know
   not what penalty short of death might be awarded to it! Now, in the
   world of morals, as God sees it, there is much difference in sin when
   we consider the difference in the person against whom it is committed.
   You and I think the worst sin is the one that hurts usthe most!

   We have heard, I daresay, the story of the lawyer who was waited upon
   by a farmer, who asked him what would be the penalty for a man whose
   horse was always going into his neighbor's field and eating his corn.
   He had warned him several times and told him it was the result of his
   broken fence which he ought to have mended. The lawyer said, "Of
   course, there would be a considerable fine, no doubt." "Well, Sir," the
   farmer said, "it is yourhorse that has done this." "Oh," said our
   friend the solicitor, "that is quite a different question. I did not
   know it was myhorse before I gave my opinion." So it is, generally,
   with regard to anything that is done amiss--if it hurts you, or if it
   hurts me--we feel very indignant about it. But if it only offends the
   Majesty of Heaven, we make light of it! What fools we are! If it shall
   offend such puny, insignificant creatures as we are, there is something
   seriously wrong in it--but if the Divine Majesty is insulted, we pass
   it by as though it were a mere trifle!

   There really is a difference in the sin according to the person against
   whom it is committed. I will put it thus. A man has just now been
   striking another--striking him with an intent to do him harm. "That is
   bad," you say. "Yes, but it was his own father that he struck." "Yes,"
   now you say, "that is far worse for him to have injured the man whom he
   ought to have loved and honored."

   So, since God is our Creator, any attack that is made upon His
   government, any willful violation of His Law is aggravated by the fact
   that we owe Him such unfounded allegiance! "It is He that has made us,
   and not we ourselves! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture."
   Sinners, did you ever think of this? You have offended Him who made
   you, in whose hands your breath is and under whose control are all your
   ways. When you have used profane words, it has been against the High
   and Lofty One, against Jehovah, who rides upon the sky and launches
   abroad His thunderbolts and shakes Heaven and earth with His terrible
   voice! Against Him, before whom the holy angels veil their faces, and
   humbly bow themselves, unworthy to lick the dust of His feet--it is
   against God that you have offended! Sinner, you think this is a little
   matter, but I tell you that it is the fact that makes your iniquity
   great!

   Yet further, sin derives some degree of its sinfulness from the fact
   that it is at once against a most just and equitable Law.We sometimes
   read in the newspapers that persons are severely punished for offenses
   against the game laws of our country. Well, I suppose it is a very
   wicked thing to shoot another person's hares and pheasants and
   partridges. Were I a preserver of game, I daresay I would consider the
   offense of the tenant farmer who shot a bird that was feeding on his
   corn, to be very aggravated. As I am not, I do not particularly see its
   flagrant character. No doubt it is wrong, though it looks to me more
   like a misdemeanor than a felony. When a law is proved to be harsh and
   severe, there will always be some mitigation in our judgment of the
   culpability of breaking it. If we consider such-and-such a law hard and
   tyrannical, not suited to the times and out of keeping with the age,
   then we say, when a person breaks it, "Well, he had better not have
   done it--it is an offense against statute law and he ought not to have
   committed it." Still, we do not think it to be so black as when the
   offense is against a just, equitable, proper and righteous law which
   harmonizes with strict, unvarying equity. Now, such is the Law of God.

   What can be more fitting than the law of the Ten Commandments?
   Infidelity itself has burned pale before those Ten Commandments. We
   have heard of men who have attempted to improve the Law of God by a new
   commandment and

   have found themselves unable to do it, for they perceived it to be so
   complete that it embraced all forms of criminality. Those who have
   abhorred other parts of Scripture have said, as they read the ten
   precepts, "These are just and righteous." They are, indeed, the
   fundamental stones of natural morality! They are such as even Nature,
   itself, would approve to be right and proper for the government of the
   world. Well then, Sirs, if you have broken these good commandments. If
   you have run your head against these holy, just, and righteous
   precepts, your iniquity is great! If you could turn to any Law of God,
   and say, "This is harsh, this is tyrannical," there might be some
   excuse for you--but those commandments were made for your good! If you
   keep them, they will bring you their own reward. If you break them,
   they will bring their own penalty into your body, mind and heart. Why,
   then, have you been so foolish as to violate them? Assuredly, in so
   doing, your iniquity has become heavy as a millstone and if it is about
   your neck when you come to die, it will sink you in the floods forever!

   But, dear Friends, we ought, each of us, to remember that our sin is
   all the greater because it has been committed by us,for sometimes an
   offense is all the worse because of the person who has committed it.
   When the noble Caesar saw Brutus stab him, he said, "And you, Brutus!"
   There was force in his dying words, for Brutus had been his dear
   friend, one who owed no little to him and, surely, the Lord might say
   to us, when we sin, "And you, too. And you! You whom I have fed day by
   day. You who are clothed by My charity and nourished by My bounty! You,
   living in this fair province of the universe which is called the world,
   this beautiful fair round green earth! You--partakers of such
   innumerable favors--you sin against Me?" Ah, Christians, you who are
   Heaven's favorites, you who are allowed to enter into the Lord's
   cabinet councils and to understand the secrets of His Covenant, you who
   are Christ's own spouse, the bride of the Prince of Heaven--your sin is
   all the blacker because of that light of His Countenance in which it
   has been your privilege to walk!

   But to hurry on, as I throw off these hints to be worked out in your
   own minds rather than to be dwelt upon in my discourse, let me remind
   you again that our sin is certainly very great because of the amount of
   it. Innumerable times have we transgressed. It is not as though we had
   done wrong onceand then washed our hands of it. Who can count his
   errors? What man can tell the number of the small dust of his
   transgressions? As for the drops of dew twinkling in the morning light,
   as for the drops of the ocean making that vast flood, as for the stars
   of Heaven and the sand of the seashore--the incalculable number of all
   these sinks into insignificance when compared with the infinite host of
   our transgressions against You, O God of Heaven and earth! This very
   day, have there not been more sins than moments, more transgressions
   than heartbeats, more offenses than pulses? God only knows the total of
   the sins of man! Only His Infinite mind can reckon the iniquity that
   crops forth from the polluted soil and wells up from the deep spring of
   depravity that is hidden in the very core of our corrupt nature! Count
   your sins if you can, O you children of God, and then fall on your
   knees, bow your heads, cover your faces and say, "Our iniquity is
   indeed great."

   Nor is this all. We ought also to remember that we have sinned and
   offended without any provocation. When a poor wretch, pinched with
   hunger, snatches a loaf from a bake shop and eats it ravenously in the
   street, what magistrate could forbear to treat him leniently? But when
   a rascal does a wanton mischief without cause, or commits a willful
   robbery without conscience, what defense can he set up? With such utter
   defiance of law and order, we have patience and we say, "Let the full
   punishment fall upon his guilty head." And that is what you and I have
   done--we have sinned for sinning's sake. When we spent our money in
   sin, it was for that which is not bread, and our labor of iniquity was
   for that which did not profit us. You and I have not been gainers by
   all that we have done amiss. There may have been times when you had the
   excuse of getting something by sin, but not always. For instance, what
   excuse is there for swearing? Lust may plead a pleasure, wine may ease
   a pain, avarice has an eye to gain, but the cheap swearer, from his
   open sluice, lets his soul run out in sorry curses, losing all the
   patience he possesses for the mere sake of venting forth black and ugly
   words that have no meaning. This is infamous! What if I say it is
   infernal to sin for the mere sake of sinning? We heard of one, the
   other day, who said, when reproved for cursing, that he would continue
   to swear--yes, if he had an angel on each shoulder, he would still go
   on cursing! There seem to be some of this sort who, for the mere sake
   of dabbling in the mire, will do it and, in truth, we have all, in our
   time, sinned in open defiance of the Almighty and, therefore, our
   iniquity is heavy.

   Sons of men, I put it to you, as one of yourselves and, therefore,
   willing to be your advocate--but I must rather take up the cause of Him
   against whom we have offended--what has He ever done to us that we
   should hate Him? He has

   made us, fed us, clothed us--for which of these good works do we forget
   Him? He has sent His Son to redeem His people--is this a cause why we
   should despise Him? He follows us day after day with invitations of
   mercy, stirs up our consciences, hedges up the road to Hell as though
   He would not let us perish--for which of these things do we requite Him
   with evil? What has the Most High done to provoke you? Has He ever done
   you a displeasure? In what respect has He thwarted you except for your
   good? What pleasure that is a real pleasure has He denied you? Is His
   yoke heavy? Is His burden intolerable? Are His Commandments like the
   whips of Solomon, or His Laws like the scorpion of Rehoboam? Has He
   made His little finger thicker than the wires of human law? Do you not
   know that men, in superstition, will make laws ten times harder than
   God's Laws ever were--and will keep them? It cannot, therefore, be that
   God has thus offended you. O why then, sons of men, do we despise our
   God? What can there be so good in sin that we will have it and God's
   anger with it? What can there be so sweet in Hell that we choose it and
   despise the glories of Heaven? Verily, in this arrant folly, this
   flagrant malice, this frantic madness, our iniquity is indeed great!

   Yet further, what if I should say that we have gone on in sin after we
   have, some of us, known and felt the evil of it? I speak advisedly when
   I appeal to almost all of you now present and ask--must not your
   iniquity be great because it was not done in ignorance? Many here were
   nursed in the lap of godliness. Your sins, therefore, are 10 times
   heavier than other men's! The lamp of the sanctuary lit some of us to
   our cradles. The hush of lullaby had the name of Jesus mingled with it.
   Perhaps the first song we learned to sing was concerning the children's
   best Friend. The first book that we began to read contained His sweet
   name and many were the times when we were pressed by godly ones to
   think of Jesus and to give our young hearts to Him. But we put bitter
   for sweet and sweet for bitter, darkness for light and light for
   darkness--and knowing the good from the evil, we did willfully choose
   to do that which is wrong. Ah, for this thing, when we have sinned
   against light and knowledge, does not our transgression become greater
   than that of the people of Tyre and Sidon who perished in their sin?

   And then, when we had learned by experience, as well as by education,
   that sin was bitter, we still went on in it. There is a young man
   yonder who went astray once and smarted for it--and he thought he would
   never be such a fool again. But it has happened to him according to the
   true proverb, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again and the sow
   that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." Some men seem only to
   get out of one ditch to roll into another! There are plenty of persons
   who, when they put their fingers in the fire and burn them, run and get
   them bound up and healed, only to go to the next fire and thrust in,
   not their finger, this time, but their arms up to their elbows! Take
   care that one of these days, Man, you do not have your body and soul
   consumed in that fire which can never be quenched! How foolish some are
   who have been in the spendthrift line! After they have emptied their
   pockets and found themselves beggars, they have gone to their friends
   who used to take a glass with them--such jolly companions, such dear
   friends as they used to be--but they do not know them now. "Oh, no!"
   they say, and give them the cold shoulder, now that their clothes begin
   to look a little out at elbows. I have seen these people get employment
   again and throw themselves out of it by their ill character. I have
   seen them get a respectable situation perhaps two or three times and
   then go and ruin themselves all over again--and still expect their
   friends to set them up once more--set them up on purpose that they may
   have the pleasure of tumbling down! When men do this so many times,
   certainly their iniquity becomes heavy.

   I have put the case strongly concerning one or two delinquents. They
   are, however, only representatives of us all, for when we have smarted
   for an offense, we have committed it again. Burnt children are afraid
   of the fire, but burnt sinners are not--they will go to the fire again,
   like the moth which gets to the candle, singes her wings and flies off
   a little--but she must go again and if you lift her out of the melted
   grease around the light, she will fly back again the first opportunity
   she gets, as if she thought it her ambition and her life's best glory
   to be consumed in the fire! Iniquity is indeed great when it is
   committed against experience! Men deliberately run upon the pikes of
   damnation--they destroy their own souls by a sort of spiritual suicide!

   At times, men's offenses to their fellow men lose some of their
   guiltiness by an apology. Why, sometimes, when we have been aggrieved
   by some little offense and a proper apology has been promptly made, we
   could have wished we had never taken notice of it, for we did not like
   to see the good man so sorry about it. We freely forgave him, and felt
   as if we did not need him even to feel that he had done wrong because
   he took it too much to heart, so we passed over the offense because of
   the repentance. But how great is the guilt of that man who, having
   sinned, refuses to repent? And is not this exactly the case of many
   here present--sinning from your cradles, but never repenting?
   Repentance is hidden from your

   eyes--you go on from bad to worse, from dark to deeper stains. The
   Ethiopian has not changed his skin, nor the leopard his spots. You have
   sought no physician for your healing. You have let the deadly gangrene
   grow yet more putrid, until the whole head is sick and the whole heart
   faint. Careless Sinner, I would that I could play the part of Mr. John
   Bunyan's Captain Boanerges and his ensign, Mr. Thunder, and run up the
   black colors before your eyes, bearing as the escutcheon the flaming
   thunderbolts of God's Justice! You who will not repent must incur the
   fierce wrath of God. Lo, He has bent His bow and made it ready! He has
   fitted His arrow to the string--He takes aim at you tonight! The arrow
   shall soon fly and reach your heart! Oh, that you had Grace given you
   to repent! O Spirit of God, break the man's heart! Take hold of Your
   great hammer with which You do cleave mountains and dash that heart in
   pieces, that the sinner may cry out, "Pardon my iniquity, for it is
   great."

   With some men, their iniquity becomes all the greater because they have
   sinned against promises which they have made, vows which have been
   registeredin Heaven and covenants which they have signed with the Most
   High. You know who I mean. You were ill with the fever some few years
   ago--you were given up! You turned your face to the wall and you
   remember how, in the bitterness of your soul, you cried, "O God, if you
   will but spare me, mine shall be another and a better life for the
   future!" You were spared, but your life has been worse, rather than
   better. You remember, too, when the cholera was abroad and there were
   many falling on the right hand and on the left--you were terrified and
   alarmed-- and you sought God after a sort and told Him that if He would
   but spare your life, that life would be spent in His service. What have
   you been doing since then? It is true that you sometimes go to the
   House of God, but it is only in the evening when you have made your
   money in the morning! You do not mind giving God the tail end of
   Sunday! The first two or three weeks after you got better, the shutters
   were up, there was no rioting, no swearing, no loose conversation. Your
   neighbors said, "What has come over the fellow? He is quite a different
   man." Yes, you had another heart for the time, but not a newheart--and
   now you are as reckless as ever. Do you think God has forgotten your
   promises? Do you think that registered covenant of yours has been
   blotted out? No, Sinner, no! It stands fast against you to make your
   guilt more infamous and your transgressions more heavy. Take heed! Take
   heed! Take heed! When God shall hold it up against you, at the last
   tremendous day, you will read your doom in that broken promise--in that
   lie which has been uttered against the God of Grace and goodness!

   Most of us, at some time or other, have sinned thus against resolutions
   and promises and, consequently, our iniquities are heavy. O dear
   Friends, I have a task too hard for me in such a subject as this! When
   I talk of the glories of the love of Christ, I feel at home. When I
   speak of the matchless Grace of the Everlasting Covenant, my heart is
   well at ease. But to prove man's sin heavy is a task too hard for me!
   Not that it is hard in itself. The evidence is clear, but to procure a
   conviction is the difficulty. The jury is not impartial. Your
   conscience is like an unjust judge. Oh, how hard it is to make any man
   believe himself to be so bad as the Word of God says he is! None but
   the Spirit of God can make a man call himself a sinner and mean it.
   Nothing but the Irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit can ever
   bring a man as low as the Word of God would have him lie. If you can
   feel, in your soul, tonight, that your iniquity is great, that it
   deserves God's wrath, displeasure and punishment--if you can pray from
   your very heart, "O Lord, pardon You my iniquity, for it is great"--I
   shall have hope of you that the first sparks of the Divine Light have
   fallen into your soul, never to be quenched, but to blaze out in the
   brightness of salvation forever!

   II. I shall now turn, very briefly, to the second part of my
   subject--to show how THERE IS A PLEA IN THE VERY GREATNESS OF OUR SIN.

   Is not this a very strange text? Look at it again. One needs to read it
   over 20 times. Is it really so written, "Pardon my iniquity, for it is
   great!" Can you believe your own eyes? Imagine a prisoner at the Old
   Bailey pleading with the judge that he would kindly let him off because
   he was such a great offender! We would think that it would be a very
   legitimate reason why he should not be pardoned. The pith, however, of
   the whole text lies in those words which we sometimes forget to quote,
   "For Your name's sake." That alters it. It is now an argument--it was
   not before. "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it
   is great."

   Let me show you that there is a plea here. If salvation were by merit,
   then, supposing all men to have fallen and none of them to have any
   merit, yet it would be a rule that the man who was the least offender
   should have the first turn at being saved. If the choice of God
   depended in any way upon man's condition, we would naturally expect
   that the man who had the least sin would be forgiven first, for,
   putting all on an equal basis in all other respects, the choice, if
   made at all, with reference to the man, would naturally be the choice
   of the man who had committed the least iniquity. But, dear Friends,
   please remember that in the Covenant of Christ and the way of
   salvation, the choice is made upon reverse principles--not according to
   man's merit, but according to God's Glory. The aim, end, and objective
   of God in salvation is to glorify His own Character! Therefore, if His
   choice may be said to be guided by any principles which we can at all
   understand, that choice would be guided to select those who would the
   most magnify His Grace and glorify His own name. Well now, if God would
   do that great work of pardoning sin in such a way as to glorify His own
   name, the most fitting persons to be saved are the biggest sinners!

   Let me put it thus. Here is a number of persons and they are all sick.
   And here is a physician who intends to get a name for himself. He is
   full of benevolence and kindness, but, at the same time, one part of
   his objective is to get a name. Now, you will perceive that in the
   selection of his patients, he will not pick out a man who has a sore
   finger, for it will never tell very much to his credit that he healed a
   man who had a sore finger. But there will be, perhaps, a few cases
   among the sick of a very extraordinary sort. Some of them will have an
   affliction, a disease quite unknown to the faculty. Medicines have been
   tried, but their cases have been so stubborn that the best doctors have
   given them up as hopeless. Now, the physician says, "These are the
   cases that I will select." Granting that he is able to cure whomever he
   wills, you can see that if the objective is his own glory, he would
   rather take those in which there is the most room for the display of
   the healing art than those who have the least sickness and might be the
   most readily cured.

   Yet again. Suppose a man means to have a character for generosity.
   There are a number of debtors assembled and he is determined to
   discharge their liabilities. There is a man who owes sixpence and
   another who owes a pound. Well now, if he pays their debts, he will
   never have much credit for liberality there! But another man comes in
   who is head over heels in debt. What is the sum he owes? Fifty thousand
   pounds? Let us say a hundred thousand pounds! Let us say half a
   million! Well, now, here is the opportunity for the liberal man to
   display his liberality because here there is room for it! So is it in
   Divine Grace. You, proud Pharisee, come to God and say, "Lord, I thank
   You that I am not as other men." And He replies, "Then there is no room
   in you for My Grace to work." But yonder poor publican dares not lift
   so much as his eyes towards Heaven, but smites upon his breast and
   cries, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!" "There is a case for Me,"
   says Sovereign Mercy--and the pardon comes to the poor sinful publican!

   Mark, when I speak of sinners, I do not mean merely those who have been
   great sinners, or those who have been, in comparison with others,
   little sinners, but I mean those who feel themselvesto be great
   sinners. I say the more we feel our guilt, the more fit we are for
   mercy. The more broken down we are with hopelessness on account of our
   own lost estate, the more room there is for the triumphs of Christ's
   Grace. Now, there is many a moral man here tonight who never offended
   against the laws of his land, or the laws of outward propriety, yet he
   feels himself to be as black as Hell. Well then, there is room in him
   for Grace to glorify itself! We have noticed that men of the worst
   character are often the most self-righteous. There is many a Pharisee
   whose morals would not pass muster though he vaunts his piety as a
   harlot flaunts her broidery and many a scamp who would be a disgrace to
   the meanest society if his character were known, brazens it out as
   though he never had offended against a single Law of God. Again, I say
   you who feel that you are the very chief of sinners! You who groan and
   mourn on account of sin, be not silenced at the Mercy Seat because of
   the greatness of your guilt! But rather, with the inimitable skill of
   the Syrophenician woman, turn the very desperateness of your case into
   a reason why the Lord should save you!

   Now tonight, upon your knees, wrestle with the God of Mercy, and say,
   "Pardon me, for my transgression is great. And my Hell will be great.
   But if You will save me, Your honor will be great! If You will redeem
   me, the power of Your blood will be great! If You will give me a new
   heart, the transforming power of Your Spirit will be great! O God, save
   me! God be merciful to me, a sinner!" This is, as Luther says, to cut
   off the devil's head with his own sword. When the devil says to you,
   "You are a sinner," say to him, "I am, and Christ died to save
   sinners." And when he says, "But you are a big sinner, you are a
   Jerusalem sinner, a bigger sinner than any other," say to him, "Yes,
   that is true, but Jesus said 'that repentance and remission of sins
   should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at
   Jerusalem.'"

   I have tried, and I am trying, to preach a wide Gospel. I do not like
   to have a net with such big meshes that the fish get through. I think I
   may catch you all if the Lord wills. If the vilest are not shut out,
   then you are not shut out, Friends. And if you believe in Christ with
   all your heart, you shall be saved! But oh, what if you should say, "I
   care not for forgiveness. I do not want pardon, I will not seek it! I
   will not have it--I love my sins--I love myself"? O Sinner,

   then, by that deathbed of yours where you shall see your dreadful sins
   in another light. By that resurrection of yours where you shall see
   eternity to be no trifle. By that doom of yours. By the last dread
   thunders. By the awful sentence, "Depart, you cursed," of the Judge, I
   beseech you, do me but this one favor! Acknowledge that you had an
   invitation tonight and that it was affectionately pressed upon you. I
   have told you, in God's name, that your sin is not a trifle with
   God--that it is not a matter to be laughed at or to be whistled over. I
   have told you that the greatness of your sin need not shut you out.
   What is needed is that the Spirit of God should teach you these things
   in your heart. But do remember, if your ears refuse these Truths of
   God, and if you reject them, we are a sweet savor unto Christ as well
   in them that perish as in them that are saved! But woe unto you--woe
   unto you, who, with the Gospel ringing in your ears, go down to Hell!"
   Verily, verily, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom
   and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment, than for you! May God save you,
   for Jesus' sake! Amen!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 10:1-15.

   Verse 1. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israelis
   that they might be saved. Let this be our "heart's desire and prayer to
   God for Israel." Sorrows upon sorrows have come to the Lord's ancient
   people even down to this day--and they have been scattered and peeled,
   and rent and torn in almost every land. Who does not pity their griefs
   and woes? Let it be our heart's desire and daily prayer for Israel that
   they may be saved through faith in the Messiah whom they have so long
   rejected.

   2. For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God but not
   according to knowledge. In Paul's day, they were most diligent in the
   observance of every form of outward devotion--and many of them
   sincerely desired to be right with God. But they did not know how to
   attain the desired end.

   3. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to
   establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
   the righteousness of God. Perhaps I am addressing some who are very
   anxious to be right with God. They are by no means hypocrites, but are
   really awakened to a sense of their danger, yet they cannot get peace
   of mind. And the reason is that, like the Israelites, they are "going
   about to establish their own righteousness." "Going about"--that is to
   say, struggling, striving, searching, worrying themselves to get a
   righteousness of their own which they will never obtain--and being
   ignorant of "the righteousness of God" which is completed in Christ and
   which is freely bestowed upon all who believe in Him. Alas, they "have
   not submitted themselves unto this righteousness of God" and there is a
   kind of hidden meaning in the Apostle's expression. They are so proud
   that they will not submit to be saved by the righteousness of another,
   even though that other is the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself. Yet this is
   the main point--the submission of our proud will to the righteousness
   of God.

   4. For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that
   believes. Christ is the ultimatum of the Law of God and when we go to
   the Law, accepted and protected by Him, we present to the Law all that
   it can possibly demand of us. Christ has fulfilled the Law on behalf of
   all who believe in Him, so that its curse is abolished for all of us
   who approach it through Christ.

   5-9. For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the Law, that
   the man which does those things shall live by them. But the
   righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say not in your
   heart, Who shall ascendinto Heaven; (that is, to bring Christ down from
   above) or, Who shall descend into the deep (that is, to bring up Christ
   again from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, even
   in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we
   preach; that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and
   shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you
   shall be saved. "The righteousness which is of faith" is quite another
   thing from the righteousness which is of the Law of God. It is not a
   thing of doing, and living by doing, but of trusting, and living
   forever by trusting. What are you doing--you who would gladly clamber
   up to the stars, or you who would plunge into the abyss? There is
   nothing for you to do! There is nothing for you to feel! There is
   nothing for you to be in order that God may accept you! But, just as
   you are, if you will receive Christ into your heart and confess Him
   with your mouth, you shall be saved! Oh, this glorious way of the
   salvation of sinners--so simple, yet so safe--so plain, yet so
   sublime--

   for me to lay aside my own righteousness and just take the
   righteousness of Christ and be covered with it from head to foot! I may
   well be willing to lay aside myown righteousness, for it is a mass of
   filthy rags, fit only to be burned!

   10-14. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the
   mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says,
   whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed. For there is no
   difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is
   rich unto all that call upon Him. For whoever shall call upon the name
   of the Lord shall be saved. How, then, shall they call on Him in whom
   they have not believed?How can there be true prayer where there is no
   faith? How shall I truly pray to God if I do not really believe in Him?
   "For he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a
   rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."

   14. And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? We
   must know what it is that we are to believe--and knowing it we shall be
   helped by the Holy Spirit to believe it.

   14. And how shall they hear without a preacher? If the Word of the Lord
   does not get to a man either by the living voice, or by the printing
   press, which often takes the preacher's place, how is he to believe it?
   You see here what I have often called "the whole machinery of
   salvation." First comes the preacher proclaiming the Gospel. Then comes
   the sinner listening to it. Then comes the hearer believingit and, in
   consequence, calling upon the name of the Lord as one who is saved with
   His everlasting salvation!

   15. And how shall they preach, except they are sent Here is the great
   engine at the back of all the machinery--God sending the preacher--God
   blessing the Word--God working faith in the heart of them that hear it!

   15. As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach
   the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
     __________________________________________________________________

Near the Kingdom, or in It?

   (No. 2989)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 24, 1875.

   "You are not fair from the Kingdom of God." Mark 12:34.

   IN certain respects, all men are alike--alike fallen and alike needing
   the Savior. Hence we have not 20 gospels, but only one--and we have not
   the Gospel graduated to scale to suit different classes of society, or
   different conditions of morality. We have the same Christ to set before
   sinners of every sort as their only hope--and the same message to
   proclaim to everyone of them, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you
   shall be saved."

   At the same time, we would make a very great mistake if we dealt with
   everybody in precisely the same way, for all human beings are not
   exactly alike and our Savior, Himself, drew distinctions concerning
   those who came to Him while He was upon the earth. He uttered very
   strong language to some of the scribes, but He used a very different
   tone in addressing the particular scribe to whom He said, "You are not
   far from the Kingdom of God."

   There is no doubt that there are some sinners who are very far from the
   Kingdom of God--by their wicked works, they have gone away even further
   than they were by nature. They have added to the original sin which was
   theirs by birth, all the corruptions which have come of evil habits
   and, with their backs to the Light of God, they have gone further and
   further into the darkness of the night of sin. There are others, who
   through the restraining Grace of God, have never done this. They are
   fallen creatures, it is true, but still, there are many beautiful
   points in their character. Indeed, they are so amiable that even Jesus,
   when looking upon one such young man, loved him, though He had to say
   even to him--"One thing you lack." The lack of that one thing was
   fatal! Still, Christ recognized the good that there was in him and I
   feel sure that He would have His ministers and all who try to bring
   souls to Him, act in the same way. Besides, a point is gained with a
   man if you frankly recognize whatever there is about him that is
   satisfactory--and he will be the more likely to listen to you when you
   point out his defects and show him wherein his character still falls
   short of what it ought to be. Fully believing that I have many in this
   congregation who are "not far from the Kingdom of God," I shall speak
   especially to them, or, rather, I pray that the Holy Spirit will speak
   to them through me, for it is HE who speaks with power to the heart and
   conscience!

   I shall first describe the condition in which this man was. Then,
   secondly, point out its dangers. And, thirdly, note its encouragements.

   I. First, then, let me DESCRIBE THE CONDITION IN WHICH THIS MAN WAS.
   "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."

   Christ spoke thus to him and, as He was able to read the man's heart,
   he could tell, with absolute accuracy, the condition in which the man
   was. And He is able to read all our hearts at this moment. Looking down
   from the Throne of Glory, He knows, dear Friend, exactly what your
   position is in relation to His Kingdom--how far you have come and how
   far short you still fall. Trusting in His unerring knowledge, I pray
   Him to send His Spirit, that the Word of God spoken may meet your
   particular case, and so come home to you that you may perceive that
   God, Himself, is speaking to you and calling you to come into the
   Kingdom towards which you have come so near.

   Let us first look at this scribe's case and see why it was that he was
   so near to the Kingdom. I think the first hopeful sign about him was
   that he had evidently been and was a man of candid spirit He was not so
   prejudiced as most of the other scribes were. His mind and heart were
   open to conviction. When he read the ancient Scriptures, he did not
   read them with his eyes shut, or gazing through colored Rabbinical
   spectacles as so many of the scribes read them. He went to

   them desiring to know the Truth of God that was in them and, when he
   saw the Truth, he did not rebel against it, but yielded himself to it.
   It is evident that he had been a candid student of the Law of God, for
   he had arrived at the conclusion that its greatest commandment was love
   to God and to one's neighbor, whereas I have no doubt that many of his
   fellow scribes had given the first place to matters that were purely
   ceremonial--something to do with circumcision, perhaps, or with the
   eating of unleavened bread--matters that were important enough in their
   proper sphere, yet not to be regarded as the weightiest things in the
   Law. But this man had read with an evident determination to know the
   Truth and so far, he had found it out.

   He showed his candor, not only by his diligent search for the Truth,
   but also by being a candid controversialist. He had heard the questions
   which had been put to Christ and he had noted how wisely Christ had
   answered them. And he had also noticed that not one of the questioners
   had had the courtesy to say that Christ had answered them well. They
   were so ashamed of themselves for putting the questions to Him, that
   they had evidently retired into the background. But this man, as soon
   as he received the answer to his enquiry, seemed to recognize the
   wisdom of the great Teacher and he expressed the opinion that Christ
   had answered him wisely. I do not know how he could have put it better
   than he did when he said, "Well, Master, you have said the truth." You
   know that when men are arguing, and their blood is hot, it very often
   happens that the one disputant will not admit that the other has spoken
   the truth. Though he is quite sure that it is so, he will not
   acknowledge it--and it is an evidence of a really candid spirit when,
   in the midst of a debate, a man confesses that his opponent has got the
   better of him. It shows that he is not merely fighting for the victory,
   but is seeking the truth. And there is always something hopeful about a
   man of that sort. My dear Friend, I do not know where you are, nor what
   your particular opinions may be, but if you are firmly resolved to
   follow truth wherever she may lead you, I think I may say to you, as
   Christ said to this scribe, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."
   Do not be self-confident, nor rely too much upon your own judgment, but
   let your mind lie open to conviction. Above all, let it be open to the
   heavenly Light of God! And if you do, I shall have hope concerning you,
   notwithstanding a thousand mistakes that you may make. An honest seeker
   after the Truth of God will not be long before Truth finds him and he
   finds Truth!

   Another favorable point in this scribe's character was that he
   evidently had some degree of spiritual perception-- not much, perhaps,
   but still, as things went, a good deal for that time. He had found out,
   through reading the Law of God, that God attached more importance to
   matters of moral practice than to mere matters of ceremony, and much
   more importance to that which concerned the heart than so many outward
   actions. "To love the Lord with all one's heart, and soul, and
   strength, and to love one's neighbor as one's self," said this scribe,
   "is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." He had
   advanced further than many a Romanist has, for the Romanist would
   hardly say as much as he did. "The outward ceremonies of the church are
   so exceedingly important," he would say, "that, I could not put
   anything else before them." But this man had been taught to feel that
   real heart-work and true love to God were more important than all the
   ceremonies of the Law, even though they were ordained by God, Himself
   He had advanced further than some of our very doctrinal friends, to
   whom orthodoxy seems to be both the first thing and the last thing,
   though, as you very well know, what they call orthodoxy is simply their
   own doxy! But if people only hold that doxy, that is about all they
   care for--all the rest is a very secondary matter to them. This scribe,
   however, had advanced further than that and he would, doubtless, have
   said that to love God with the whole of one's heart was more important
   than believing all the dogmas that were ever formulated by all the
   doctors of divinity in the world!

   This scribe had also advanced further than the mere moralist, who
   teaches that if you do what you think is right, that is all you need
   trouble yourselves about. But this scribe expressly spoke of loving the
   Lord "with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all
   the soul, and with all the strength." He could see that the entire man
   must be given up to love God, for, if he were not, all the outward
   profession of living according to the letter of the Law would not
   suffice. Now, dear Friend, if you have been enabled to break through
   your former attachment to mere external ceremonies--if you have fully
   comprehended that true religion is not a matter of mere externals--you
   are "not far from the Kingdom of God." You are one of those who are
   learning that "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship
   Him in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him."
   I hope He is seeking you and that, before long, you will not only be
   nearthe Kingdom, but actually in it! It is a grand thing when a man is
   brought so far as to be able, from deep inward conviction, to say with
   Dr. Watts--

   "Not all the outward forms of earth,

   Nor rites that God has given,

   Nor will of man, nor blood, nor birth,

   Can raise a soul to Heaven."

   If we are to be saved there must be the regenerating work of the Holy
   Spirit within the soul to make it spiritual and capable of spiritual
   worship! And he who really knows this is "not far from the Kingdom of
   God."

   Another admirable point in this scribe's character was that he
   evidently had a considerable knowledge of the Law. To know the Law of
   the Lord is the next thing to knowing the Gospel. It is not everybody
   who understands this Truth of God, but it really is so. Old Robby
   Flockhart, an evangelist who used to preach in the streets of
   Edinburgh, sometimes said to his hearers, "I will preach the Law of God
   to you tonight, and nothing but the Law of God, for it is the sharp
   needle without which I cannot get the silken thread of the Gospel into
   your hearts." And he spoke the truth. Paul wrote to the Galatians, "The
   law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." When the Law
   condemns a man, he flies to Christ to seek forgiveness--but until he
   has received the sentence of the Law in his own soul, he will never fly
   to Jesus Christ and His atoning Sacrifice to be set free from sin. If
   the Law is rightly used, it drives the sinner to the Savior--and there
   was hope concerning this scribe because he evidently knew the
   requirements of the Law of God. He did not sum that up in a mere
   outward morality, but he knew that the Law was spiritual and that it
   made demands upon man of a spiritual character. It would not have taken
   anyone long, I should think, to convince that man that he had fallen
   short of those demands. And when he had been thus convinced, he was
   well on the way to seeing the preciousness of the Atonement that could
   meet the demands of that broken Law of God--so that his knowledge of
   the requirements of the Law helped him to be "not far from the Kingdom
   of God."

   Once again, thisscribe was evidently teachable.He was in such a frame
   of mind that he was willing to hear what the great Teacher had to say.
   I do not think he came to Christ as a quibbler. He probably came to
   test Christ, but not to quibble with Him after he had tested Him and,
   having tested Him, he was willing to learn more of Him. It is a hopeful
   sign when we are willing to sit on the children's seat, remembering our
   Lord's words to His disciples, "Except you be converted and become as
   little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." Some
   people are much too big to go through Heaven's gate. They are so wise,
   in their own estimation, that they are not willing to be taught even by
   Infinite Wisdom. Their judgment is so accurate, their intelligence is
   so clear, that they will not submit to be instructed by Him who is the
   very Wisdom of God. They think that they have within themselves the
   power to draw an Infallible distinction between right and wrong,
   between the Truth of God and error--and they will not allow even the
   Almighty to dictate to them, and to be the Arbiter of their lives. Ah,
   Brothers and Sisters, this is a sad state for anyone to be in! But it
   is a hopeful sign when we are teachable. If you are so, you are "not
   far from the Kingdom of God."

   Now I will leave this scribe, in order that I may take notice of some
   others who are "not far from the Kingdom of God." There are many
   persons who, from their youth up, have always had a great horror of
   that which is wrong. And they have felt--not to perfection, but to a
   considerable extent--a delight in that which is true and good. They do
   not feel themselves to be true or good, but they wish they were. Their
   first associations in life were with godly people and they have always
   loved godly things. They do not find family prayer to be irksome or, if
   they do, they realize how wrong they are for being in such a state of
   mind. They would be very sorry if the ordinances of religion were
   neglected in the place where they live. The Sabbath is a delight to
   them and they love to go up to God's House. They hardly know why they
   feel thus, for they are afraid they have no part nor lot in the matter,
   but still, they like to go there--if there is anything good to be
   heard, they wish to have a share in it. If anybody speaks against good
   things, or good men, they are very grieved. Horror takes hold of them
   if they ever hear God's name blasphemed. They have had, from their very
   childhood, a bias in the direction of that which is right--but it is
   natural rather than spiritual. They are not, as yet, distinctly out and
   out for Christ--they have not believed in Him as their Savior, they
   have not yielded themselves up completely to Him. I am persuaded that
   we have large numbers of young people who are very accurately described
   by that expression, "not far from the Kingdom." Of course, I am
   speaking of their best side and I am well aware that there is another
   side to their character--but there is still much about them that is
   hopeful.

   I know some who are even nearer to the Kingdom than those whom I have
   been describing, for they are under a very deep sense of their
   sinfulness. Not one of them would ever be so foolish and so wicked as
   to say, "God, I thank You that I am not as other men are." Often, while
   they are sitting here listening to a sermon that is full of comfort,
   they feel that

   they are not entitled to have it for themselves. Oh, how they wish they
   could believe and that they were really saved! One thing they do
   realize--that is, they are lost, and ruined, and undone. This fact has
   caused them much sorrow of heart, but they are not yet sufficiently
   awake to make the desperate effort which decides the matter. Realizing
   that they are condemned, they cannot feel at ease and, sometimes,
   floods of tears flow down from their eyes because of their
   transgressions. Ah, my dear Friend, if that is your condition, you are,
   truly, "not far from the Kingdom of God."

   There are others who are in this further hopeful condition, that they
   are very attentive hearers of the Word. They come to the House of
   Prayer on purpose that they may hear the Gospel and, after a fashion,
   they pray that the Gospel may be a blessing to them. I like preaching
   to people of that sort! One might wish to preach all day and all night
   if one could only have throngs of such hearers--everyone of whom would
   be praying, "O my God, bless me! O my God, save me!" I remember that
   when I was in this condition, I used to pray all through a sermon, "O
   Lord, meet with me, meet with me tonight!" And, my dear Friend, you are
   "not far from the Kingdom" if that is how you are now praying.

   I know some who have advanced still further, for they have kept on
   praying wherever they have been, though they themselves hardly know
   whether they have been praying rightly. You know, dear Friend, that you
   went home last Sabbath and fell on your knees, and cried, "Lord, save
   me!" And, during the past week, you have got away alone as often as you
   could that you might have a little time of prayer. Even when you have
   been at work--you do not know whether others have noticed it or
   not--there has been the heaving of a sigh or the upward glancing of the
   eyes. Sometimes you have almost wished that you had never been born,
   for you have had the dreadful fear that you might never find the
   Savior! At other times, you have had a little hope that perhaps you
   might and, at any rate, you are a true seeker--and I believe you are
   "not far from the Kingdom."

   Besides that, I should not wonder if you read the Scriptures very
   earnestly to try to find out how you can obtain eternal life. And you
   also study good books with the same view--those very books which you
   once thought so dull and even horrible! You read them now at every
   spare moment that you can get. You would rather read them than the most
   fascinating romantic novel that was ever written, for you are earnestly
   seeking eternal life. You certainly are "not far from the Kingdom of
   God."

   II. Now, secondly, I want you to NOTICE THE PECULIAR DANGER OF YOUR
   CONDITION if you are "not far from the Kingdom."

   The great danger of it is that though you are not far from the Kingdom,
   you are not in it. A man was in a sinking ship. He almost leaped into
   the lifeboat, but just missed it and was drowned. The manslayer was
   fighting for his life and the avenger of blood was close behind him. He
   had almost reached the City of Refuge, but he was overtaken by his
   adversary just outside the gate--and so was slain. Almost saved is
   altogether lost! There are many in Hell who once were almost saved, but
   who are now altogether damned. Think of that, you who are not far from
   the Kingdom. It is being in the Kingdom that saves the soul, not being
   nearthe Kingdom. If you are just upon the border, yet if you have not
   actually entered, you are not secure. Those five foolish virgins were
   almost in the banqueting hall--there was only the thickness of a door
   between them and the wedding feast--but they only heard the awful
   sentence, "Too late! Too late! You cannot enter now." Your great danger
   is that you will get to be content with being nearthe Kingdom, although
   not actually in it. I have known some people remain in that perilous
   position for months and years till, at last, it got to be their chronic
   condition and they made no effort to take the decisive step. They
   appeared to be in a very hopeful state, yet I fear that, by-and-by, we
   shall have to give them up as utterly hopeless. Oh, these hopelessly
   hopeful people--what can we do with them? They are, for a time,
   hopeful, yet never more than hopeful and, at last, we have to admit
   that their apparent goodness is only superficial and that all the hopes
   they raised within us are delusive. They mock us and we also fear that
   they mock God!

   We are also very much afraid that you who are "not far from the
   Kingdom," may get into your heads the notion that there is something
   good in you and that there being something good in you, it will help to
   save you. If so, you will be really further away from the Kingdom than
   if you were liberally far off! I know of nothing that will more
   effectually keep you out of the Kingdom of God than the notion that you
   are good enough to stay out--the idea that, surely, God will not
   condemn such excellent persons as you are! And, besides, you are so
   near that you can slip in any day. If you get that notion into your
   head, I am afraid you will never slip in, but that you will perish in
   your present lost condition. Oh, may God graciously deliver all of you
   from such fatal self-righteousness!

   I should like to point out to you one thing and that is this--how very
   terrible it would be if you should be lost after having been so near to
   the Kingdom of God The manslayer is overtaken by the avenger of blood
   and falls a mangled corpse upon the very threshold of the City of
   Refuge--does not that seem truly dreadful? One step more and he would
   have been safe! But he could not make that step, so he was slain. I
   always feel mortified if I got to a railway station just as the train,
   which I want to catch, moves from the station. If it had gone ten
   minutes earlier, I would not have minded missing it so much--but to be
   so near as to see it go seems to aggravate my disappointment and,
   certainly, it will be the greatest aggravation of all to you if you are
   lost after having been so very near to the Kingdom of God! I can almost
   imagine other souls that are lost speaking to you in that tone of
   tension which Isaiah applied to the king of Babylon, "Hell from beneath
   is moved for you to meet you at my coming...They shall go and say unto
   you, Have you also become weak as we? Have you become like us? How are
   you fallen!" What horror must have seized the guilty tyrant when he
   came into the midst of those whom he had oppressed and crushed! And if
   some of you who have been so near to the Kingdom, are lost, I can
   imagine the swearer in Hell saying to you, "Ah, you rebuked me for my
   oaths, but where are you now?" And another will say, "You used to help
   reclaim drunks, but where are you now? You were one of those who used
   to sit in the Tabernacle and listen to sermons. I never went there, but
   you did--and how much the better are you for going?"

   And some of them will say, "Oh, if we had only had your opportunities,
   if we had but heard the Gospel as you heard it! If we had been placed
   under the holy, hallowed influences which surrounded you, surely we
   would not have acted so foolishly as you have done!" I need not draw
   any fancy pictures of what may happen, for you know what our Lord Jesus
   Christ said to those who heard Him and yet repented not--"I say unto
   you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the Day
   of Judgment, than for you." If you have heard the Gospel and the
   Kingdom of God has come near unto you, and you have come near unto it,
   and yet, through lack of the decided act of faith in Jesus Christ, you
   perish in your sin, your doom will be more terrible even than that of
   Tyre and Sidon, or Sodom and Gomorrah--

   "So near to the Kingdom! Yet what do you lack?

   So near to the Kingdom! What keeps you back?

   Denounce every idol, though dear it may be,

   And come to the Savior now pleading with thee!

   So near, that you hear the songs that resound

   From those who believing, a pardon have found!

   So near, yet unwilling to give up your sin

   When Jesus is waiting to welcome you in!

   To die with no hope! Have you counted the cost?--

   To die out of Christ andyour soul to be lost?

   So near to the Kingdom! Oh come, we implore!

   While Jesus is pleading, come enter the door!" III. I will not say more
   upon that sad part of my subject. I feel far more at home in trying to
   speak, for only a minute or two, on the last point, namely, THE
   ENCOURAGEMENT OF THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
   May God, in His Infinite mercy, grant that you may enter the Kingdom
   this very night! May He not allow another morning's sun to rise from
   the East and look upon you as unconverted men or women!

   For, first, think how much God has already done for you. You might have
   been born in one of the back slums of London, or you might even have
   been born as Hottentots or a cannibal islander! Perhaps upon that
   matter of your birth depends the fact that you are sitting in this
   House of Prayer and are not in the gin palace, the prison, or in Hell
   itself! It may be simply the dispensation of Divine Providence that has
   made this difference between you and the very worst of men. Be very
   thankful to God for what He has already done for you--for this vantage
   ground on which His Providence and the kind instructions of Christian
   parents and friends have placed you.

   And, next, as He has done so much for you, should not this encourage
   you to ask Him for still more If He has, by His Grace, brought you so
   near to the Kingdom, would it not be wise for you to say to Him, "My
   God, You have done much for me. Will You not now give me that which
   will make all this end in my salvation? Will You not give me a new
   heart and a right spirit? Will You not give me the new birth which will
   enable me to believe in Jesus Christ this very night, so that I may
   pass from death unto life?" Do you not think that the message of the
   Gospel should very much commend itself to you? You are a candid hearer,
   if I understand you rightly, and you have some love to good things.

   Now, was there ever a more Divine message than this? God has sent His
   Son, Jesus Christ, into this world. He took upon Himself the sin of
   guilty man. He suffered in the place of the guilty and He bids us now
   proclaim this Gospel of free, Sovereign Grace, that "whoever believes
   in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Christ has endured
   the full penalty of sin. Jesus has bowed His back to carry the
   intolerable burden of human guilt and He hascarried it and cast it into
   the depths of the sea, where it shall never be found, to be again laid
   by the charge of any soul that believes in Him. You are not asked to do
   anything, you are not even asked to feelanything--you are simply asked
   to trust yourself in the hands of the Incarnate God. Was anything ever
   simpler, more full of Grace, more full of compassion to your lost and
   helpless condition? It is all put into this simple message, "Look unto
   Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." This is the message
   from Christ in the highest heavens! "Look, look, look," is all He bids
   you do--simply look unto Him, Trust in Him, depend upon Him! Surely you
   cannot desire anything that is more worthy of God than this Gospel of
   His Grace which we proclaim unto you in His name!

   Well, my dear Friend, you have come near to the Kingdom, but is it not
   very clear to you that you need something more than you can find in
   yourself?You have come as far as you can, yet, as far as that is
   compared with where others are, how little it really is! I said that
   you had begun to pray, but what sort of prayer is yours? I said that
   you were an attentive hearer of the Word--so you are--yet how small a
   thing will take you off from the pursuit of the blessed realities of
   Grace! You know that although you are somewhat softened, your heart is
   still hard. There is still much unbelief in your soul, though there is
   a gleam of what looks like faith now and then. In fact, to put the
   matter very plainly, you are in such a condition that you will be in
   Hell unless the mercy of God shall prevent it, for you are certainly
   not yet saved! Do you know that it is so? Do you really feel this?
   Then, can you not, (may God help you to do it), by one desperate effort
   of faith, throw yourself at the feet of Jesus and say to Him, "Never
   will I go from You, O You blessed Savior, till You pronounce me clean!
   I now put out the tip of my finger, feeble and weak as my faith is, and
   I touch You. If You can save a sinner, Jesus, save me! I trust You to
   do so!" Friend, you are saved! That simple touch of the finger has
   brought virtue out of Christ unto you and He has bid you go in peace!

   I remember how it seemed to me, when I was under conviction of sin--as
   though Christ stood before me with a sharp sword in each of His hands!
   And I felt, "I can but be lost. I will fling myself into His arms
   notwithstanding those swords." And so I did, by a desperate plunge. I
   felt, "I have done with all attempts at self-salvation! Christ is my
   only Savior. I see that He finished my salvation on the accursed tree.
   I depend upon Him, I lean on Him with all my weight and all my might.
   Guilty and black and vile--and foul as I am by nature--I wash in the
   fountain filled with His precious blood and am clean every whit, even
   in the sight of the Most High God!" Oh, that you, dear Friend, would do
   the same! I believe that you are doing it, that God is helping you to
   do it. I feel sure that He is and that you are letting go all your
   foolish confidence, all trust in your own prayer, or even in your own
   faith, or your own anything! And you are going to trust yourself to the
   Lord Jesus Christ, whether you sink or swim!

   Faith is very much like learning to swim. I have often thought that I
   could easily swim, but I never could induce myself to take the last toe
   off the ground--and there is no swimming till one does that. You must
   trust yourself wholly to the water. So must you trust yourself to
   Jesus. But you are afraid to take that last toe off the ground--you
   cannot give up just a little confidence in yourself. Oh, for the
   glorious plunge of faith! You fear that you will drown, but you will
   not, for you will swim. The everlasting love of Jesus will buoy up the
   biggest sinner out of Hell if he will but rest himself upon the
   finished work of Jesus Christ, whom God has set forth to be the
   Propitiation for the sins of man! Only trust Him and He will save you!
   May God give you the Grace to trust Him, and He shall have all the
   glory. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK 12:12-44.

   Verse 12. And they sought to lay hold on Him, but feared thepeople: for
   they knew that He had spoken the parable against them: and they left
   Him, and went their way. Christ's enemies could not injure Him, then,
   partly because the people heard Him gladly, and were ready to protect
   Him, but still more because the appointed time for His suffering and
   death had not fully come.

   13, 14. And they sent unto Him certain of the Pharisees and of the
   Herodians to catch Him in His words. And when they were come, they said
   unto Him, Master, we know that You are true, and care for no man: for
   You regard not the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth
   They meant "to catch Him in His words," if they could, so they baited
   their trap with flattery. Whenever a man begins to flatter you, be on
   your guard against him. If he tries to commence a conversation with you
   by uttering words of excessive admiration, depend upon it that he
   admires something that you have got more than he admires you! And,
   therefore, be on the watch against him. Our Savior must, in His heart,
   have utterly despised men who were so foolish as to imagine that they
   could entrap Him by their flattering words. After that preface, they
   asked the questions which they thought would impale Him upon the horns
   of a dilemma--

   14, 15. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Shall we give,
   or shall we not give?. They knew very well that if Christ said, "Do not
   give tribute to Caesar," the Romans would have taken him up and
   imprisoned him for preaching sedition, but, on the other hand, if He
   said, "Pay tribute to Caesar," the Jews would have said that He was
   their enemy, and not a true patriot, or else He would not have admitted
   that the chosen people were bound to pay taxes to their Roman
   conquerors.

   15-17. But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt you
   Me? Bring Me a penny, that I may see it And they brought it And He said
   unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto
   Him, Caesar's. And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the
   things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And
   they marvelled at Him. He had answered them with matchless wisdom
   without committing Himself in either way!

   18-23. Then came unto Him the Sadducees, which say there is no
   resurrection, and they asked Him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us,
   If a man's brother dies and leaves his wife behind him, and leaves no
   children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto
   his brother Now there were seven brothers and the first took a wife,
   and dying, left no seed. And the second took her, and died, neither
   left he any seed: and the third likewise. And the seven had her, and
   left no seed. Last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection,
   therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them, for
   the seven had her to wife. No doubt they thought that they had
   completely entangled Him that time! How could He answer such a
   difficult question as that? But, you see, they had based their enquiry
   upon the erroneous supposition that things are to be in another state
   as they are here--so Jesus was able at once to answer them as
   effectively as He had just answered the Pharisees and Herodians.

   24-27. And Jesus, answering said unto them, Do you not therefore, err,
   because you know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God? For when
   they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in
   marriage; but are as the angels which are in Heaven. And as touching
   the dead, that they rise: have you not read in the book of Moses, how
   in the bush God spoke unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and
   the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead,
   but the God of the living; you therefore do greatly err. His answer
   carried the war into the enemies' camp! They professed to believe in
   Moses, yet they denied the existence of spirits and the fact of the
   resurrection. But Jesus Christ proved to a demonstration that God
   cannot be the God of the dead! If, therefore, He is the God of Abraham,
   Isaac, and Jacob--Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive! And if He
   is your God, and my God, dear Friends, we need not fear extinction--we
   will live, and we will live forever!

   28-34. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning
   together, and perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him,
   Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered Him, The
   first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel The Lord our God is
   one Lord: and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
   with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength:
   this is the first commandment And the second is like, namely this, You
   shall love your neighbor as yourself There is none other commandment
   greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Well, Master, You
   have said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but
   He; and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding,
   and with all the soul and with all the strength, and to love his
   neighbor as himself is more than all whole burnt offerings and
   sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said
   unto him, You are not far from the Kingdom of God. And no man after
   that dared asked Him any question.He had so decidedly put all His
   questioners to the rout that no other man had the audacity to court
   defeat at His hands! The Infallible Wisdom of Christ had put all His
   accusers and tempters to flight.

   35, 36. And Jesus answered and said, while He taught in the Temple, How
   say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? For David himself said
   by the Holy Spirit.

   In Psalm 110:1--

   36, 37. The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, till I make
   Your enemies Your footstool David therefore himself calls Him Lord; and
   from where is He then his sod? They could not answer that riddle, but
   we can. We know that Jesus is both David's son and David's Lord--a man
   like ourselves, of the great human race, yet, "very God of very God,"
   blessed be His holy name!

   37-40. And the common people heard Him gladly. And He said unto them in
   His doctrine, Beware of the scribes which love to go in long clothing,
   and love salutations in the marketplace, and the chief seats in the
   synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: which devour widows'
   houses, and for a presence make long prayers: these shall receive
   greater damnation. We often hear foolish people say "You must always
   preach in love and not say anything against anybody! Jesus did not
   denounce anybody." Oh, dear! Then what about this denunciation of the
   scribes? Were Jesus here today, He would not be the soft-shelled
   creature that some people want us to be! He had a backbone and a
   conscience-- and a very heavy right hand--and He brought that hand down
   like a sledgehammer upon cant and hypocrisy and error! And if we would
   be like Christ, we must be manly, bold and outspoken! They tell us this
   in order that we may easily glide through the world and that all men
   may speak well of us. But so did their fathers to the false
   prophets--and do you suppose that we who preach God's Word are going to
   keep back any part of our testimony because it will bring us into ill
   repute with the ungodly? God forbid! We live for something higher and
   nobler than being fed upon the breath of evil men! If there is error in
   high places, if there is vice anywhere, it is the duty of the minister
   of Christ, in His Master's name, to attack it with all his might! Here
   we find our Lord and Master plainly declaring that the scribes, the
   great masters of the Law of God, were a set of pretentious hypocrites
   who robbed even the widow and the fatherless and who would, in due
   time, "receive greater damnation." Even so must the Truth of God still
   be spoken, whoever may be offended by it!

   41, 42. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the
   people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in
   much. And there came a certain poor widow. Doubly poor, because she was
   not only a widow, but in poverty--"a certain poor widow."

   42-44. And she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And He called
   unto Him His disciples, and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that
   this poor widow has cast more in than all they which have cast into the
   treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance. Christ measures
   what we really give by what we have left--by the proportion which what
   we give bears to what we possess--"For all they did cast in of their
   abundance."

   44. But she of her need did cast in all that she had, even all her
   living. So she gave more than any or all the others did!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Believer Not An Orphan

   (No. 2990)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." John 14:18.

   You will notice that the margin reads, "I will not leave you orphans: I
   will come to you." In the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
   disciples were like children deprived of their parents. During the
   three years in which He had been with them, He had solved all their
   difficulties, borne all their burdens and supplied all their needs.
   Whenever a case was too hard or too heavy for them, they took it to
   Him. When their enemies well near overcame them, Jesus came to the
   rescue and turned the tide of battle. They were all happy and safe
   enough while the Master was with them. He walked in their midst like a
   father amid a large family of children, making all the household glad.
   But now He was about to be taken from them by an ignominious death and
   they might well feel that they would be like little children deprived
   of their natural and beloved Protector. Our Savior knew the fear that
   was in their hearts and before they could express it, He removed it by
   saying "You shall not be left alone in this wild and desert world.
   Though I must be absent from you in the flesh, yet I will be present
   with you in a more efficacious manner. I will come to you spiritually
   and you shall derive from My spiritual Presence even more good than you
   could have had from My bodily Presence, had I still continued in your
   midst."

   I. First, here is AN EVIL AVERTED.

   Without their Lord, Believers would, apart from the Holy Spirit, be
   like other orphans--unhappy and desolate. Give them what you might,
   their loss could not have been recompensed. No number of lamps can make
   up for the sun's absence--blaze as they may, it is still night. No
   circle of friends can supply to a bereaved woman the loss of her
   husband--without him she is still a widow. Even thus, without Jesus, it
   is inevitable that the saints should be as orphans. But Jesus has
   promised in the text that we shall not be so-- He declares the only
   thing that can remove the trial shall be ours--"I will come to you."

   Now remember that an orphan is one whoseparents are dead. This, in
   itself, is a great sorrow, if there were no other. The dear father, so
   well-beloved, was suddenly smitten down with sickness. They watched him
   with anxiety. They nursed him with sedulous care, but he expired. The
   loving eyes are closed in darkness for them. Those active hands will no
   longer toil for the family. That heart and brain will no longer feel
   and think for them. Beneath the green grass the father sleeps. And
   every time the child surveys that hallowed hillock, his heart swells
   with grief. Beloved, we are not orphans in that sense, for our Lord
   Jesus is not dead! It is true that He died, for one of the soldiers
   with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came out blood and water--a
   sure evidence that the pericardium had been pierced and that the
   fountain of life had been broken up. He died, that is certain, but He
   now is not dead! Go not to the grave to seek Him. Angel voices say, "He
   is not here, for He is risen." He could not be held by the bands of
   death. We do not worship a dead Christ, nor do we even think of Him now
   as a corpse. That picture on the wall which the Romanists paint and
   worship, represents Christ as dead, but oh, it is so good to think of
   Christ as living, remaining in an existence real and true, none the
   less living because He died, but all the more truly full of life
   because He has passed through the portals of the grave and is now
   reigning forever! See then, dear Friends, the bitter root of the
   orphan's sorrow is gone from us, for our Jesus is not dead! No
   mausoleum enshrines His ashes, no pyramid embalms His body, no monument
   records the place of His permanent sepulcher!

   The orphan has a sharp sorrow springing out of the death of his
   parents, namely, that he is left alone. He cannot now make appeals to
   the wisdom of the parent who could direct him. He cannot run, as once
   he did, when he was weary, to

   climb the parental knee. He cannot lean his aching head upon the
   parental bosom. "Father," he may say, but no voice gives an answer.
   "Mother," he may cry, but that fond title which would awaken the mother
   if she slept, cannot awaken her from the bed of death! The child is
   alone, alone as to those two hearts which were its best companions. The
   parent and lover are gone! The little ones know what it is to be
   deserted and forsaken. But we are not so--we are not orphans. It is
   true that Jesus is not here in body, but His spiritual Presence is
   quite as blessed as His bodily Presence would have been. No, it is
   better, for supposing Jesus Christ to be here in Person, you could not
   all come and touch the hem of His garment--not all at once, at any
   rate. There might be thousands waiting all the world over to speak with
   Him, but how could they all reach Him if He were merely here in body?
   You might all be wanting to tell Him something, but, in the body He
   could only receive some one or two of you at a time.

   But in spirit, there is no need for you to stir from the pew, no need
   to say a word--Jesus hears your thoughts talk and attends to all your
   needs at the same moment! There is no need for us to press to get at
   Him because the throng is great, for He is as near to me as He is to
   you, and as near to you as to saints in America, or the islands of the
   Southern Sea. He is everywhere present and all His beloved may talk
   with Him! You can tell Him, at this moment, the sorrows which you dare
   not open up to anyone else. You will feel that in declaring them to
   Him, you have not breathed them to the air, but that a real Person has
   heard you. One as real as though you could grip His hand and could see
   the loving flash of His eyes and mark the sympathetic change of His
   Countenance.

   Is it not so with you, you children of a living Savior? You know it is!
   You have a Friend that sticks closer than a brother! You have a near
   and dear One who, in the dead of the night is in the chamber, and in
   the heat and burden of the day is in the field of labor. You are not
   orphans--the "Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting
   Father, The Prince of Peace" is with you--your Lord is here and, as one
   whom his mother comforts, so Jesus comforts you!

   The orphan, too, has lost the kind hands which always took care that
   food and raiment should beprovided, that the table should be well
   stored, and that the house should be kept in comfort. Poor feeble one,
   who will provide for his needs? His father is dead, his mother is
   gone--who will take care of the little wanderer now! But it is not so
   with us! Jesus has not left us orphans. His care for His people is no
   less, now, than it was when He sat at the table with Mary, and Martha
   and Lazarus, whom "Jesus loved." Instead of the provisions being less,
   they are even greater, for since the Holy Spirit has been given to us,
   we have richer fare and are more indulged with spiritual comforts than
   Believers were before the bodily Presence of the Master had departed!
   Do your souls hunger tonight? Jesus gives you the bread of Heaven! Do
   you thirst tonight!? The waters from the Rock cease not to flow--

   "Come, make your needs, your burdens known." You have but to make known
   your needs to have them all supplied! Christ waits to be gracious in
   the midst of this assembly. He is here with His golden hands, opening
   those hands to supply the needs of every living soul. "Oh," says one,
   "I am poor and needy." Go on with the quotation. "Yet the Lord thinks
   upon me." "Ah," says another, "I have besought the Lord thrice to tear
   away a thorn in the flesh from me." Remember what He said to Paul? "My
   Grace is sufficient for you." You are not left without the strength you
   need. The Lord is still your Shepherd. He will provide for you till He
   leads you through death's dark valley and brings you to the shining
   pastures upon the hilltops of Glory! You are not destitute? You need
   not beg an asylum from an ungodly world by bowing to its demands, or
   trusting its vain promises--for Jesus will never leave you, nor forsake
   you!

   The orphan, too, is left without the instruction which is most suitable
   for a child. We may say what we will, but there is none so fit to form
   a child's character as the parent. It is a very sad loss for a child to
   have lost either father or mother in its early days, for the most
   skillful preceptor, though he may do much--by the blessing of God, very
   much--is but a stop-gap, and but half makes up for the original
   ordinance of Providence that the parent's love should fashion the
   child's mind. But, dear Friends, we are not orphans! We who believe in
   Jesus are not left without an education. Jesus is not here, Himself, it
   is true. I daresay some of you wish you could come on Lord's-Days and
   listen to Him! Would it not be sweet to look up to this pulpit and see
   the Crucified One, and to hear Him preach? Ah, so you think, but the
   Apostle says, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
   henceforth know we Him no more."

   It is most for your profit that you should receive the Spirit of Truth,
   not through the golden vessel of Christ in His actual Presence here,
   but through the poor earthen vessels of humble servants of God like
   ourselves. At any rate, whether

   we speak, or an angel from Heaven, the speaker matters not--it is the
   Spirit of God, alone, that is the power of the Word and makes that Word
   become vital and quickening to you. You now have the Spirit of God. The
   Holy Spirit is so given that there is not a Truth of God which you may
   not understand. You may be led into the deepest mystery by His
   teaching. You may be made to know and to comprehend those knotty points
   in the Word of God which have hitherto puzzled you. You have but humbly
   to look up to Jesus and His Spirit will still teach you. I tell you,
   though you are poor and ignorant, and perhaps can scarcely read a word
   in the Bible--for all that, you may be better instructed in the things
   of God than doctors of divinity if you go to the Holy Spirit and are
   taught of Him! Those who go only to books and to the letter and are
   taught of men, may be fools in the sight of God, but those who go to
   Jesus and sit at His feet, and ask to be taught of His Spirit, shall be
   wise unto salvation! Blessed be God, there are not a few among us of
   this sort. We are not left orphans--we still have an Instructor with
   us!

   There is one point in which the orphan is often sorrowfully reminded of
   his orphanhood, namely, in lacking a defender. It is so natural in a
   little child, when some big boys bully him, to cry, "I'll tell my
   father!" How often did we use to say so, and how often have we heard
   from the little ones since, "I'll tell Mother!" Sometimes, the not
   being able to do this is a much severer loss than we can guess. Unkind
   and cruel men have snatched away from orphans the little which a
   father's love had left behind and, in the court of law, there has been
   no defender to protect the orphan's goods. Had the father been there,
   the child would have had its rights, scarcely would any have dared to
   infringe them. But, in the absence of the father, the orphan is eaten
   up like bread and the wicked of the earth devour his estate. In this
   sense, the saints are not orphans. The devil would rob us of our
   heritage if he could, but there is an Advocate with the Father who
   pleads for us. Satan would snatch from us every promise and tear from
   us all the comforts of the Covenant, but we are not orphans. And when
   he brings a suit-at-law against us and thinks that we are the only
   defendants in the case, he is mistaken, for we have an Advocate on
   high! Christ comes in and pleads, as the sinner's Friend, for us--and
   when He pleads at the Bar of Justice, there is no fear but that His
   plea will be of effect, and our inheritance shall be safe! He has not
   left us orphans.

   Now I want, without saying many words, to get you who love the Master
   to feel what a very precious thought this is, that you are not alone in
   this world--that if you have no earthly friends, if you have none to
   whom you can take your cares, if you are quite lonely so far as outward
   friends are concerned--yet Jesus is with you, is really with you,
   practically with you, able to help you and ready to do so! You have a
   good and kind Protector close at hand at this present moment, for
   Christ has said it, "I will not leave you orphans."

   II. Secondly, there is A CONSOLATION PROVIDED. The remedy by which the
   evil is averted is this--our Lord Jesus said, "I will come to you."

   What does this mean? Does it not mean, from the context, "I will come
   to you by My Spirit?" Beloved, we must not confuse the Persons of the
   Godhead. The Holy Spirit is not the Son of God. Jesus, the Son of God,
   is not the Holy Spirit. They are two distinct Persons of the one
   Godhead. But there is such a wonderful unity and the blessed Spirit
   acts so marvelously as the Vicar of Christ, that it is quite correct to
   say that when the Spirit comes, Jesus comes, too. And, "I will come to
   you," means--"I, by My Spirit, who shall take My place and represent
   Me, I will come to be with you." See then, Christian, you have the Holy
   Spirit in you and with you to be the Representative of Christ! Christ
   is with you now, not in Person, but by His Representative--an
   efficient, almighty, Divine, everlasting Representative who stands for
   Christ and is as Christ to you in His Presence in your souls.

   Because you thus have Christ by His Spirit, you cannot be orphans, for
   the Spirit of God is always with you! It is a delightful Truth of God
   that the Spirit of God always dwells in Believers--not sometimes, but
   always. He is not always active in Believers and He may be grieved
   until His sensible Presence is altogether withdrawn, but His secret
   Presence is always there. At no single moment is the Spirit of God
   wholly gone from a Believer. The Believer would die spiritually if this
   could happen, but that cannot be, for Jesus has said, "Because I live,
   you shall live also." Even when the Believer sins, the Holy Spirit does
   not utterly depart from him, but is still in him to make him smart for
   the sin into which he has fallen. The Believer's prayers prove that the
   Holy Spirit is still within him. "Take not your Holy Spirit from me,"
   was the prayer of a saint who had fallen very foully, but in whom the
   Spirit of God still kept His residence, notwithstanding all the
   foulness of David's guilt and sin!

   But, Beloved, in addition to this, Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, makes
   visits to His people of a peculiar kind. The Holy Spirit becomes
   wonderfully active and potent at certain times of refreshing. We are
   then especially and joyfully sensible of His Divine Power. His
   influence streams through every chamber of our nature and floods our
   dark soul with His glorious rays as the sun shining in its strength.
   Oh, how delightful this is! Sometimes we have felt this at the Lord's
   Table. My soul pants to sit with you at that Table because I remember
   many a happy time when the emblems of bread and wine have assisted my
   faith and kindled the passions of my soul into a heavenly flame! I am
   equally sure that at the Prayer Meeting, under the preaching of the
   Word, in private meditation and in searching the Scriptures, we can say
   that Jesus Christ has come to us. What? Have you no hill Mizar to
   remember--

   "No Tabor-visits to recount

   When with Him in the holy mount?" Oh, yes! Some of these blessed
   seasons have left their impression upon our memories so that the
   remembrance of those blessed seasons when Jesus Christ manifested
   Himself unto us as He does not unto the world will mingle among our
   dying thoughts! Oh, to be wrapped in that crimson vest, closely pressed
   to His open side! Oh, to put our finger into the print of the nails and
   to thrust our hand into His side! We know what this means by past
   experience.

   And now, gathering up the few thoughts I have uttered, let me remind
   you, dear Friends, that every word of the text is instructive--"I will
   not leave you orphans: I will come to you." Observe the, "I," there
   twice over. "I will not leave you orphans--father and mother may, but I
   will not. Friends once beloved may turn stony-hearted, but I will not.
   Judas may play the traitor and Ahithophel may betray his David, but I
   will not leave you comfortless. You have had many disappointments,
   great heart-breaking sorrows, but I have never caused you any. I--the
   faithful and true Witness, the Immutable, the unchangeable Jesus, the
   same yesterday, today and forever--I will not leave you comfortless: I
   will come to you." Catch at that word, "I," and let your souls say,
   "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. If You had
   said, 'I will send an angel to you,' it would have been a great mercy,
   but what do You say, 'I will come unto you'? If You had bid some of my
   Brothers and Sisters come and speak a word of comfort to me, I would
   have been thankful--but You have put it thus in the first person, 'I
   will come unto you.' O my Lord, what shall I say, what shall I do but
   feel a hungering and a thirsting after You which nothing shall satisfy
   till You shall fulfill Your own Word, 'I will not leave you
   comfortless: I will come to you'?"

   And then notice the persons to whom it is addressed, "I will not leave
   you comfortless: you, Peter, who will deny Me. You, Thomas, who will
   doubt Me: I will not leave you comfortless." O you who are so little in
   Israel that you sometimes think it is a pity that your name is in the
   church book at all because you feel yourselves to be so worthless, so
   unworthy, He will not leave you comfortless, not even you! "O Lord,"
   you say, "if You would look after the rest of Your sheep, I would bless
   You for Your tenderness to them, but I--I deserve to be left! If I were
   forsaken of You, I could not blame You, for I have played the harlot
   against Your love, but yet You say, 'I will not leave you.'" Heir of
   Heaven, do not lose your part in this promise! I pray you say, "Lord,
   come unto me and though You refresh all my Brothers and Sisters, yet,
   Lord, refresh me with some of the droppings of Your love! O Lord, fill
   the cup for me! My thirsty spirit pants for it--

   "'I thirst, I faint, I die to prove

   The greatness of redeeming love,

   The love of Christ to me.'

   Now, Lord, fulfill Your word to Your unworthy handmaid, as I stand,
   like Hannah, in Your Presence. Come unto me, Your servant, unworthy to
   lift so much as my eyes toward Heaven, and only daring to say, 'God be
   merciful to me, a sinner.' Fulfill Your promise even to me, 'I will not
   leave you comfortless: I will come to you.'" Take whichever of the
   words you will and they each one sparkle and flash after this fashion!

   Observe, too, the richness and sufficiency of the text--"I will not
   leave you comfortless: I will come to you." Jesus does not promise, "I
   will send you sanctifying Grace, or sustaining mercy, or precious
   mercy," but He promises you the only thing that will prevent your being
   orphans, "I will come to you." Ah, Lord! Your Grace is sweet, but You
   are better! The vine is good, but the clusters are better! It is well
   enough to have a gift from Your hands, but oh, to touch the hand
   itself! It is well enough to hear the words of Your lips, but to kiss
   those lips, as the spouse did in the Song, this is still better! You
   know, if there is an orphan child, you cannot prevent its continuing an
   orphan. You may feel great kindness towards it, supply its needs and do
   all you possibly can for it, but it is still an orphan. It must get its
   father and its mother back, or else it will still be an orphan. So, our
   blessed Lord, knowing this, does not say, "I will do this and that for
   you," but, "I will come to you."

   Do you not see, dear Friends, that there is not only all you can need,
   but all you think you need wrapped up in a sentence, "I will come to
   you"? "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell," so
   that when Christ comes, in Him "all fullness" comes! "In Him dwells all
   the fullness of the Godhead bodily," so that when Jesus comes, the very
   Godhead comes to the Believer!--

   "'All my capacious powers can wish In You do they richly meet'--

   and if You shall come to me, it is better than all the gifts of Your
   Covenant. If I get You, I get all, and more than all, at once."
   Observe, then, the language and the sufficiency of the promise.

   But I want you to notice, further, the continued freshness and force of
   the promise. Somebody here owes another person 50 pounds, and he gives
   him a note of hand, "I promise to pay you 50 pounds." Very well. The
   man calls with that note of hand tomorrow and gets 50 pounds. And what
   is the good of the note of hand now? Why, it is of no further value, it
   is discharged! How would you like to have a note of hand which would
   always stand good? That would be a right royal present. "I promise to
   pay evermore, and this bond, though paid a thousand times, shall still
   hold good." Who would not like to have a bond of that sort? Yet this is
   the promise which Christ gives you! "I will not leave you orphans: I
   will come to you." The first time a sinner looks to Christ, Christ
   comes to him. And what then? Why, the next minute it is still, "I will
   come to you." But here is one who has known Christ for 50 years and he
   has had this promise fulfilled a thousand times a year! Is it not done
   with? Oh, no! There it stands, just as fresh as when Jesus first spoke
   it, "I will come to you." Then we will treat our Lord in His own
   fashion and take Him at His word! We will go to Him as often as we can,
   for we shall never weary Him--and when He has kept His promise most,
   then is it that we will go to Him and ask Him to still keep it! And
   after ten thousand proofs of the truth of it, we will only have a
   greater hungering and thirsting to get it fulfilled again! This is fit
   provision for life and for death, "I will come to you." In the last
   moment, when your pulse beats faintly and you are just about to pass
   the curtain and enter into the invisible world, you may have this upon
   your lips, and say to your Lord, "My Master, fulfill to me the word on
   which You have caused me to hope, 'I will not leave you comfortless: I
   will come to you.'"

   Let me remind you that the text is at this moment validand for this I
   delight in it. "I will not leave you comfortless." That means now, "I
   will not leave you comfortless now." Are you comfortless at this hour?
   It is your own fault. Jesus Christ does not leave you so, nor make you
   so. There are rich and precious things in this promise, "I will not
   leave you comfortless: I will come to you, I will come to you now." It
   may be a very dull time with you and you are pining to come nearer to
   Christ. Very well, then, plead the promise before the Lord! Plead the
   promise as you sit where you are-- "Lord, You have said that You will
   come unto me; come unto me tonight."

   There are many reasons, Believer, why you should plead thus. You want
   Him. You need Him. You require Him. Therefore plead the promise and
   expect its fulfillment! And oh, when He comes, what a joy it is! He is
   as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber with his garments fragrant
   with aloes and cassia! How well the oil of joy will perfume your heart!
   How soon will your sackcloth be put away and the garments of gladness
   adorn you! With what joy of heart will your heavy soul begin to sing
   when Jesus Christ shall whisper that you are His and that He is yours!
   Come, my Beloved, do not tarry! Be like a roe or a young hart upon the
   mountains of separation and prove to me Your promise is true, "I will
   not leave you orphans: I will come to you."

   And now, dear Friends, in conclusion, let me remind you that there are
   many who have no share in the text. What can I say to such? From my
   soul I pity you who do not know what the love of Christ means. Oh, if
   you could but tell the joy of God's people, you would not rest an hour
   without it! Remember that if you sincerely desire to find Christ, He is
   to be found in the way of faith. Trust Him and He is yours! Depend upon
   the merit of His Sacrifice--cast yourselves entirely upon that and you
   are saved--and Christ is yours!

   God grant that we may all break bread in the Kingdom above, feast with
   Jesus and share His Glory! We are expecting His second coming. He is
   coming personally and gloriously. This is the brightest hope of His
   people. This will be the fullness of their redemption, the time of
   their resurrection. Anticipate it, Beloved, and may God make your souls
   to sing for joy!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   www.spurgeongems.org

   The Believe Not an Orphan JOHN 15.

   Many of you know the words of this chapter by heart. You could repeat
   them without a mistake. May the savor of them abide in your hearts even
   as the letter of them abides in your memory!

   Verse 1. I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. We thank
   You, O Savior, for this blessed answer to the often-repeated question,
   "Which is the true Church?" Are you one with Christ? Then are you a
   part of the true vine. If we have a real, vital, personal, saving
   connection with Christ, to whatever section of the visible Church we
   may belong, we are part of "the true vine." And we are told, in the
   next sentence, who is the great Caretaker of the Church. Some of us are
   much occupied in Christ's service and there is a tendency with all of
   us to get like Martha--"cumbered" in serving for Him. We are apt to
   fancy that the burden of all the churches lies upon our shoulders, but,
   Beloved, this is a great mistake. Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and
   My Father is the vinedresser." He will take the utmost possible care of
   it, for it is very dear to Him. There is not a branch in that vine
   which the Father does not love with Infinite affection and, as for the
   majestic stem, even Jesus, He loves Him beyond measure.

   2. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away. This
   operation is always going on. God is continually taking away from the
   Church, in some way or other, non-fruit-bearers. We know that these do
   not truly belong to Christ, for fruit must come from vital union to
   Him. But it is a trial to the Church to have non-fruit-bearing
   branches. These are taken away, sometimes by death, sometimes by
   judgment, sometimes by the open discovery of their secret sin-- the
   culmination of their backslides in overt acts of transgression. "Every
   branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away." But side by side with
   this action another process is constantly going on.

   2. And every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring
   forth more fruit. Is this, then, dear Friend, one reason why you are
   being chastened--because you are a fruit-bearing branch? If you bore no
   fruit, you would be left unpruned because the knife would do its
   sterner work upon you by taking you altogether away. If you really do
   bring forth fruit to God, you must expect to have trial, trouble,
   affliction--and that full often.

   3. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
   That was a "word" which had sorely grieved them and cut them to the
   quick, so that the Savior had to say to them, more than once, "Let not
   your heart be troubled." (See the 1st, and the 27th , verses of the
   preceding chapter). They had felt the sharp edge of the pruning-knife,
   so Jesus said to them, "Now you are clean (purged or pruned) through
   the word which I have spoken unto you."

   4. Abide in Me, and I in you. The main thing is not restless activity,
   running here and there, and doing this and that, and the other
   thing--it is abiding in Christ, persevering, constantly cleaving to
   Christ by virtue of a vital union with Him--"Abide in Me, and I in
   you."

   4. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the
   vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. You may hurry, and
   flurry and worry, but you will lose by it. Keep close to Christ. Never
   let your heart be dissociated from intimate communion with Him. So
   shall you bring forth fruit, but no way else.

   5, 6. I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in Me, and I
   in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without Me you can do
   nothing. If a man abides not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and
   is withered: and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they
   are burned. The vine is of use for nothing but fruit-bearing and if it
   does not bear fruit, it is good for nothing except to be burned. In the
   social economy of life, a man may be of some use however bad he may be,
   but a man who is in the nominal Church of Christ and yet does not bring
   forth fruit unto God, is of no use whatever! There is nothing to the
   done with him but to gather him up with the sere autumn leaves and the
   decaying stalks of vegetation, to be burned in the corner outside the
   wall. How trying is the smoke that comes from such a burning as that!
   We pastors sometimes get it into our eyes and it fills them with bitter
   tears. I know of nothing that is more grievous to us than this putting
   out of the unworthy, this casting the fruitless vine branches into the
   fire that they may be burned.

   7. You abide in Me, and My words abide in you. You see that doctrinal
   vitality is necessary to true union to Christ. Some, in these days,
   talk about a spiritual attachment to the Person of Christ, while they
   shoot their envenomed darts against the dogmas of Christ. But that will
   not do. "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you"--My words of
   doctrine, precept, or promise--"then"--

   your fruit should remain." Let us accept all God's Words as He has
   given them to us and keep up the due proportion of the whole. Note that
   Christ is not speaking here of spasmodic piety, the religion that can
   only be kept up by popular preaching, great meetings, much excitement
   and all that sort of thing--but of the religion of principle that bears
   its clusters to-morrow as well as today, and even months and years
   hence! The religion that bears its fruit every month and the leaf
   whereof does not wither! May we be such branches in the true vine that
   our fruit shall thus remain.

   16. That whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give
   it to you. For, where the fruit remains, power in prayer will remain.
   If we are constantly living unto God, we shall find ourselves
   privileged to have the ear of God and when we pray to Him, He will
   grant us the desire of our hearts.

   17. These things I command you, that you love one another. Our Lord
   repeated the command, for He knew how prone even His disciples would be
   to disobey it.

   18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated
   you. It is no new thing for the ungodly to hate the godly, so let us
   not be surprised if that is our portion.

   19. 20. If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but
   because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the
   world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said
   unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have
   persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My
   saying, they will keep yours also. It ought to be quite sufficient for
   the servant if he is treated as his Lord was--what higher honor than
   that could he wish to have?

   21. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake,
   because they know not Him that sent Me. They professed to know God and
   some of them even thought that they were rendering acceptable service
   to God when they rejected His Son, whom He had sent to them!

   22-24. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin:
   but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hates Me hates My
   Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man
   did, they had not had sin: but now they have both seen and hated both
   Me and My Father. Our Lord did not mean that they would have been
   sinless if He had not come to them, but that His coming and their
   rejection of Him had enormously increased and intensified their
   sinfulness.

   25. But this came to pass that the Word might be fulfilled that is
   written in their Law, They hated Me without a cause.They fulfilled what
   had been written long before, even as they afterwards did when they put
   Christ to death.

   26, 27. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from
   the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father,
   He shall testify of Me: and you also shall bear witness, because you
   have been with Me from the beginning. The witness of the Spirit of
   Truth still continues and Christ's disciples are still privileged to be
   co-witnesses, even with the Holy Spirit, Himself. Let us take care to
   avail ourselves of this privilege whenever we can.
     __________________________________________________________________

What We Have, and Are to Have

   (No. 2991)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER
   28, 1876.

   "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, our Father, who has loved
   us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through
   Grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and
   work." 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17

   EVERY man who is engaged in a good work desires that it may be lasting.
   "Establish You the work of our hands upon us; yes, the work of our
   hands establish You it," was not only a very appropriate prayer from
   the mouth of Moses, who had led the children of Israel through the
   wilderness, but it is also a very appropriate prayer to be presented by
   every minister of Jesus Christ. We desire to build that which will
   endure the fire of the great testing day--not wood, hay and stubble,
   but gold, silver and precious stones.

   The Apostle Paul, like all true servants of Christ, was very anxious
   about those who had been converted and formed into churches by him. He
   desired that all the professed converts should be real converts and
   that the members of the churches in the various countries where the
   Gospel had been preached might be well trained and instructed--and
   might know the Truth of God and be firmly rooted in it. It somewhat
   saddened him that the Christians at Thessalonica had been disturbed by
   a rumor about the speedy coming of Christ. He was grieved that they had
   been troubled concerning this matter and he was still more sorry that
   they had not men among them able to guide them at such a crisis, for
   they were like children carried away by novelties. The Apostle wanted
   them to be firmly established in the faith, to know the Truth of God
   and to have it abiding in their hearts so that they would be able to
   stand fast in the evil day, whatever error might be raging round about
   them.

   I think, Brothers and Sisters, that the prayer of the Apostle is very
   suitable for this present period. We have rejoiced to see a large
   number of persons coming out as professed followers of Christ, but what
   is needed is that they should be so enlisted in the army of Christ that
   they will remain faithful even unto death. We do not want our work to
   be shallow and superficial--we want it to be like that "city which has
   foundations, whose builder and maker is God." It is heartbreaking
   service to sow the good Seed of the Kingdom upon the rocky ground, for
   it springs up so rapidly simply because it has no depth of earth and
   then, when the burning heat of the sun shines upon it, it withers away
   because it has neither moisture nor root. It would be far better to
   have half a dozen souls really brought to Jesus Christ and enduring to
   the end, than to have half a dozen thousand blazing away with a false
   profession for a time--and then returning like the dog to his vomit, or
   like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Our Lord's
   own declaration is, "He that endures to the end shall be saved." It is
   that endurance, that holding out to the end, which is the point to
   which we would direct all our endeavors on behalf of our hearers and
   our converts--and the point about which we would most earnestly pray to
   our God.

   Because these Thessalonians had been somewhat fluttered and disturbed,
   the Apostle was distressed concerning them and he, therefore, exhorted
   them to steadfastness. "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the
   traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our
   Epistle." But after exhorting them to stand fast, he did not feel that
   this was sufficient. So he stopped writing, laid down his pen, fell on
   his knees and prayed to God to make them stand fast. And when we
   realize how feeble our utmost exertions are, we may well join fervent
   prayer to them! And when we remember that the flesh is so weak and that
   even when men resolve to stand fast, their feet are very soon caused to
   slip, we may well cry to the great Holder-Up of His saints to keep them
   from falling, or even from stumbling. The preacher's work is only

   half done when he has exhorted his hearers to stand fast--he must then
   fall upon his knees and pray for them. And you who teach others in the
   Sunday school and elsewhere, must remember that whatever you exhort
   your scholars to do, you should always pray to God to lead them to do
   it. This is a blessed compound of preaching and praying--it makes a
   rich amalgam of Christian ministry when there is, first, the testimony
   of the Truth of God to men and next, the pleading with God on the
   behalf of men. Regard, then, our text as the Apostle's prayer for the
   Thessalonians, and for all of us who believe in Jesus, that we may
   stand tall, in this evil day, and that, having done all, we may still
   stand steadfast whoever and whatever may oppose.

   Paul's prayer is instructive, for it directs our attention to two
   things. First, to what we have already--"Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
   and God, our Father, who has loved us, and has given us everlasting
   consolation and good hope through Grace." And then it tells us what we
   are to have, what is the natural result of what we already
   have--"Comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and
   work."

   I. First, then, Brothers and Sisters, we are to consider WHAT WE
   ALREADY HAVE.

   The Apostle mentions, first, the source of all our blessings and then
   the streams. "Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, our Father."
   There is the source of all our blessings and, to my mind, it is
   exceedingly suggestive to notice that word, "our," put in twice in the
   early part of the text. Paul does not write, "Now the Lord Jesus Christ
   Himself, and God, our Father." But it is, "OurLord Jesus Christ
   Himself, and God, our Father."

   The source of our present comfort and of our future perseverance is the
   fact that Jesus Christ is ours. Look at Him now with the adoring eyes
   of your reverent contemplation, in His glorious Deity and His perfect
   Manhood. Look at Him in the manger. Behold Him on the Cross. Regard His
   perfect life and His redeeming death. Behold Him in His Resurrection,
   His triumphant Ascension and His perpetual intercession. And look
   forward to His promised return from Heaven. Beloved Believer, He is
   yours--all yours. In all those positions and conditions He has given
   Himself to you and to me, and we may together say, "OurLord Jesus
   Christ!" Oh, how precious is this Truth of God to our soul! Being
   Divine, He is Omnipotent and that almighty power He wields for us!
   Being Divine, He is Omniscient and those sleepless eyes of His are
   always on the watch for us! Being Divine, He is Immutable and that
   eternal love of His which knows no shadow of a change, is fixed upon
   us! All His attributes and Himself, also, He places at our disposal--so
   let each one of us gratefully respond, "You are my portion, says my
   soul." Enlarge your thoughts concerning the Lord Jesus! Think most
   highly of Him! Extol Him with your heart and with your tongue! But
   remember that when you have reached the utmost heights that you can
   attain in your estimation of Him, He is yours, altogether yours, and
   you can say with Paul, " OurLord Jesus Christ Himself--

   "Our Lord is risen from the dead

   Our Jesus is gone up on high!

   The powers of Hell are captives led--

   Dragged to the portals of the sky.

   There His triumphal chariot waits

   And angels chant the solemn lay--

   Lift up your heads, you heavenly gates!

   You everlasting dove, give way!'" And then the Apostle adds, "And God,
   our Father." We sometimes tremble at the thought of God our Father, as
   well we may. How could we ever approach Him were it not for God in
   human flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ? But when we have once really
   trusted in Christ, it is an easy matter for us to look by faith to God
   and to rejoice in Him! And, with the deepest reverence of soul, let us
   know that God--the ever-blessed God--the terrible God--the Omnipotent
   God who shakes both Heaven and earth with His voice, who touches the
   hills and they smoke--this God is ourGod! And all His attributes of
   power, as well as those which we usually consider to be more full of
   Grace, are exerted on our behalf! I do not know anything that is more
   comforting in times of trouble than this great Truth. I met, yesterday,
   a gentleman who told me that he was converted some 30 years ago,
   through the instrumentality of a great-uncle of mine with whom he lived
   as an apprentice. He said, "There was a terrible thunderstorms and the
   old gentleman was sitting by the fireside and we youngsters were
   afraid. The flashes of lightning were so vivid and the thunder pealed
   out so terribly, but," he added, "the old gentleman rose from the
   fireside, went to the window, and as he looked out, he began to sing--

   'The God that rules on high

   And thunders when He pleases, That rides upon the stormy sky, And
   manages the seas--

   This awful God is ours, Our Father and our love! He shall send down His
   heavenly powers To carry us above.'"

   The gentleman said to me, "I never forgot the impression I then
   received of that good man's quietude of mind, and of the evident
   delight which he took in that display of the Divine Omnipotence. There
   seemed to him a sweetness in the eloquence of his Father's voice,
   though it made every timber in the old house shake."

   Yes, Brothers and Sisters, the Apostle brings these things to our minds
   so that we may realize that in having "our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
   and God, ourFather," we have on our side those who will be true to us
   forever and, therefore, we ought to continue to be comforted in heart
   and established in every good word and work. If you had trusted only to
   a dead Savior, you might well go and weep over His tomb--if you had
   such gods as the heathen have, then might all consolation be withheld
   from you. But with an almighty Savior who always lives to make
   intercession for you and with an Omnipotent and Omniscient Father who
   always lives to watch over you as His dear children, you must not so
   much as think of being disquieted in spirit, nor even dream of being
   moved from the firm foundation of your faith and hope, and love!

   While still thinking of this source of our consolation, it will help us
   if we notice, next, that the Apostle specially mentions the Person of
   Christ. "Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself" Why did he put in that word,
   "Himself," just there? It would have sounded all right if he had
   written, "Now our Lord Jesus Christ, and God, our Father, who has loved
   us." Ah, but he wanted to call our very particular attention to the
   real Personality of our Lord Jesus Christ and to make us feel that, in
   Him--not merely in what He does and what He bestows, but in "Himself is
   the source of our comfort! "Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself" O
   Brothers and Sisters, is there any surer source of joy to a Christian
   than Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God? John writes, "The Word was made
   flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
   only-begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth." And from the
   inspired Word I know that God has taken Humanity into union with
   Divinity, and that He who stands at the right hand of God, even the
   Father, is the Son of Mary, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! Why,
   there is comfort in the knowledge that He is there as the
   Representative Man who has taken redeemed human nature right up to the
   Throne of God--picked up human nature as it lay, all bruised and
   mangled, outside the gate of the earthly Paradise--and taken it up into
   the heavenly Paradise from which it can never be expelled!

   There must be thoughts of love to man in the heart of God since His
   only-begotten and well-beloved Son is a Man! When you think of your
   Savior, you are not to think exclusively of Him as God, but also to
   think of Him as Man, for He was born into this world and lived in it.
   He ate and drank, and slept and walked as we do--and He also died as we
   do! And in His Humanity, as well as in His Divinity, He has gone into
   Glory. Leaving out, for the moment, what He has done for us, we may
   well rejoice in what He is, Himself, as Immanuel, God With Us! Here is
   music in the very sound of that sweet name--and there is the very
   essence of music in "our Lord Jesus Christ Himself."

   But look at His Person, not merely as Man, but as the God-Man who has
   offered a complete Atonement for His people's guilt. Up yonder,
   enthroned in Glory, is your Savior, not merely as Man, but as the
   Mediator between God and men, who has completed His great Sacrifice,
   accomplished all His Father's purposes and fulfilled His Father's will
   so that He could truly say, "It is finished." Look at Him, by faith, as
   the glorified Man--glorified because, having descended into the grave
   bearing His people's sin, He came up out of the grave without sin. He
   "was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our
   justification." And His Resurrection was the proof that He had--

   "To the utmost farthing paid Whatever His people owed."

   Surely it should bring the sweetest consolation to you to think of
   Jesus Christ as the Representative of His people, gone up into Glory
   and soon to come to this earth again to reign "before His ancients
   gloriously," when the bodies of all His saints shall be fashioned like
   unto His glorious body, and so shall be "forever with the Lord."
   Brothers and Sisters, may

   "our Lord Jesus Christ Himself manifest Himself unto you with those
   dear upraised hands of His, with the scars still visible! And as you
   gaze upon Him, may you realize that He is giving to you "everlasting
   consolation and good hope through Grace" and, therefore, may your
   hearts be comforted and may you be established in every good word and
   work! How can you be moved from your steadfastness so long as you can
   see Him? How can you ever depart from Him who has won your affection
   and holds your soul fast with cords of a man, and bands of love? Surely
   you must cling to Him forever and ever! I feel that I must say with the
   poet--

   "A very wretch, Lord!I should prove,

   Had I no love for Thee--

   Rather than not my Savior love,

   Oh, may I cease to be!"

   The Apostle, however, does not let us forget that in union with our
   dear Redeemer, at one with Him in every purpose of Divine Grace, is
   "God, our Father, who has loved us." And he bids us think not so much
   of His Person which we cannot comprehend, as of His love. So, Beloved,
   let us try to view God our Father in the attitude of loving us. Truly,
   this is a boundless and unfathomable sea! We can neither fly across it,
   nor dive into its depths. Remember, Believer, that the Lord loved you
   long before the foundation of the world. You are so insignificant in
   the scale of being that if He had quite forgotten you, you might not
   have wondered. And yet, before the mountains were created, or He had
   kindled the morning star, in the glass of His decrees He beheld you and
   even then He loved you! Recollect how Jeremiah was inspired to write,
   "The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you
   with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
   you." Dwell on that wondrous Truth of God, that God has loved you with
   an everlasting love. Suck the honey of consolation out of that glorious
   fact! Surely if your faith is at all in exercise, you will find much
   sacred sweetness there.

   God loved us, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "even when we were dead
   in sins." God loved you when you resisted His Spirit. He loved you when
   you despised His Son. He loved you out of the horrible pit and the miry
   clay. He loved you into a state of Grace and so loved you into loving
   Him. And He has loved you ever since with a constant love though He has
   sometimes chastened you for your profit--for His love is wise and
   discriminating. He has never deserted you and His love for you has been
   constant and true. He has often been grieved with you when you have
   sinned against Him, for His love is a holy love which cannot endure
   iniquity--yet He has forgiven you, for His love is a gracious love! He
   has always loved you and is loving you at this moment. Surely this fact
   ought both to comfort the Believer's heart and to hold it fast! And
   this is what the Apostle was aiming at when he wrote our text. What can
   bind a Christian to his God so well as a sense of Divine Love? If it is
   but shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit, you will not be
   tempted away from your Heavenly Father's house, neither will you be
   weary of your Heavenly Father's work, nor tired of your Heavenly
   Father's words. That which comes to us perfumed with love is always
   sweet and precious, so let us rejoice to remember "God, our Father, who
   has loved us."

   And, Beloved, do not forget that having once loved you, He will always
   love you. When this great world has passed away and, like a dream, has
   vanished into nothingness, you will still live because Jesus will still
   live--and you will still be loved by "God, our Father," because Jesus
   will still be loved by Him. As you are in Him, you shall be forever in
   Him and forever be the object of the Father's love. These are simple
   matters to speak of, but they are sublime Truths of God to live upon.
   Bread is a common thing, but a hungry man thinks it very precious. O
   you hungry children of God, cut large slices from the loaf that is set
   before you, now, and gratefully feed upon it! Here is "our Lord Jesus
   Christ Himself," in His complex Person as God and Man, as a fountain of
   comfort to His people and He is "God, our Father," in His everlasting
   love to us, as the same fountain under another aspect.

   Then the Apostle, having pointed out to us the Divine Source of all our
   blessings, bids us survey the streams which flow from that Source--"who
   has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope
   through Grace." Beloved, the consolation which God gives to us is not
   temporary, but eternal! Such consolation is worth having and when we
   get it, we may well rejoice over it.

   What are the consolations which God gives to His people? I need not
   mention all the forms of consolation, for, to meet each separate case
   of distress, there is a special message of comfort--and every promise
   that God gives you is part of the everlasting consolation with which He
   has enriched all His chosen people. The potent "shalls" and "wills" of
   Jehovah stand fast like His Throne and can never be changed. Has He
   given you a promise and shall He not fulfill it? Yes, and

   fulfill it again, and again, and again, as long as you shall need to
   have it fulfilled, for His promises are inexhaustible and full of
   manifold riches of blessedness to the believing soul! God's promise of
   consolation is based upon the "Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all
   things, and sure." God has entered into a Covenant with Christ on the
   behalf of all His people. And from the provisions of that Covenant He
   will never depart, for He has "confirmed it by an oath: that by two
   Immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might
   have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon
   the hope set before us."--

   "His oath, His Covenant, and His blood, Support me in the sinking
   flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and
   stay-- On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking
   sand."

   Pardoned sin is, to my mind, one phase of the "everlasting consolation"
   which God has given us, for, be it known unto you that God does not
   forgive your sin today and then lay it to your charge again tomorrow.
   Little children give presents and them want to have them back
   again--and fickle men often play fast and loose with one another. But
   when God forgives, He forgives forever, "for the gifts and calling of
   God are without repentance." That is to say, He never changes His mind
   and takes back the gift which He has bestowed. Have you received
   absolution from the lips of your God? Then your sins shall never again
   rise up against you in judgment, for they have been cast into the
   depths of the sea! "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the
   iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none. And
   the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon them,
   whom I reserve."

   What "everlasting consolation" there is, also, in the great Doctrine of
   Adoption! We become the children of God when we are born-again. "And if
   children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." A
   man's child is always his child and God's child is always His child. A
   man cannot "unchild" his own son or daughter! And if you are a child of
   God, you shall be a child of God throughout eternity! The life that God
   has put into you is not transient! As Jesus said concerning His sheep,
   "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither
   shall any pluck them out of My hand." What rich consolation there is
   for you in this blessed Truth of God! The very life which becomes yours
   by your adoption into the family of God is an everlasting life--it
   must, therefore, yield you "everlasting consolation."

   Time would fail me to remind you of all the various forms of
   consolation which the Spirit of God applies to the heart of the
   Believer--and every phase of it is everlasting! Therefore, Brothers and
   Sisters, let us not be moved away from the hope of the Gospel. Let us
   not cast away our confidence, "which has great recompense of reward."
   Let us not be disturbed or disquieted--let not our hearts be troubled.
   If we have everlasting consolation, let our joy also be perpetual.

   And then the Apostle, still further to comfort our hearts and establish
   us in every good word and work, tells us that God has given us "good
   hope through Grace." You know what that good hope is--the hope that He
   will preserve us unto the end--the hope that we shall be raised from
   the dead in God's good time--the hope that we shall be accepted in the
   day of Christ's appearing--the hope that we shall be with Him where He
   is and shall behold His Glory and share it with Him forever and ever!
   This is a good hope because it has a good basis to rest upon. God has
   given this hope to all who believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. And as God
   is true, the hope is a good hope. A hope that is founded upon a lie is
   a vain hope, but a hope that is founded upon a promise of God is a good
   hope. It is a good hope because it is a hope of good things--so good,
   my dear Friend, that you cannot find anything to match them in the
   whole world. It may well be called a good hope, for it is the hope of
   perfection, the hope of being transformed into the image of Christ, the
   hope of everlasting delight. It is the best of all hopes and we cannot
   say more of it than that. It is a good hope because of its operation on
   the heart. "Every man that has this hope in him, purifies himself, even
   as Christ is pure." For the man who has a good hope through Divine
   Grace longs to be purged from sin, to be waiting and watching for his
   Lord's appearing and to have an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of
   God!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, since so much of what God has given to you
   is at present the subject of hope, do you not see how bound you are to
   remain in the posture of waiting and hoping--and to be neither
   discouraged, nor yet to turn deserters? May the Lord "comfort your
   hearts, and establish you in every good word and work," because you are
   saved by hope and the realization of that hope is not visible at
   present, for, if you saw it, you would not continue to hope for it.

   You are expecting greater things than you have ever realized! It is
   better than before, for your faces are toward the rising sun. We were
   told, some time ago, by a philosopher, that our nation had been
   shooting Niagara and taking a leap in the dark. Well, that may be, or
   may not be, but this I know, Believers in Christ are not descending
   Niagara, for they are ascending! And their leap, whenever they leap, is
   not into the dark, but into the Light of God--a Light that is brighter,
   and brighter still! Our progress is away from evil up to good, from
   good to better, and from the better to the best of all--an infinite
   progression, by the Divine impulse of the Grace of God--for it is by
   Grace! "Good hope through Grace." We do not get this good hope through
   nature, or through our own free will--we get it through Divine Grace.
   Grace has given us what we have already received and Grace also gives
   us the hope of what we have not yet received. Grace lets us see the
   things that are ours at present and Grace enables us to realize the
   things that shall be ours in the future!

   I hope you understand what the Apostle meant in setting all this before
   you. If I had the tongues of men and of angels, I could not tell you
   the heights, deaths, lengths and breadths of these gracious words. Let
   me read them to you again--"Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God,
   our Father, who has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation
   and good hope through Grace." That is what we already have!

   II. Now I want to clinch the nail by speaking of WHAT WE ARE TO HAVE as
   the result of what we already have. Paul prayed for the Thessalonians,
   first, that the Lord would comfort their hearts and, Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ, may the Lord comfort your hearts! God does not wish
   you to be sad. A certain Persian king would allow no one to wait upon
   him if he had a sad countenance. It is not so with our Lord, for He
   looks with a tender eye upon those who are heavy of heart and He does
   not forbid them to come into His Presence. At the same time--

   "Why should the children of a king Go mourning all their days?"

   If you have everlasting consolation, my dear Sister, what reason have
   you for such constant fretting? If you have a good hope through Grace,
   my dear Brother, why did you say, the other day, that you were tempted
   almost to give up all hope? May the Lord comfort your hearts! Perhaps
   you think it is a small thing for the Lord's people to be comforted,
   but God does not think so. He said to His servants, the Prophets,
   "Comfort you, comfort you My people, says your God." It was not one
   alone whom He told to do this, but He said, "Comfort you My people," as
   though He summoned all His servants and said to them, "Whatever you do
   in denouncing sinners and in stirring up My people to work for Me,
   never forget this part of your duty--'Comfort you, comfort you My
   people, says your God. Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem.'" Our Lord
   Jesus Christ did not think that it was a small thing for His people to
   be happy, for, on the very night in which He went forth to His passion,
   among the last words that He uttered were those blessed ones which have
   cheered millions of mourners--"Let not your heart be troubled: you
   believe in God, believe also in Me."

   The normal condition of a child of God--I mean, his healthy
   condition--is one of repose, rest, comfort and delight. Certainly, the
   Lord has given special promises to those who reach this state of
   mind--such as this, "Delight yourself also in the Lord; and He shall
   give you the desires of your heart." He means, then, to give great
   things to those who honor Him by trusting Him so that they cease to be
   troubled and are comforted, whatever happens. What ails you, daughter
   of sorrow? Are you poor? So was your Lord! Yet I never read that He
   complained at what His Father willed. Why should you complain of the
   dispensations of Providence? Are you sick, my dear Brother or Sister?
   You will not be the first child of God who has pined away into Heaven
   if that should be your lot. Perhaps the Lord means thus gradually and
   gently to take down your earthly tabernacle, but, if so, remember what
   Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "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." "Ah," you say, "but it is one
   who is very dear to me who is dying." Yes, but when the Lord lent you
   your husband, or your wife, or your child, He did not tell you that any
   of them would live forever! Be thankful that you have had these loans
   so long. After all, they are not really yours and if the Lord takes
   back what He lent to you for a while, why should you be so cast down?
   "I have lost all," cries one. Have you lost your God? "No." Then you
   have not lost your all. May the Lord comfort your heart, my dear
   Friends, because if you are unhappy, you dishonor your God by your
   doubts and fears, and you often hinder those who would enter into the
   Kingdom. They see your sad face and they say, "Christ's yoke must be a
   heavy one, and His burden must be intolerable! Look at the face of that
   Christian man or woman." I would rather that they should say to you,
   "we would gladly go with you, for there is a brightness about your

   face that we would like to have. We perceive that your Master is a good
   Master and that He cheers and comforts your hearts."

   I believe that thoroughly happy Christians--those who really enjoy the
   things of God--are also among the most stable Christians. I think that
   is why Paul was guided to put the truth as it is in our text. You
   cannot get a man to give up that which is his daily delight. I never
   wonder when I hear of some professors giving up Christianity, for they
   have never experienced the joy of it--it was only a burden to them.
   When a poor fellow has a load on his back that does not belong to him
   and does not yield him any comfort, but only galls his shoulders, you
   are not surprised if he gets to one of those rests for porters in the
   city, he lays down his load and walks away and forgets it--and is very
   glad to forget it! But if it were his own property, his own
   treasure--you would not find him forgetting it, or going away and
   leaving it behind! The thing out of which you get the most joy will, in
   the long run, be the dearest thing to you! And if you continually
   rejoice in the Lord, your joy will greatly help you in resisting the
   many temptations to skepticism and superstition to which others will
   yield. You will stand fast in the Lord because you will be held there
   by the golden rivets ofjoy which God has given you in communion with
   Himself!

   Then the Apostle adds, "and establish you in every good word and work."
   He wants God's people to be established in every good word. I suppose
   he mean that he would have us firmly fixed in our belief of the
   Doctrines of the Gospel and, Beloved, you may very well say that you
   will keep to them till somebody shows you something better, just as I
   have read that when the people of the State of Massachusetts wanted a
   set of laws, and they had not time to make them just then, they passed
   a resolution that they would be governed by the Laws of God until they
   had time to make better ones. We may believe the Doctrines revealed in
   the Word of God until we find better ones--and that we shall never do!
   Have those Doctrines converted you? Then, be established in them! Does
   your experience confirm the truth of them? Then, cling to them! It is
   one of the characteristics of the Doctrines of the Gospel that the
   older a man gets, the more he loves them. I always find that the older
   saints become more Calvinistic as they ripen in age--that is to say,
   they get to believe more and more that salvation is all of Grace. And
   whereas at first they might have had some rather loose idea concerning
   free will and the power of the creature, the lapse of years and fuller
   experiences gradually blow all that kind of chaff away. Old saints get
   what is called "a sweet tooth." They love the sweet things of the
   Covenant. They like their meat to have a rich savor. I am not old yet,
   but I confess that I get more and more fond of the sweet things of the
   Gospel of Grace and cannot endure the novelties that are so current and
   so exceedingly popular nowadays. Oh, no! Tell me of my Father's eternal
   love, tell me of my Savior's precious blood, tell me of the Spirit's
   sacred indwelling and my heart is glad! But tell me anything short of
   this and my soul is not fed. I pray that you, Brothers and Sisters, who
   are members of this Christian Church, may know what you know and hold
   fast to it. May you drive your roots down into the rich soil of the
   Infallible Truths of God! May you not be as leaves of the forest,
   driven here and there by the winds because there is no life in you, but
   may you be "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings
   forth its fruit in its season," whose "leaf also shall not wither." God
   make you to be thus "established in every good word."

   The Apostle would also have those to whom He wrote established in every
   good work. Sometimes an attack of this kind is made upon us--"It is no
   use trying to teach the Gospel to children. We cannot suppose that they
   can understand its deep mysteries." I heard that said only the other
   day. Well, I can say that we have tried it and we have found that
   whether you choose to call them great mysteries or not, children do
   understand the Gospel and seem, sometimes, to comprehend it better than
   their fathers do just because they are so childlike! This qualification
   for entering the Kingdom of Heaven is not fully-developed manhood, but
   rather that we should become as little children. And unless we do
   become childlike, we cannot enter the Kingdom. Dear Friend, do not be
   turned aside from your work by anything that is said concerning it. If
   people say that it is no use to go down to the lodging houses and talk
   to the poorest of the poor, be established in doing it because your
   Master did it and because the everlasting consolation which comes to
   you through the Grace of God makes you feel that to the most unworthy
   are the fittest objects for the Gospel of Jesus. Since you received
   consolation from God's mercy, you may well be established in the belief
   that there is consolation in the mercy of God for the vilest of the
   vile!

   Do not be turned aside from any part of your work, and especially from
   the blessed work of prayer. Some people tell us that prayer is useless,
   but what do they know about it? They have never tried it! But those of
   us who have tried and proved it, and who still practice it from day to
   day, know that prayer is heard. We may send a telegraphic message, yet
   it may never get where we want it to go. We may mail a letter, yet it
   may never reach its proper destination. But when we pray, we are sure
   that we are heard, for we have distinct answers to our petitions and
   our heart is filled with delight as we recollect the hundreds and
   thousands of times in which the right hand of the Lord has been
   stretched out to help us when we have cried unto Him in our time of
   need! Be established in every form of good work, you who are part of
   the Lord's great army, meeting here for drill and for battle with the
   forces of evil. I beseech you, Brothers and Sisters, let not your
   hearts grow faint, and do not so much as think of retreating in the day
   of conflict. Lo, our victorious Leader, "our Lord Jesus Christ
   Himself," is coming! Therefore let everyone of us play the man for our
   coming King. The fight will not be long and woe be to the man who turns
   his back in the day of battle--but blessed shall he be who is found
   faithful even unto death. I speak thus to you, Beloved, though I am
   fully persuaded that He who has begun the good work in you will perfect
   it until the day of Jesus Christ.

   I wish that my sermon had a great deal more to do with some of you than
   it has, for I fear that there are many here to whom I have not been
   speaking. Therefore, my closing message shall be to the unsaved. My
   dear Friend, I cannot bid you be steadfast, and I cannot talk to you of
   everlasting consolation, for you have not yet believed in Jesus Christ
   to the saving of your soul. There is an awful text of Scripture which
   at present applies to you. The Apostle Paul, a cool-headed and
   warm-hearted man who loved sinners, once wrote this--"If any man love
   not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha." That is,
   accursed at the coming of Christ! O my dear Friend, that is what you
   will be if you love not our Lord Jesus Christ! And that is what you
   ought to be and what the warm-hearted lover of his race, who also loves
   his God, feels must be and ought to be your doom if you love not the
   Lord Jesus Christ. Think of that and I pray that the Holy Spirit may
   lead you first to trust in Jesus, and then to love Him, and so you
   shall be saved and shall bless Him forever!--

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

God's Writing Upon Man's Heart

   (No. 2992)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.

   "I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts."
   Jeremiah 31:33.

   THIS is not the language of the Old Covenant, but of the New Covenant.
   The prospects of life held out in the Law have all dissolved into a
   ministration of death as the penalty of disobedience. Its voice might
   have once captivated hearts that knew not their own weakness. How did
   it speak? "Do this, and live; keep My commandments, and you shall
   receive in return for your obedience singular blessings upon earth and
   rest in Heaven." But that Old Covenant, since the Fall, no man has
   kept, or can keep. Surely if any persons could have kept it, those to
   whom it was originally given were the most likely to do so. They were a
   separated people. They were removed into the wilderness, far from evil
   associations. They were miraculously fed out of the granaries of
   Heaven. They received their drink in an equally marvelous manner out of
   the smitten Rock. They had God, Himself, in the midst of them. They had
   His pillar of cloud to cover them by day and His pillar of fire to lead
   them by night. In all their difficulties they could appeal to Moses. If
   there had been an inadvertence or mistake, they could turn to Aaron and
   he, by the offering of the appointed sacrifice, could set them right
   again. They were placed where they had not the trials and the
   temptations of the rest of mankind. They were so cut off and separated
   that I may well compare them to--

   "A garden walled around,

   Chosen and made peculiar ground." And yet, even in that favored soil,
   which was so well tilled and so well kept by God, it was utterly
   impossible that perfect holiness could grow and, therefore, the Law of
   God was broken. Even the seed of Israel, circumcised and blessed with
   covenants and promises--and having the immediate Presence of God in
   their sanctuary could not keep the Law--a clear lesson to us that "by
   the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified." You cannot
   perfectly obey God! You cannot work out a righteousness of your own!
   You cannot do that which God commands you to do. Look to the flames
   which Moses saw--and sink, and tremble, and despair if you wish to be
   saved by your own works!

   Now that Old Covenant has passed away with regard to the Lord's people.
   As many of us as have believed in Christ Jesus are now under a New
   Covenant which is of quite a different kind. It does not say, "Do this,
   and live." It says, on God's part, "I will give you a new heart; I will
   forgive your sins; I will bless you with My Presence. I will make you
   holy. I will keep you holy. I will preserve you in My ways; I will
   bring you to Myself at the last." And all this is vouchsafed without
   any conditions that render the fulfillment precarious, for whatever
   conditions there were, devolved not upon the sinner, but upon the
   sinner's Substitute--as though God had said, "I will do this if My
   only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, will give His blood for the remission
   of your sins and work out a perfect righteousness for your acceptance."
   That has been done and now, as far as you and I are concerned, the
   Covenant of Grace is one of promise, pure promise, nothing but promise!
   And all that we have to do, as poor, guilty, helpless, needy souls, is
   to sit down at the feet of our gracious God and receive from Him these
   wondrous blessings which the Covenant has secured to all the faithful--

   "Firm as the lasting hills,

   This Covenant shall endure,

   Whose potent shalls and wills

   Make every blessing sure!

   When ruin shakes all nature's frame,

   Its jots and tittles stand the same.

   Here when your feet shall fall,

   Believer, you shall see

   Grace to restore your soul,

   And pardon full and free!

   You with delight shall God behold

   Sheep restored to Zion's fold.

   And when through Jordan's flood

   Your God shall bid you go,

   His arm shall you defend,

   And vanquish every foe!

   And in this Covenant you shall view

   Sufficient strength to bear you through." One of the blessings of this
   New Covenant is heart-writing--"I will put My Law in their minds, and
   write it on their hearts." It is of that I am going to talk tonight.
   And instead of having different heads to the sermon, I will just offer
   a few observations, which have, I think, a very intimate connection
   with this point of writing upon the fleshy tablets of the heart.

   My first observation is that WITH THE TABLETS OF STONE, CHRISTIANS HAVE
   NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO.

   Do not be staggered or astonished at this remark. I know that there are
   certain places of worship where these two tablets of the Law stand
   right over the Communion Table, but they have no business there, for we
   can never have any communion with God upon the footing of the Law. If
   there must be anything there. If there must be any symbol at all there,
   then the Roman Catholic is right when he puts there the Cross, or a
   picture of the crucifixion. We put away all symbols lest they should
   become a source of idolatry. But, if there must be anything over the
   Communion Table, the Cross is the proper thing--not the two tablets of
   the Law, for, on the footing of the Law, God never had communion with
   man--and He never can have, since man has fallen. With the two tablets
   of the Law as they are written upon the stone, the Christian has
   nothing whatever to do.

   You know me too well to suspect me of being an Antinomian, yet I will
   not try to detract from the force of the expression which the Holy
   Spirit has taught us, "You are not under the Law, but under Grace." All
   the Ten Commandments the Christian loves. They are his rule of life and
   he decides to keep every single word that God has ever commanded to the
   sons of men. But, as they stand on those tablets of hard, cold rock, I
   have nothing whatever to do with them! Moses dashed them from his hands
   in holy rage and, surely, as I see their cracked fragments there, I can
   only say that I have done precisely what Moses did--and have broken
   those tablets to pieces, too! Even Moses could not carry these tablets
   in his hands without breaking them, nor can I do any better than he
   did. God rules His people, not by Law, but by love. They do not walk in
   holiness because they must, but because they wish to do so. The rule
   which governs them is not, "Do this, and live; do that, and perish,"
   but this--"I have loved you with an everlasting love; what will you do
   for Me?" To quote two good lines of old Master Quarles, which just give
   me the sense I want to convey to you--

   "Leave you the stony tablets for your Savior's part. Keep you the law
   that's written in your heart." As for the Laws written on the stone
   tablets, Christ has kept them and fulfilled them! Therefore they have
   lost their force to crush you. The tablet on your heart is your rule,
   your guidance and your law. See to it that you be not disobedient to
   the Revelation of "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

   There are many of my hearers, tonight, who are always dealing with the
   tablets of the Law. You are trying to get to Heaven by what you can do.
   O my dear Friend, you cannot keep the Law--why do you try to do it? It
   is too high, too heavenly, too broad, too spiritual for you. It affects
   you in your imaginations, your thoughts, your words, your actions. Why,
   you break it every moment! You have broken it since you have been in
   this House of God. Think not, then, to do an impossibility! And even if
   you could keep it in the future, it would do you no good, for you have
   already broken it and to try to preserve what you have already broken
   is most absurd! If you had an alabaster box in your hand, and you had
   broken it to slivers, however careful you might be of the broken
   fragments, you could not put them together again. You

   have most effectually cut the throat of all your hopes of ever being
   saved by the Law of God! O Man, why do you try to do this when Christ
   has kept the Law for all who trust Him? Do you think that Christ would
   have come all the way from Heaven to keep the Law for you if you could
   keep it for yourself? If you could be your own Savior, what need was
   there for Him to be stretched upon the Cross and to bleed, and agonize,
   and die? Does Christ do that which is not necessary? O proud soul,
   proud soul to think to do what only a Savior can accomplish! Come now
   and leave your doings--for all your righteousnesses are but as filthy
   rags! Come now and leave your virtues and all your boasted deeds, and
   look away to where He hangs who has woven a garment without seam from
   the top throughout and has dyed it in the crimson of His own blood! Put
   this on and you wear Heaven's court-dress, and you shall one day stand
   among the peers of Paradise! But without this, you are naked, poor and
   miserable! I counsel you, therefore, to buy of Him fair raiment--the
   fine linen which is the righteousness of the saints!

   With the Law as engraved on stone, then, the Believer has nothing to
   do--his business is with the Law as written with the Spirit of the
   living God upon his heart!

   My next observation is that THE OLD HEART IS NOT FIT FOR GOD TO WRITE
   HIS LAW UPON.

   Somebody said once that the human heart, in infancy at least, was like
   a piece of white paper, and that there might be anything written on it
   which we pleased. Little did that person know--little had he even
   guessed the truth concerning a human heart--for the heart is blotted,
   blurred, blacked, smeared, smudged, fouled, stained through and through
   even at the very beginning! Everyone can say with David, "Behold, I was
   shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." There is no
   such thing as a white surface upon the natural heart--and God never
   tried to write a sentence on the natural heart yet--and He never will
   because He knows right well that that heart is not a fit place for His
   holy Law to be written. If it should be possible for Him to put it upon
   that black heart, I think He would not do it, for it is an impure thing
   and God will never write His perfect Law upon an imperfect parchment
   like a depraved heart. It is too vile, too abominable for God to touch.
   All that can be done with the old, natural, human heart, is for God to
   mortify it, to pierce it through and through with the spear which
   pierced the side of Christ! "Death to the old Adam! Death to the old
   Adam!" is the cry of the Gospel. But as for modifying him, it never
   tries to do it, for the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor can the
   leopard change its spots. The old nature is looked upon as hopeless and
   is given up to die--and the sooner it dies, the better for you and for
   me! God will not write His Law upon it, for it is foul, and blotted,
   and too abominable for Him to touch.

   Equally impossible is it for God to write upon the old heart because it
   is stony. He did write once on stone and the tablets were broken--He
   will not write on stone a second time. The first tablets of stone were
   broken and, as to the second tablets of stone, I know not where they
   are, they are lost--as if the very thought of goodness had been lost to
   man by nature. And if God should write upon a stony heart, this would
   be the result--that the heart with the Law written upon it must soon be
   broken and destroyed. What? Shall He write on such an unstable,
   treacherous, deceitful thing as an unrenewed heart? As well might you
   write upon the sand! Or, still worse, go write your name upon the
   treacherous billow and expect to find it handed down to fame! But God
   writes not on water. He will not take His great pen into His hand to
   write on such a medium as the heart which "is deceitful above all
   things, and desperately wicked." "You must be born-again." God's
   promise is, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
   put within you." "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right
   spirit within me." Let that prayer be breathed by you as you realize
   the unfitness of the old heart for God to write upon!

   The old heart, then, being put out of the question, there is a new
   heart produced by the Holy Spirit. Transcending the greatest wonders in
   Nature is this bestowment of a new heart! You know, dear Friends, that
   a tree, if it has had some of its branches cut off, may grow new
   branches and there are some crustaceous animals which, when they lose a
   claw or a foot, grow fresh ones--but you never heard of an animal
   losing its heart and then having a new one! The thing is impossible in
   Nature, but this wonder of wonders God works in us! He gives a new core
   to our very being, a fresh life-fountain to the whole of our existence!

   Well, when this new heart comes unto us, it must have something written
   on it. A heart with nothing on it would be too preposterous for
   imagination. Look at all God's works--they all have something written
   on them. Even the black brow of tempest has God's name of terror
   written upon it in letters of lightning. Do not the thunders roll like
   drums in the march of the God of Armies? Is not the Eternal, Himself,
   mirrored in tempest upon the bosom of the stormy sea? Even the fields,
   whether they are white with winter's snows or golden with autumn's
   crown of glory, still bear the impression, either of Divine Power or of
   Divine Love. God has written the whole world over--there is not a slab
   in the great palace of creation which is left unsculptured. Everywhere
   there are great hieroglyphs which skillful men and initiated spirits
   love to read. And shall there be nothing on the heart, when God has
   taken the trouble to make it twice over, when He has made that heart
   new? If there were nothing on the heart, it would be no heart! A heart
   without something in it is just a dull, dead vacuum and not a fit heart
   for such a creature as man. What was the new heart made for--to what
   end and to what purpose--if it were not to bear some Divine
   inscription? The devil would soon attempt to write on it if God did not
   write. Is it not the very best way to keep a man from filling a bushel
   with chaff, to first fill it full of wheat? So, for God to write on the
   new heart--is not this the safest method to keep that heart pure for
   Himself, so that no word of the language of Hell shall be written
   there? If that heart were left empty, what would happen? Is it not
   written concerning the man's house that was swept and garnished, that
   the evil spirit came back to it? Why? Because it was empty! If there
   had been a tenant in it--if the armed strong man had kept the
   house--the old tenant could not have gone back. And so, when God has
   thoroughly written out this whole of His Law upon the tablet of a
   sanctified heart, there will be no possibility that sin shall ever be
   written there! I know it is an incorruptible seed that cannot sin,
   because it is born of God, but that very thing which makes it an
   incorruptible seed--the very life that is in it--makes it swell, and
   grow, and germinate. As the heart is God's heart, and a renewed heart,
   there must be God's writing upon it. God does not send books into the
   world which are but blank paper. He does not produce as His Epistles
   that are to be known and read of all men, mere empty sheets! No, there
   must be upon the new heart some of the handwriting of God!

   Pray the Lord to give you new heart, poor Soul. Or if you have it
   already, ask Him to write upon it now. Say, in the words of that
   verse--

   "There shall His sacred Spirit dwell, And deep engrave His Law-- And
   every motion of our souls To swift obedience draw."

   NEXT, IS NOT THE NEW HEART THE VERY BEST PLACE IN WHICH TO WRITE THE
   LAW OF THE

   LORD?

   I cannot conceive of a better place to put it than in the new heart. A
   certain minister, preaching from the text, "Your Word have I hid in my
   heart, that I might not sin against You," had three heads to his
   sermon. First the best thing, "Your Word." Secondly, "in the best
   place--"have I hid in my heart." Thirdly, for the best of
   purposes--"that I might not sin against You." That is as a well-divided
   sermon! The heart is the best place, because, you know it is in his
   heart that a man carries his jewels. When Little-Faith was met down
   Dead Man's Lane by those three villains, they robbed him of most of his
   spending money, but they did not steal his jewels. The reason was
   because he carried them in the casket of his heart. Some men wear their
   religion as men wear their hats--where it can be snatched by a thief,
   or be blown away by the winds of temptation, or be laid aside to suit
   their own convenience when they get into the devil's drawing room. But
   the true Christian carries his religion in his heart. And as his heart
   is always safe in the very center of his being, so is his religion.
   Fair weather or foul weather, good company or bad company--it is all
   the same. In closing markets or the winning market--whether men cry,
   "Hallelujah" and, "Hosanna"--or whether they cry, "Crucify Him, crucify
   Him!" the man is still the same because he has his principles in his
   heart, which is the best place for God's Law.

   Putting the Law of the Lord into the heart signifies that it is put
   where it will be loved and where it will control the whole man. If you
   can put a thing into a man's heart, you have put it at the very center
   of his being. We have heard of a certain shepherd who had a flock of
   sheep in a meadow. A stream of water that ran through the meadow was
   very foul and muddy, so the shepherd dug some new channels. But after
   he had dug them, the water was still not very clear. He cleared out the
   channels again and again, but still, after a little while, the water
   was again impure. It was better than it had been before, when flowing
   through the muddy channel, but still it was not such as he wished it to
   be. At last, someone said to him, "Why do you not clear the water up
   upon the hill? There is a mass of mud and filth there and the water
   comes down the hillside laden with all this impurity. Purify it there,
   purify it near the fountainhead." So, when man gets purified at the
   fountain--when he gets the Law of the Lord in his heart--then it is
   that he is sure to be all right as to the streams of his actions. You
   cannot put the Law of God, then, in a better place than in the heart,
   because there it

   will be preserved--and there it will influence the entire man. Lord,
   grant to me and to mine, that we may have Your Law thus safely locked
   up in the golden casket of a renewed heart.

   Still, it must be admitted that IT IS VERY HARD TO WRITE ON HEARTS.
   That same old poet whom I quoted just now, Quarles--pictures God as
   saying--

   "What I indite 'Tis I alone can write

   And write in books that I Myself have made.

   'Tis not an easy trade

   To read or write in hearts.

   They that are skillful in all other arts

   When they take this in hand

   Are at a stand."

   It is not easy to read hearts and it is still harder work to write on
   hearts. We can sometimes write on people's heads-- that is
   comparatively easy. You may get a thing into the intellect. you may get
   it into the brains by sheer dunning and argument--but to get things
   into the heart is not so very easy--

   "He that's convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still"--
   and, though convinced, he still goes on in the same path, pursuing the
   thing which he knows to be his own worst enemy. There are no slaves
   like those who serve their enemies and those are the greatest slaves
   who are slaves to their own soul-destroying lusts. It is not an easy
   thing to write on hearts. When there are many conversions, certain
   simpletons are apt to think that there is something in the preacher to
   account for them. Suppose someone had gone to that ancient battlefield
   and had picked up the stone with which David smote Goliath's head, and
   said, "Well, it must be a very wonderful stone that could have killed a
   giant"? And then, after turning it round, and looking at it a little
   while, he would say that it was very much like any other smooth stone
   that might be put in a sling. And very likely he would throw it down in
   contempt and think nothing of it.

   Well, that is how some people do with God's ministers. They first say,
   "Well, there are so many conversions. The preacher must be a very
   wonderful man." And then they find him wonderfully like any other
   common-place talker and so they think nothing of him. Ah, simpleton! Do
   you not know that it is not the stone, but the sling, and not even the
   sling, but the God who directs the stone to the giant's brow? And so it
   is not the man, but the man's Master--and it is the Spirit of God that
   makes the Word effectual. But what would you think if that stone should
   talk thus, "Oh, what a fine stone am I! I killed you, Goliath! What a
   fine stone am I! The daughters of Jerusalem ought to rejoice over me in
   the dance, and they ought to 'sound the loud timbrel' and say, 'Glory
   be unto you', O Stone, for you have smitten the giant's brow"? What
   would the Angel of Wisdom say but, "O foolish pebble of the brook! Son
   of the dirt and of the dark and miry sea! There is nothing in you any
   more than in your fellow stones that slept with you in the flowing
   crystal! Had David picked any other stone, the work would have been
   done just as well and, inasmuch as he chose you, boast not of yourself
   as though there were anything in you."

   Beloved, when you and I are privileged to do anything for Christ, let
   us remember that we are only like the poor stone out of the brook--that
   there is nothing in it--and that unto God must be all the glory. This
   writing upon hearts is hard work. I confess that I never could--and I
   never expect to be able to write God's holy Law on a human heart. No,
   Beloved, the heart is locked up too tightly for us to get at it. But
   God has the key and He opens it as a man would do his own writing desk.
   And He knows how to open the sheets, one after another, and begin to
   write with His own pen the blessed Commandments of His new and perfect
   Law. Jesus is the great Writer, for Jesus knows hearts! He is Divine
   and Omniscient and, therefore, He knows hearts. And He is a Man--every
   pang that rends the heart has rent His heart. He had a pierced heart
   and there was a terrible writing upon His heart when the spear wrote
   there this great word-- "WRATH"--"the wrath of God on account of sin."
   He knows what heart-writing means. Deep on His heart are inscribed His
   people's names. He understands heart-writing and He can do for His
   disciples what has been done in Him. He has such a gentle hand, such
   loving fingers, such a great heart to move that hand, that He is the
   great Heart-Writer and there is none that can match Him in writing upon
   human hearts!

   Further, WHEN GOD WRITES UPON THE HEART, HE WRITES BY HIS HOLY SPIRIT
   AND USES HIS

   WORD AS THE PEN.

   There are several pens that God uses and one is His Written Word. This
   is a gold pen with a diamond point. It is marvelous how God can
   sometimes write on the heart with a text of Scripture, a promise, a
   threat, a word of doctrine, of exhortation, or of rebuke. When He
   writes with that diamond pen, there is never any mistake, never any
   scratching or catching in the paper--all is well written!

   Then He sometimes writes on human hearts by His ministers. Mr. John
   Berridge once preached a sermon upon a different text from mine, but I
   may quote from his sermon. He says that ministers are like pens. There
   are some University ministers, he says, and they try to make them the
   same as people make steel pens nowadays--they make them by the gross!
   And though they have their excellences and many of them are highly
   educated men, yet they also have their deficiencies. John Berridge
   compared himself to an old goose quill. He said that he could not make
   such fine lady-like upstrokes as the University steel pens could, but
   he thought that God often made heavier down-strokes on the heart by him
   than He ever did by the University gentlemen. And that is the case with
   some of us. We have to be nibbled several times before we are fit to
   write with at all--and when we do write, we sometimes make a sorry
   blotch of it--yet the Lord does help us, rough and ready as we are, to
   make some heavy down-strokes on the sinner's conscience. And if this is
   done, it is a reason for thankfulness and we will bless the Lord for
   it! Pens, however, must sometimes be sharpened--and so ministers must
   sometimes feel the sharp knife of affliction so as to make them more
   fit to preach God's Word.

   Need I remind you, Beloved, that a pen cannot write of itself? Just
   take that pen and lay it down on the paper. Can that pen write,
   "Paradise Lost?" Why, it cannot even stir! It cannot write a single
   letter of the alphabet, much less can it write a poem! And so is it
   with the minister--he can write no Truths of God in the sinner's heart
   and conscience unless his Master holds him in His hands--but when the
   Master begins to write, oh, then, how well it is done, and how the
   white paper of the new heart receives the Divine handwriting and it
   remains indelibly there!

   Neither would it be any use for writing even if it were the best pen in
   the world--without ink. And the analogy in this case is with the Holy
   Spirit. The minister must be dipped in this ink. He must have the Holy
   Spirit with him, or else it is no matter what he may be--he may be a
   goose-quill, or he may be the polished steel. He may have been
   well-sharpened, he may have written much in his time, but he can write
   nothing without the ink. Mr. Joseph Irons used to pray, as he went to
   his pulpit, "Oh, for an unction from on high! Oh, for an unction from
   on high!" And I think this may be the preacher's prayer whenever he
   goes to preach, "Oh, for an unction from on high! Oh, for much of this
   Divine ink--much of the Holy Spirit!"

   Surely we may praise and bless the Lord whenever we see His Law written
   upon a human heart because it is God's Law, because it is God who wrote
   it and because it is the Spirit of God who is the Agent, through the
   Word, by whom that writing is put there! Let us join in hearty
   thanksgiving to Father, Son and Spirit, the Covenant-keeping God who
   writes His Law in our hearts!

   And it may be well to make a special note of this fact--IT IS GOD'S LAW
   WHICH IS WRITTEN UPON THE NEW HEART.

   I do not think it is the Law as it stands in the letter, either in
   Exodus or in Deuteronomy, but it is the spirit of the Law that is
   written upon the Christian's heart. With regard to the Law as a letter,
   we may say, "The letter kills." It is the spirit, the essence of the
   Law, which the Christian is to mind and which is written on his heart.
   Under the old Law, the Jew was often put to much inconvenience. For
   instance, the Law of the Sabbath, as it then stood, was, "In it you
   shall do no manner of work." Now, some Christians read it in that way
   even to this day--but when the Savior was on earth, His disciples
   rubbed the ears of corn together in the fields and ate thereof, on the
   Sabbath. The Pharisees complained of this, but the Savior replied to
   them that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."
   The Sabbath was never meant to be a fixed and tight bond to crush us
   and make us feel like slaves during the time it lasted. It was made for
   our use, to be devoted to the best and highest of purposes. The
   Pharisees would never have healed anybody on the Sabbath--that, they
   thought, was dreadfully wicked! But Jesus Christ hallowed the Sabbath
   by acts of mercy. And now He gives to the Christian a day of rest, not,
   indeed, such a day of rest as it was to the Jew, but He gives us this
   that we may perform works of mercy, works of piety and works for
   necessary uses. These we do perform and when we do, there are some who
   cry out that such-and-such a Christian is not a Sabbatarian! No, and
   the Christian has no need to be! His

   Law of the Sabbath is not the old Law, as he finds it in Deuteronomy or
   Exodus, but the Law of the Sabbath as he finds it according to
   Christ--which is this--that the day is a day of rest and holy pleasure.
   A day in which we are to serve God with all our might and any kind of
   work which is wholly God's work--and in which we can serve God--is a
   work which we are permitted--no, which we are enjoined to perform!

   So it is with all the Law. The Christian does not go back to the Law of
   Moses and say, "I feel very angry. I should like to know whether I may
   kill my brother." No, he has the Law of God in his heart and he does
   not want to kill anybody. He knows that he that is angry with his
   brother is a murderer, so he turns around and says, "I forgive you. I
   forgive you freely." Sometimes persons come and ask us questions which
   involve some degree of lust, but a Christian has the Law of God in his
   heart and he does not want to know whether this and that may be
   permitted as a sin of the flesh, but he remembers that, "whoever looks
   on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in
   his heart" and so he spurns the sin. The Law written on his heart is
   enough for him and he delights in the Law of God after the inward plan,
   without needing to go to the letter, the killing letter--and reading in
   that the condemnation of offenses rather than the promptings of holy
   motives! The Law of God is perfect! Let us say nothing against it. But
   it is not so glorious as the Law which Christ has brought in and which
   He exhibited in His own Person. The glory of the Law was great, but the
   glory of Christ's Gospel is far greater! Remember, Christian, that
   there is to be written on your heart the whole of God's Law, but it is
   the spiritof that Law--not the letter of it--which is to be written
   there. And what that spirit is, you know, for our great Teacher
   epitomized it in one word, and that one word is "LOVE." Love that
   furnishes the impulse while it prescribes the duty.

   The man who has God's Law written in his heart will go right without a
   book--he will go right without having somebody at his elbow to nudge
   him. And why will he go right? Why does the steam engine go? Because it
   has steam within it and the proper machinery--so it must go. You do not
   see 20 horses dragging a steam engine along, do you? There are some
   folks who want to make laws to make other people good. That is not the
   way in which Scripture goes to work. Scripture just alters the man's
   heart, puts new machinery in him and the heavenly steam--and then he
   cannot help going right! You are not to have a Law with 20 policemen
   behind it to drag a man to do right--that is not the thing to do. The
   man must be renewed by Divine Grace and made a new creature in Christ
   Jesus--and then, by the force and strength of that new nature, the Law
   being written in his heart--he hates that which is evil and cleaves to
   that which is good. Some people cannot understand this. They know that
   they will not, themselves, do what is right unless they are flogged to
   it--while they do what is wrong at every opportunity from an evil bias.
   But the Christian is different! He has been born-again and now he would
   need flogging to do evil! And even then he would not do it. But he
   needs no driving to that which is good, for the ways of God are his
   pleasure and the pleasures of sin he hates. May we all in this sense
   have the Law written on our hearts! And what will that Law be? Why,
   this word, "LOVE." Love is the Law of the Gospel! "You shall love the
   Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
   your strength; and your neighbor as yourself." This is the Law of the
   Christian, and this is the Law which is written on his heart! This is
   the sum and substance, the distilled essence of all the Ten
   Commandants. You may forget those Ten Commandments, O Believer, if you
   will but remember this new Law which is written on your heart, "Love,
   love, love!"

   Last of all, THE WRITING PRESERVES THE HEART AND THE HEART PRESERVES
   THE WRITING.

   Some of us who have a large correspondence sometimes have a grand
   burning. There are a lot of letters on my table, very possibly written
   by some of you, which will never get answered. But if people will write
   ten times as many as anybody can answer, they must not expect to get
   replies. Still, there they are, and sometimes there comes to be a
   general blaze--and while we are burning the letters up, every now and
   then we say, "Ah, I'll keep that!" Why? Well, it is in the handwriting
   of somebody we loved, but who is now dead. And we say, "Yes, I'll keep
   that. Just put that away in one of the pigeon-holes and there let it
   lie among the interesting letters." So, when God comes at last to look
   at all the writing of the universe, there will be a general
   burning--but He will come to one heart, and He will say, "Yes, keep
   that, that has my Law written on it--and wherever I see my Law, I see
   my dear Son's handwriting. He Himself died upon the Cross that this
   heart should not be burned. I will keep that." If you have God's Law
   written on your hearts, it will preserve you.

   So, too, the heart preserves the writing. The Pharaohs have written
   wonderful inscriptions in Egypt upon their stone tombs, yet some of
   these have become defaced through the lapse of years--

   "Time hats a mighty tooth, And bites the granite through."

   But when a thing is written upon an immortal heart, no time can change
   it! The heart that had God's Law written on it years ago, still has it
   written there in the last expiring moments, as the Believer talks with
   his God upon his dying bed. The flesh has been committed to the grave,
   but the handwriting is not gone, for the heart on which it was written
   has soared aloft, and now it is before the eternal Throne of God! And
   when the sun has grown dim with age and the moon has waned never to wax
   again, and the stars have quenched their tiny lamps, when--

   "The great globe itself,

   Yes, all which it inherits, shall dissolve

   And like this insubstantial pageant faded

   Leave not a rack behind"--

   just as a moment's foam dissolves into the wave that bears it and is
   lost forever--when all the universe that God has made, except the
   Heaven which is to exist forever, shall have passed away, then the
   handwriting of God upon that heart will be as clear and as legible as
   it is now! Yes, and if you can fly on seraph's wings far, far away,
   till time seems a spot too small to be discerned by the keenest eye. If
   you have sped on till God has made and destroyed as many worlds as
   there are grains of sand by the seashore. Till He has piled up and
   dashed to pieces, again, as many mighty universes as there are drops in
   the ocean--changeless even then--the imperishable writing of the Divine
   hand shall still glitter on the immortal, eternal hearts that God has
   made and quickened--that they might be the pillars on which He might
   write the memorial of His love and holiness! Oh, that my heart might
   have His writing on it! Brothers and Sisters, I pray that it may be the
   case with you and with all of us!

   But, remember, the old heart must be broken--and the place to get a new
   heart is at the foot of the Cross. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved." "Whoever believes in Him shall not be
   ashamed." He that trusts in Jesus builds upon a rock! He builds for
   eternity and his happiness shall be secure.

   The Lord send you away with His own blessing for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

"That King Ahaz"

   (No. 2993)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
   8, 1863.

   "And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the
   LORD: this is that king Ahaz." 2 Chronicles 28:22.

   IT is absolutely certain, dear Friends, that whatever our personal
   characters may be, we shall have to know, by practical experience, the
   meaning of the word, "trouble." Saint or sinner, "man is born unto
   trouble, as the sparks fly upward." The road to Heaven is rough and the
   path to Hell is not always smooth. There are some tribulations which
   belong especially to the people of God, yet it is also true that "many
   sorrows shall be to the wicked." If a man, trying to escape from
   sorrow, should take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost
   parts of the sea, he would find that sorrow was even there upon the
   sea! Should he go to the frozen regions of the North, he would find
   sorrow there, for there have some of the fondest human hopes been
   wrecked. Let him journey to the sultry South and trouble shall pursue
   him there, for plagues, fevers and disease haunt that region and the
   gates of death are near. Until we mount to Heaven, we shall never be
   able to escape from sorrow and sighing--only there shall we obtain joy
   and gladness, when our somber companions shall have fled away forever.

   Since, dear Friends, the stream of sorrow is here, and we cannot make
   it flow in any other direction, what shall we do with it? Let us try to
   put it to profitable uses! Let us lift up our heart in prayer to God
   that all our sorrows may be sanctified--that, with all other things,
   they may work together for our lasting good--and that we, who are the
   children of God, may be perfected in the image of Christ according to
   the Divine Purpose. Let us remember, however, that sorrow will not of
   itself be beneficial to us. It is possible to endure afflictions on
   earth and afterwards to endure eternal damnation in Hell. Sinners may
   go from beds of languishing to beds of flame, from toil and poverty
   here, to torment and all despair hereafter. There is nothing at all in
   sorrow that can burn out sin--there is no power in human suffering to
   remove the wrath of God!

   I. I shall commence my discourse with this very simple remark--IN THEIR
   TIMES OF DISTRESS, GOD'S PEOPLE HAVE OFTEN FOUND VERY GREAT PROFIT.

   Suffering is one of the things which is written in the Covenant of
   Grace as a blessing. The rod was promised to us when we became the
   children of God and we cannot escape it. And I think the poet Cowper
   was right when he said that "the trueborn child of God" would not
   escape it if he might. The distress of Believers, when it is sanctified
   to them, loosens their hold upon this world. Trials cut the ropes which
   fasten our souls to earthly things and so enable us to mount. They file
   the chains which, as on the eagle's foot, will not let her spread her
   wings and soar upward toward the sun. Trouble, like a sharp spade, digs
   up the earth that is about our roots and then we bring forth more
   fruit. Were it not for the thorns in our nest, we would be so content
   with its soft lining that we would sit in it till we died. But the
   sharp thorns prick our breasts and then we turn our eyes aloft and
   learn to try our wings, ready for the time when they shall have fully
   grown and we shall mount to joys above!

   Afflictions, also, are often to the benefit of Believers in leading
   them to search for sin. Our trials should be search warrants, sent to
   us from God that we may search and find out the secret evil that is
   within us--the offense that we have hidden, the lie that is in our
   right hand. You know, Beloved, that it is not an easy thing to bring us
   to self-examination. We are afraid of it--we are too apt to take things
   as they seem to be, without testing and trying them to see what they
   really are. But when the consolations of God grow small with us, then
   we say, "Is there any secret sin within us?" A rough wind blows through
   the forest and the rotten branches creak, and are torn from the oak,
   where otherwise they

   would have become a nest for all sorts of destructive insects and a
   center of decay for the whole tree. So, our afflictions often drive
   away some besetting sins, some darling propensities which otherwise we
   might have carried in our bosom till they had done us grievous damage.

   Do you not also know, dear Friends, how trials give new life to prayefi
   Do we ever pray as well as when we feel the pricks of our Father's
   sword? He never wounds us so severely as to kill us, but He does,
   sometimes, just gently probe us to wake us up from our lethargy. Oh,
   what fervent prayers we offer when in the furnace! And I may add, oh,
   what grateful songs we sing when we come out! There is more life, I
   think, in one's piety in times of sorrow than at any other season. I do
   not wish to be laid aside from pulpit labor, but I must confess that I
   have often felt unusual spiritual power when coming up to preach to you
   after a season of sickness. And there have been times when I have heard
   some of you say, "Our minister speaks more sweetly, now, than he did
   before he was laid aside." Yes, the olives must go into the press if
   the oil is to be squeezed out of them--and the grapes must be trod upon
   with loving feet before the wine flows forth from them. The file must
   be used upon us to bring out the true quality of the metal. There is no
   hope that we shall ever be made into much fine gold unless we are often
   put into the crucible--and unless that crucible is put into the midst
   of the glowing coals! So I say that we get much good from our trials.

   Have you not also found, dear Friends, that trials make your faith grow
   stronger We who are but striplings in the Lord's army, enlist very
   readily. We put the colors in our cap and we think that we are going to
   do great things--to stir up the Church and to rout the world, the flesh
   and the devil! But we soon find that we have to be drilled by the black
   sergeant, Affliction, and afterwards we have to march out to the battle
   of the warrior, "with confused noise and garments rolled in blood."
   And, by-and-by, after many a conflict, we become hardened veterans and
   we who might have turned our backs before, if it had not been for
   trial, become bold as lions for the Lord our God! Brothers and Sisters,
   there is no teaching, no ministry, even of the best-taught servant of
   God, that can do you such good as sanctified experience! You must learn
   for yourselves--under that blessed schoolmaster, Mr. Affliction--you
   must study the sacred science of Divinity! It is good to go to his
   school, for the lessons to be learned there are so beneficial. One of
   his scholars wrote, "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have
   I kept Your Word."

   We also get our sweetest comforts in the time of trouble. Do not
   mothers often give their children, in their seasons of sickness, tokens
   of love that they never give them when in health? I know that there are
   kisses of Jesus' lips for His tried children that He gives not to those
   who are without trial. "He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and
   carry them in His bosom." Then I would love to be a lamb, to ride so
   near to His heart--"and shall gently lead those that are with young,"
   and it is well for us, sometimes, to fake those pains and weaknesses
   that we may have more of the gentle leadings of the tender Shepherd! I
   think it was Rutherford who said that when Christ put him down in the
   cellar of affliction, he knew that He kept His wine there, and he
   groped about until he found the bottles--and then he drank and was
   revived! Ah, there is rich wine of comfort in the lowest cellars of
   affliction when Christ puts us down there! Even the joys of Heaven will
   be all the sweeter because of our experiences of trial here, where we
   often sing--

   "Sweet affliction Thus to bring my Savior near." Christ is
   superlatively sweet to us and the next sweetest thing in all the world
   is Christ's dear Cross. He is, Himself, most precious, but next to the
   kisses of His lips are the blows--the love pats--of His pierced hands!

   II. Now I advance another step and remind you that VERY OFTEN, THROUGH
   THE GRACE OF GOD,

   UNGODLY PERSONS HAVE HAD REASON TO BLESS THE LORD FOR THEIR
   AFFLICTIONS.

   Not infrequently have I heard a story of this kind from a man who has
   passed the prime of life, whose garments bear evidence, though he still
   looks respectable, that he is one who has seen many sorrows and
   trials--and who carries on his brow the marks of the plowshare of
   grief. He has come to unite in fellowship with the Church and he begins
   telling the story of his conversion, which is something like this--"I
   was once a flourishing tradesman. I had a large business and was a
   wealthy man, but, alas, I was foolish. Worse than that, I was wicked. I
   misspent my time, I delighted in the ways of sin and became a
   profligate. My companions thought me generous and I did not wish to be
   less than they thought me to be, so I wasted my substance in riotous
   living. My business suffered and, at last, there came a crash. All I
   had went where all must go when a man squanders his time and money as I
   squandered mine. I became poor. I had not previously known what it was
   to eat the bread of dependence, but I did eat it for a few months.
   Friends assisted me for a time, but they grew

   tired of doing so and I was cast off by the world. And I felt, when any
   looked coldly upon me, that I deserved it. I have been a fool, Sir, I
   know that I have. But it was then, one cold, pitiless night, when there
   was only one place where I could find shelter for my head--that place
   was the pauper's last refuge--it was then that I thought upon my ways
   and lifted my eyes to Heaven and breathed the prayer, "God be merciful
   to me, a sinner." The man has told me that he blesses God for his
   poverty, for that was the means of bringing him to Christ! And since he
   has come to know the Lord, he has thought it a thousand mercies that he
   was thus brought very low, for if he had not been, his proud spirit
   would never have been broken and he would never have been humbled
   before the Lord.

   And some of you, my Sisters, know that you have told me and the Church
   your story. You were happy mothers in your households, but you feared
   not the Lord. You had your children around you and you and your husband
   took what you called, "your pleasure," on the Sabbath, for you had no
   fear of God before your eyes. But, by-and-by, one of your little ones
   was taken ill. You watched, with anxious care, the pale cheek as it
   grew still paler--and grim Death took your darling from you. Again his
   shaft flew and a second one was taken--and your soul was melted because
   of heaviness. There is one here who had four children taken away in
   succession, till, at last, the mother's agonized soul, bereaved of all
   earthly comfort, could go to no one else but Christ--and when she went
   to Him, she found in Him what was better than 10 sons--His love, His
   pardon, His acceptance, His free gift of eternal life!

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, there have been many who have thus, by a
   series of bereavements, through the sanctifying influence of the Holy
   Spirit, been brought to know the Lord! I need not stay to mention
   instances of which I am constantly hearing. I believe that the black
   angel of distress has brought as many to Christ as the bright angel of
   tender mercy. In fact, if you look well at the black angel, as I have
   called him, you will see that he is not black, but exceedingly bright,
   for there is a gracious ministry in those loving sorrows! There is an
   angelic kindness in those loving cruelties (as some term them) by which
   God sometimes bring hardened sinners to Himself!

   III. But now I come to the main point of my discourse which is that
   although distress is often blessed to God's people, and is frequently
   sanctified to the conversion of sinners, our text is a notable proof
   that THERE IS NOTHING

   IN TRIAL, ITSELF, WHICH WILL NECESSARILY SOFTEN THE HEART AND MAKE A
   MAN REPENT. "In the

   time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord: this is
   that king Ahaz."

   If further proof were needed that trouble, affliction, sickness and
   familiarity with death necessarily softened the heart, then those
   people who have most to do with these things would have the most tender
   hearts--but it is not so. Think of the man who has to deal with the
   dead. Where will you find anywhere, as a class, a more hardened set of
   men than undertakers often are? I know that anyone who is well
   acquainted with them, must have observed how they joke over a corpse
   and make mirth over the death of their fellow creatures, regarding a
   fever rather as a blessing which brings them employment than as a
   calamity which takes away the husband from the wife, or the parent from
   the children. I do not speak without my book in this case, and it is
   very much the same with other people. I think I said, one day, that if
   a man or a woman were not converted before they became pew-openers at a
   church or a chapel, it was probable that they never would be
   converted--and I am still of the same opinion. I once said that I
   thought even reporters of sermons, if they did not know the Lord before
   they undertook that work, would very likely fail to get any good out of
   the sermon and, therefore, it is always a great joy to me when I know
   that those who have any share in the preparation of my sermons with a
   view to their publication have realized the power of the Truth of God
   in their own hearts so that, even while engaged in the mechanical
   operations connected with reporting and printing the sermons, their
   souls drink in something of the sweetness of the Truth which is
   afterwards to be read by others.

   Probably, however, the truth of the text will be best illustrated by a
   Scriptural instance. Look at Pharaoh. Was any man ever more troubled
   than he was? All the power of land, and water, and sky united to plague
   him! It seemed as if all the frogs in the world had made Egypt their
   rendezvous--and the locusts, and the lice, and the flies, and cattle
   diseases, and boils, and the hail, and the thick darkness--and though
   all these plagues came upon Pharaoh, he still hardened his heart and
   would not let the people go! Affliction did not soften him. On the
   contrary, it hardened him. And the case of Ahaz is another instance of
   the same evil spirit, for the more trials came to him, the more did he
   trespass against the Lord. The children of Israel, too, though they
   were smitten many times, yet revolted again and again. They were hunted
   about by marauders and delivered up to their enemies. Their crops were
   devoured of locusts. Famine and pestilence came

   upon them, but, for all that, they turned not unto the Lord, but
   hardened their hearts against Him and were a stiff-necked generation,
   even as they are unto this day!

   However, I need not go on beating round the bush, for, if further
   proofs that sorrow does not necessarily soften are needed, there are
   plenty of such proofs here at this moment. There is that sailor over
   yonder. He knows that he is a great deal worse than he was three or
   four years ago. He had more pricks of conscience then, than he has now,
   yet it is not many months since he escaped from shipwreck. He thought
   the angry deep must surely swallow him up, so he cried unto God in his
   time of trouble, and said, "Save me, O God, for the waters have come in
   unto my soul!" God spared his life, but the trial he then endured had
   no beneficial effect upon him and, as I have said, he is a worse man,
   now, than he was years ago! Then there is that man yonder--whose
   business has been going down. What effect has that had upon him? He is
   growing harder and harder and is even cursing God for what he calls his
   bad luck! In trying to improve his position, he is only plunging deeper
   into the mire and he will be head over heels in the morass, presently,
   unless the almighty Grace of God shall deliver him! But the man is not
   softened in spirit by all that he has had to endure. That which would
   have softened him had he been as wax, has hardened him because his
   nature is like clay. May God yet have mercy on him, for I plainly
   perceive that his briars, by themselves, will be of no use to him!

   And you, too, who have come creeping out to this service--you have been
   so ill that hospital after hospital has turned you away as incurable.
   The doctors say that nothing more can be done for you, so you have come
   limping in here, though you can scarcely keep your seat for
   weariness--you are very ill and weak--yet your unhumbled spirit is as
   proud as though your ribs were made of iron and your heart were strong
   as steel! If you should be chastened any more, you would only revolt
   more and more. You have already been smitten until your whole head is
   sick and your whole heart is faint--from the crown of your head to the
   soles of your feet there is no soundness in you, for you have become,
   as the result of God's chastisements, a mass of wounds, bruises and
   putrefying sores! Yet still is sin as strongly entrenched within your
   soul as ever it was! What more shall the Lord do to you? Shall He give
   you up as hopeless? Shall He make you as Admah? Shall He set you as
   Zeboim? Shall He say concerning you, "He is joined unto his idols; let
   him alone"? What else remains to be done for you where all this
   affliction and trial will not break your heart?

   I might go on pointing out you who are like king Ahaz, for my Master
   knows all about you and He knows how to direct my tongue so that I
   shall describe you. I feel a great yearning of heart, the throes of
   strong convulsions in my soul over some of you who are here! I know
   that I have a special message from God for some whom I am now
   addressing. Who and where they are, the Lord knows. I do not, but I
   pray that my message may now be accepted by them. As the Lord my God
   lives, before whom I stand, if you turn not at His rebuke, O Soul--if
   this last affliction shall not humble you, He will dash you in pieces
   like a potter's vessel and break you with a rod of iron! "Turn you,
   turn you, for why will you die?" Why will you draw destruction down
   upon your own head? Why will you stain your garments with your own
   blood? Why will you dash yourself to pieces upon the bosses of
   Jehovah's buckler? Why will you run upon the edge of His sword? Why
   will you leap into the fires of Hell? Why will you ruin your soul
   forever? Pause, I entreat you! A brother's love bids you pause! You who
   are like "that king Ahaz" who, in the time of his distress, trespassed
   yet more against the Lord, I pray you to stop and consider, lest, at
   your next step, your feet should hang over the awful darkness of the
   Pit and your soul be hurled into the eternal depths!

   I have thus, I hope, come somewhat near the mark at which I am aiming.
   And I am getting to speak right home to those who have had afflictions
   and trials, but are growing worse, rather than better, notwithstanding
   all that has happened to them. I will turn from them to speak to some
   of you who have the notion that you will repent and believe in Christ
   some day, but you will not repent and believe in Christ just yet. You
   have not made up your minds that you will go to Hell--oh, no, you mean
   to be saved, one of these days! You have not decided when it shall be,
   but still, you do mean it to happen one of these days! Your secret
   thought is that one of these days you will be obedient to the heavenly
   vision. You talk to yourselves in some such fashion as this, "I shall
   be laid aside one day. Perhaps it may not be until I grow old and when
   I am ill--then I shall have time to turn the matter over calmly and
   quietly. I have heard my friends say concerning some who had lived very
   bad lives, that they hoped it was all right with them at the last and,
   therefore, may I not hope that it will be all right with me?"

   Friend, I want to give you a warning word! Perhaps my meeting you here
   and talking especially to you for a little while may be the means of
   your eternal salvation! What makes you imagine that a time of sickness
   is a suitable time for

   repentance? Do you not think that you will have quite enough to do to
   bear your bodily pains without having to think of the state of your
   soul? When your head is aching, you cannot properly attend even to your
   earthly business--so how can you hope to attend to your soul's business
   when your head and your heart will both be aching? You find that your
   worldly concerns need a healthy mind and body to conduct them
   properly--so do you think that when the mind is becoming weak through
   senile decay and physical infirmity--that then will be a fitting time
   to think of these momentous and eternal realities?

   In many diseases I believe that repentance and faith are scarcely
   possible, for some of them bring such a lethargy of spirit that the
   mind is hardly able to act at all. There are, doubtless, many persons
   who are alive but who, for all practical purposes, are dead long before
   they actually die. You know, too, how often the very thought of death
   is so harassing to an unbeliever that he can hardly think of sin. A
   murderer may repent that he has been brought to the gallows, yet not
   repent of the murder that brought him there--just as, on their
   deathbed, many repent of Hell, but not of sin! I fear that often the
   sense of the wrath to come gets to be so vivid and so real that sin
   hardly comes into the reckoning--and remember, Friend, that it is not
   repentance of Hell that will save you, but repentance of SIN--not
   repentance of the punishment, but repentance of the evil deed itself--a
   sincere hatred of the very pleasure which sin would bring! O Sirs, take
   my word for it--and I think that if there were physicians here, they
   would certify that I am speaking the truth when I say that there are
   other things to do on your deathbed than to talk of "making your peace
   with God." I am uttering a solemn Truth of God, but it is one that must
   be spoken! There may have been some few persons who have been saved on
   a deathbed, but my own conviction is that they have been very, very,
   very, very, very few! We only read in Scripture of one who was saved at
   the last--the dying thief on the Cross--and it has been well said that
   there was one so that none might despair--but only one that none might
   presume! I do not know that there ever was another besides the dying
   thief who was called by Grace at the eleventh hour! I repeat that I do
   not know. I do not say that there have not been any--I hope there have
   been many--but I do not know it. I have no revelation concerning it.
   There is nothing in this blessed Book about it. Only this I know--there
   was one--and therefore I hope there have been more. But since I only
   know of that one, I would warn you not to put any confidence in a
   repentance that may possibly come at the last. You may be saved on your
   deathbed, but I think there is every probability that you who have
   loved sin so long, will hug it to the last! I do not see any reason why
   you would suddenly turn your backs on your former course. If there is
   any such reason, let it operate upon you now. Surely it would have as
   much force upon your conscience at this moment--while you are capable
   of weighing the whole matter calmly and deliberately--as it will have
   when you are tossing on your bed and your judgment has lost a great
   part, if not all of its former vigor! May God bring you to Christ now!
   But do not, I pray you, be dreaming about a deathbed on which you may
   never lie, or of a repentance which you may never experience!

   There was a man who was an awful swearer and whenever anybody spoke to
   him about his not being saved, he used to say, "Oh, well, when my turn
   comes to die, I shall just say, 'Lord, have mercy upon me,' and that
   will be enough." It happened that one dark night, when going home on
   horseback, drunk, his horse leaped the railing of a high bridge and
   horse and rider fell right into the water. And the last word that the
   man was heard to utter was an oath--so beyond all doubt he plunged into
   a hopeless eternity! It is quite possible that you will never have the
   opportunity to breathe a dying prayer, or if you could have such an
   opportunity, it is quite possible that you would have no inclination to
   utter it. Remember that "now is the accepted time; behold, now is the
   day of salvation." May God, in His Sovereign Mercy, turn you to Himself
   now!

   Now I come back to you who have had many trials, but who have not been
   bettered by them. My Friend over yonder, you do not often hear a
   minister preach the Word of God and, therefore, now that I have you
   here, let me deal very plainly and faithfully with you. Why do you
   think that your trials were sent to you? I have shown you that distress
   often has been blessed to others. Now, supposing you have had an
   experience which has been blessed to others, but it has been no
   blessing to you--what is the inference? If a man takes a piece of
   quartz in which he thinks there is some gold, and puts it through the
   usual processes for extracting gold--and when he has done that, sees
   that there is no likelihood of finding gold in it, what is he likely to
   do with it? Why, I think, before long, when he has tried all the plans
   he can think of, he will throw it away and have nothing more to do with
   it! And is it not likely that God will soon throw you away as utterly
   worthless? Did you not say, the other night, that you wished God would
   leave you alone? You would not have come in to this service if you had
   thought that I should speak so pointedly and personally to you, would
   you? You would like to see every church, and chapel, and mission-hall
   destroyed--you would like to have no Sundays, and no religious people,
   because they plague you--they get in your way, they stick pins in your
   pillow, they will not leave you alone to sleep the sleep of death!

   But do you not see that the fact that you want to be left alone is,
   itself, a proof of your reprobate mind? God is beginning to leave you
   alone, I am afraid, inasmuch as you are wishing to be left alone. I am
   afraid that awful curse will come upon you and, possibly, it will come
   upon you soon. Should your present condition continue much longer, I
   can tell you what will happen to you--you will become an avowed
   atheist. You will even deny the existence of God! You may even become
   an open blasphemer, or you may become unconscious of any spiritual
   emotion. Your conscience will never prick you and you will go on
   sinning with a high hand until you come to die. Perhaps, even then, no
   alarm or terror will disturb your false peace of mind. Even when you
   dip your feet in the chilly stream of the River of Death, you will be
   self-deceived to the last. But oh, Sir, what a change will come over
   you when you once get into the world of eternal realities! When, at
   last, you realize that you are a lost soul and that you have forever to
   anticipate the wrath to come, what will you do then? O Man, how will
   the blood boil in your veins and your nerves become burning tracks for
   the wheels of pain to travel on! God help you! God save you! Only He
   can do this, for I see the dread forecast of the flames of Hell in you
   when you begin to ask God to leave you alone in your sin!

   "Well," says one, "like that king Ahaz, I have transgressed yet more
   and more against the Lord notwithstanding all my distress. But God, who
   knows all things, knows that I would be saved if I could. While you
   were singing that hymn just now, I thought I would act upon it. I said
   in my heart--

   "'Ican but perish if I go.

   I am resolved to try

   For if I stay away I know,

   I must forever die.

   Dear Friend, give me your hand! I feel that I may rejoice over you, for
   if God the Holy Spirit has put it into your heart to say, "I am
   resolved to try," or, better still, "I am resolved to trust Jesus
   Christ as my Savior--though He slays me, I will trust in Him"--depend
   upon it, He will not slay you! He would not do so even if you were the
   blackest of sinners--one who had sinned till you had become the vilest
   of all offenders! Jesus casts out none who come to Him by faith. Do, I
   pray you, now say in your soul, "God helping me, I will now come to
   Him--and who can tell whether there may not be a harp in Heaven even
   for me, and a crown of glory for me? I trust that I may yet stand with
   all the blood-washed host before the Throne of God above and join in
   singing the everlasting song of praise to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
   And even here on earth, I may be among the children of God, I may be
   forgiven, I may be saved, I may be accepted in the Beloved." If you
   talk thus, and mean all that you say, I say unto you, not only that
   this may be the case with you, but that it may be the case with you
   this very hour--

   "Oh, believe the promise true, God to you His Son has given!"

   A loving Father waits with outstretched arms to welcome the returning
   prodigal to His heart. Jesus waits by the fountain filled with His
   precious blood to wash you from all your sinful stains. The Holy Spirit
   is working in you even now--'tis He who bids you come! Let not Satan
   persuade you that it is too late for you to come to Jesus--it is never
   too late while the Messenger of Mercy continues to speak to you! Let
   not the devil convince you that you are too sinful to be saved--often
   the greatest sinners are the first to be saved! If the devil tells you
   that you are an extraordinary sinner, tell him that Christ is such an
   extraordinary Savior that He can save all sorts of sinners, ordinary
   and extraordinary, too! Say not in your heart that you cannot be saved,
   for, high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are God's
   thoughts above your thoughts and His ways above your ways! My poor
   Friend, if you feel your need of a Savior, join with me and with all
   the people of God here in singing this verse! Sing it from your heart
   and the great transaction's done--

   "Nothing in my hands I bring:

   Simply to Your Cross I cling!

   Naked, come to You for dress--

   Helpless, look to You for Grace!

   Foul, I to the Fountain fly--

   Wash me, Savior, or I die!"

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--509, 473, 514.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 THESSALONIANS 1; 2:1-4.

   [This Exposition belongs to Sermon No. 2991, Volume 52--WHAT WE HAVE,
   AND ARE TO HAVE--but there was not space available for it there.]

   2 Thessalonians 1:1, 2. Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the
   church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
   Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
   Christ. All nations have their special forms of salutation and this is
   the Christian's greeting to his fellow Christians--"Grace unto you, and
   peace." How much there is in this prayer! "Grace"--the free favor of
   God, the active energy of the Divine Power. And,
   "peace"--reconciliation to God, peace of conscience, peace with all
   men! My Brothers and Sisters, what better things could I desire for
   you, and what better things could you wish for your best beloved
   friends than these, "Grace unto you, and peace from God our Father and
   the Lord Jesus Christ"?

   3. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren. We do not feel
   this bond as much as we ought. We often feel ourselves bound to grumble
   and complain, but I question whether we think enough about being bound
   to praise God. And if we do not thank God as we ought for ourselves, it
   is little marvel if we are very slack in the duty of thanking Him for
   others. Herein, then, let us imitate this devout Apostle and let us
   consider ourselves bound to always thank God for our Brothers and
   Sisters in Christ.

   3-7. As it is meet, because that your faith grows exceedingly, and the
   charity of everyone of you all toward each other abounds; so that we
   ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and
   faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure; which
   is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be
   counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you also suffer: seeing
   it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that
   trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us. You will perhaps
   say that this command is more easily given than carried out. And yet,
   my Brothers and Sisters, the Grace of God always enables us to perform
   what the precept of God commands! You who are troubled rest with us. If
   you can get even a partial glimpse of the Glory that is to follow your
   trouble. If you can see Christ suffering with you and realize your
   union with Him. If the blessed Spirit who pledges Himself to be with
   all the Lord's people, shall be with you, you will find it not hard
   thing thus to rest. "You who are troubled rest with us."

   7. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty
   angels. This rest, then, it seems, is to be given to us mainly when
   Christ shall come with His mighty angels.

   8, 9. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and
   that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished
   with everlasting destruction from the Presence of the Lord, and from
   the glory of His power. I wonder what those persons who say that it is
   not the duty of men to believe the Gospel, make of this passage? Paul
   writes that those who "obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
   shall be punished with everlasting destruction." Then, clearly, the
   Gospel demands and commands man's obedience, and those who will not
   believe it shall be punished, not only for their other sins, but for
   this as their chief and damning fault--that they will not believe on
   the Lord Jesus Christ as set before them in the Gospel of His Grace.

   10. When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired
   in all them that believe. Which passage means, I suppose, that as
   Christ will be admired in His own Person, so His Glory, reflected in
   all His children, will be a subject of admiration to the whole
   intelligent universe. The saints of God shall be so pure, so
   bright--such trophies of the Redeemer's power to save--that He shall be
   admired in them! We know that in God's great temple of the universe,
   everything does speak of His Glory and so, in the great spiritual
   temple of His Church, every separate saint shall show forth the Glory
   of Christ!

   10, 11. (Because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
   Therefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you
   worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the goodpleasure ofHis
   goodness, and the word of faith with power. Ministers should be much in
   prayer for their people. When John Welsh's wife found him on the ground
   with his eyes red with weeping--and she found that he had been there
   supplicating by the hour together--she asked him what ailed him and he
   replied, "Woman, I have three thousand souls to care for, and I know
   not how they all prosper; therefore must I wrestle with God for them
   all." Oh, that we felt more the weight of our ministry! It is, perhaps,
   the great fault of this age that so many who preach, yet preach with so
   little earnestness and are not sufficiently alive to the value of
   immortal souls! Oh, that the Holy Spirit would make our ministry to be
   "the burden of the Lord" upon us!

   12. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and
   you in Him, according to the Grace of our God and the Lord Jesus
   Christ.

   2 Thessalonians 2:1, 2. Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of
   our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that you
   be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by
   word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
   In his former Epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul had written as if he
   expected Christ to come immediately. And the people seem to have taken
   his words so literally as to have lived in expectation of Christ's
   advent and, perhaps, to have exhibited some degree of fear concerning
   it. He now calms their minds by telling them that Christ would not come
   until certain events had happened. The history of the world was not
   complete. The harvest of the Church was not ripe--neither had the sin
   of man and especially the "man of sin" become fully developed.

   3, 4. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come,
   except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin is
   revealed, the son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above all
   that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in
   the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. If this "man of sin"
   is not the Pope of Rome, we cannot tell who is the antichrist!
   Certainly, if this description were put in the Hue-and-Cry, and we were
   police officers, we should at once arrest the Pope as the man whose
   character agreed with the warrant in our hands! What does he call
   himself? "Vicar of Christ on earth." What does he do but set himself up
   to be adored and worshipped as though he were Divine, making himself
   out to be the fountain and channel of all Grace? Beloved, this "man of
   sin" has been revealed! Now we may look for the coming of the Son of
   Man--but the day and the hour when He shall come, no man knows. No, and
   not even the angels of God!
     __________________________________________________________________

Jude's Doxology

   (No. 2994)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   NOVEMBER 7, 1875.

   "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 the
   only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
   both now and forever. Amen." Jude 1:24,25.

   PAUL'S writings abound in doxologies. You will find them in different
   forms scattered throughout all his Epistles. But he is not the only
   Apostle who thus pauses to magnify the name of God. Here is "Judas, not
   Iscariot," but the true-hearted Jude who has been writing an Epistle
   which seems all ablaze with lightning, it burns so terribly against
   certain orders of sinners. Almost every word that Jude writes seems to
   have the roll of thunder in it--he appears to be more like the Haggai
   of the Old Testament than the Jude of the New. Yet he cannot close his
   short Epistle until he has included some ascription of praise to God!

   Learn from this, dear Friends, that the sin of man, if we are ever
   called to denounce it, should drive us to adore the goodness and glory
   of God. Sin defiles the world, so after you have done your best to
   sweep it out, resolve that, inasmuch as man has dishonored the name of
   God, you will seek to magnify that name. It is true that you cannot
   actually redress the wrong that has been done, but, at any rate, if the
   stream of sin has been increased, you may increase the stream of loyal
   and reverent praise! Take care that you do. Jude is not satisfied with
   having rebuked the sons of men for their sin, so he turns round to
   glorify his God!

   Observe that these doxologies, wherever we meet with them, are not all
   exactly the same. They are presented to the same God and offered in the
   same spirit, but there are reasons given for the doxology in the one
   case which are not given

   in the other. Our morning text [Sermon No. 1266, Volume 21--PAUL'S
   DOXOLOGY] told us of what God is able to do and so does this. They both
   begin with praising God's ability, but while Paul spoke about the
   greatness of that ability in what it could do for us, Jude speaks of
   the greatness of that ability in preserving us from falling and
   perfecting us so that we may be presented faultless before the Presence
   of the Glory of God. Let us, in an adoring frame of mind, think over
   this sublime subject. I. First, LET US ADORE HIM WHO CAN KEEP US FROM
   FALLING.

   I now address myself, of course, only to God's own people. When shall
   we ever see a congregation in which it will be needless to make such a
   remark as that? I cannot call upon some of you to adore God for keeping
   you from falling, for, alas, you have not yet learned to stand upright!
   God's Grace has never yet been accepted by you. You are not on the Rock
   of Ages--you have not yet set out upon the heavenly pilgrimage. It is a
   wretched state for you to be in--in which you cannot worship Him whom
   angels worship. It is a sad state of heart for any man to be in! To be
   excluded--self-excluded--from the general acclamations of joy in the
   Presence of God--because you feel no such joy and cannot, therefore,
   unite in such acclamations!

   But to the people of God, I have to say this. Dear Brothers and
   Sisters, we need keeping, therefore let us adore Him who can keep us!
   As saved souls, we need keeping from final apostasy. "Oh," says one, "I
   thought you taught us that those who are once saved shall never finally
   apostatize." I do believe that doctrine and delight to preach it--yet
   it is true that the saved ones would apostatize--everyone of them--if
   the Lord did not keep them! There is no stability in any Christian,
   considered in himself. It is the Grace of God within him that enables
   him to stand. I believe than the soul of man is immortal, yet not in
   and of itself, but only by the immortality which God bestows upon it
   from His essential

   immortality. So is it with the new life that is within us. It shall
   never perish, but it is only eternal because God continues to keep it
   alive. Your final perseverance is not the result of anything in
   yourself, but the result of the Grace which God continues to give you
   and of His eternal purpose which first chose you and of His almighty
   power which still keeps you alive. Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, the
   brightest saints on earth would fall into the lowest Hell if God did
   not keep them from falling! Therefore, praise Him, O you stars that
   shine in the Church's sky, for you would go out with a noxious smell,
   as lamps do for lack of oil, did not the Lord keep your heavenly flame
   burning! Glory be unto the Preserver of His Church who keeps His loved
   ones even to the end!

   But there are other ways of falling beside falling finally and fatally.
   Alas, Brothers and Sisters, we are all liable to fall into errors of
   doctrine. The best-taught man, apart from Divine Guidance, is capable
   of becoming the greatest fool possible! There is a strange weakness
   which sometimes comes over noble spirits and which makes them
   infatuated with an erroneous novelty, though they fancy they have
   discovered some great Truth of God. Men of enquiring and receptive
   minds are often decoyed from the old paths--the good old ways--and
   while they think they are pursuing the Truth, they are being led into
   damnable error! He only is kept, as to his thoughts and doctrinal
   views, whom God keeps, for there are errors that would, if it were
   possible, deceive even the very elect! And there are men and women
   going about in this world with smooth tongues and plausible arguments,
   who carry honeyed words upon their lips, though drawn swords are
   concealed behind their backs! Blessed are they who are preserved from
   these wolves in sheep's clothing! Lord, You alone can preserve us from
   the pernicious errors of the times, for You are "the only wise God, our
   Savior."

   And, dear Friends, we need keeping from an evil spirit. I do not know
   whom I should prefer--to see one of my dear Christian Brother fall into
   doctrinal error, or into an un-Christian spirit. I would prefer
   neither, for I think this is a safe rule--of two evils, choose neither!
   It is sad to hear some people talk as if they, alone, are right, and
   all other Christians are wrong. If there is anything which is the very
   essence and soul of Christianity, it is brotherly love--but brotherly
   love seems to be altogether forgotten by these people. And other
   Christians who, in the judgment of sobriety, are as earnest and as
   true-hearted and as useful as themselves, are set down as belonging to
   a kind of Babylonian system--I hardly know what they do not call it,
   but they give it all sorts of bad names--and this is thought to be a
   high style of Christianity! God grant that the man may be forgiven who
   thought it to be a worthy purpose of his life to found a sect, whose
   distinguishing characteristic should be that it would have no communion
   with any other Christians! The mischief that man has done is utterly
   incalculable! And I can only pray that in the Providence of God, some
   part of it may die with him.

   O Brothers and Sisters, I charge you, whatever mistakes you make, not
   to make a mistake about this one thing-- that even if you have all
   knowledge, and have not charity, it profits you nothing! Even if you
   could get a perfect creed and knew that your modes of worship were
   absolutely Apostolic, yet if you also imbibed this idea that you could
   not worship with any other Christians and that they were altogether
   outside your camp, your error would be far worse than all other errors
   put together--for to be wrong in heart is even worse than to be wrong
   in head! I would have you true to God's Truth, but, above all, I would
   have you true to God's Love! My Brother, I think you are mistaken about
   this matter or that, but do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? If so, I
   love you. I have no doubt that I, also, am mistaken about some things,
   but do not, therefore, withdraw your hand and say that you cannot have
   fellowship with me! I have fellowship with my Father who is in Heaven
   and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and with His blessed Spirit. And I
   think that it ill becomes you, if you call yourself a son of that same
   God, to refuse to have fellowship with me when I have fellowship with
   Him! God save you from this evil spirit, but you may readily enough
   fall into it unless the Lord shall keep you. Your very zeal for the
   Truth of God may drive you into a forgetfulness of Christian love! And
   if it does, it will be a sad pity. O Lord, keep us from falling in this
   way!

   But there are falls of another sort which may happen to the brightest
   Christian. I mean, falls into outward sin. As you read Jude's Epistle
   through, you will see what apostates some professors became and you
   will be led to cry, "Lord, keep me from falling!" And if you were the
   pastor of a large church like mine, you would see enough to convince
   you that traitors like Judas are not all dead--that amidst the
   faithful, the unfaithful are still found--that there are bad fish to be
   thrown away, as well as good fish to be kept. And every time we execute
   an act of discipline--every time we have to bemoan the fall of one who
   looked like a Brother--we may thank God that we have been kept--and may
   sing this doxology, "Unto Him who is able to keep us from falling, be
   glory and power forever."

   And, dear Friends, there is a way of falling, out of which people are
   not so often recovered as when they fall into overt sin. I mean,
   falling into negligence as to natural or Christian duties. I have known
   professors who have been very lax at home--children who were not
   obedient to their parents--husbands who did not love their wives as
   they ought-- wives who were quite at home at this meeting and that, but
   very negligent of their domestic duties. And, mark you, where that is
   the case, it is a thing to mourn over, for the Christian ought to be
   absolutely reliable in everything he has to do! I would not give
   twopence for your religion if you are a tradesman--but not fair in your
   dealings! I do not care if you can sing like David, or preach like
   Paul--if you cannot measure a yard of material with the proper number
   of inches, or if your scales do not weigh rightly, or your general mode
   of business is not straight and true--you had better make no profession
   of religion! The separation at what is called, "religious," from the,
   "secular," is one of the greatest possible mistakes. There is no such
   thing as a religion of Sundays, and of chapels and churches. At least
   though there is such a thing, it is not worth having. The religion of
   Christ is a religion for seven days in the week--a religion for every
   place and for every act! And it teaches men, whether they eat, or
   drink, or whatever they do, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus
   Christ and to the glory of God! I pray that you may be kept from
   falling away from that religion, and that you may be kept up to the
   mark in serving the Lord in all things and attending diligently to the
   little commonplace matters of daily life.

   And you know, dear Friends, there is another sort of falling--that is
   when the heart gets gradually cold, when the Christian wanders away
   little by little--when the life become more or less inconsistent with
   the profession. Oh, how many professors get into this state! They are
   like people who are not as well as they used to be. They do not know
   when they began to feel worse--it was months ago and every day they
   have got weaker--till now you can see their bones, though once they
   were full of flesh. Now they discover that whereas once they could have
   walked ten miles without fatigue, half a mile or less wearies them!
   Their appetite, too, has gradually gone. They scarcely know how. Ah,
   these are the sick folk with whom the physician has more trouble than
   he has with those who are suddenly seized by some well-known disease!
   And that gradual decline of spiritual health which does not come all at
   once, but, little by little, is one of the most perilous of evils and
   we have need to continually cry, "Lord, keep us from this!" And to
   praise His name that He is able so to keep us!

   Thus I have shown you that we need keeping and, Brothers and Sisters,
   none but the Lord can keep us. No man can keep himself. Without God's
   Grace, he will surely fail! And no place can keep us. Some people think
   that if they could get into such-and-such a family, they could keep
   from sin, but they are mistaken. In every position which man occupies,
   he will find temptation. We have heard of the hermit who hoped to get
   rid of all sin by living in a cave. He took with him his little brown
   loaf and his jug of water, but he had hardly entered the cave before he
   upset his jug and spilt the water. It was a long way to the well and he
   got so angry with himself for what he had done that he soon discovered
   that the devil could get into a cave as quickly as he could! So he
   thought he might as well go back and face the trials of ordinary
   society. There is a story which they tell in Scotland of a family who
   were thriftless and, therefore, did not succeed. But they thought it
   was one of the "brownies" that kept them from getting on, so they
   decided to "flit." They put all their things into a cart, but just as
   they were about to start, they heard a noise that made them cry out,
   "The brownie is in the churn!" So, wherever the churn went, the
   brownies would go too. And you may remove wherever you like and think,
   "If I get into such a position, I shall escape from temptation, but you
   will find that "the brownie is still in the churn," and he will follow
   you wherever you may go! You cannot be kept from falling by choosing
   another situation. You had better stay where you are, Brother, and
   fight the devil there, for perhaps the next place that you select as
   the scene of combat may not be as suitable as the one you have now.
   "Ah," says one, "I wish I could get to--

   A lodge in some vast wilderness,

   Some boundless contiguity of shade

   Where rumor of oppression and deceit,

   Of unsuccessful or successful war,

   Might never reach me again.'" Yes, yes. But that is not the way to
   conquer sin, is it? Suppose the battle of Waterloo is just beginning
   and here is a soldier who wants to win a victory. So he runs away--gets
   off to Brussels and hides himself in a cellar! Is he likely to be

   numbered among the heroes of the day? No, Brothers and Sisters, and if
   there is any sin to be overcome in this world, there is no credit to
   the man who says, "I'm going to hide somewhere out of the world." No,
   no, my Brother, accept the lot that God has provided for you! Take your
   place in the ranks of His soldiers and whatever temptation comes, look
   up to Him who is able to keep you from falling--but do not dream of
   running away, for that is the way to fall--that is being defeated
   before the battle begins! Nobody but God can keep you. You may join
   whatever church you like. You may wear a hat with a broad brim and say
   "thou" and "thee." You may meet with those who break bread and preach
   nothing but the Gospel of the Grace of God. You may dwell among the
   best people who ever lived, but you will still be tempted! Neither
   place nor people, neither manners nor customs can keep you from
   falling--God alone can do it!

   But here is the mercy, God can do it. Notice how Jude's doxology puts
   it--"To the only wise God our Savior." It is because He, alone, is wise
   that He, alone, is able to keep us from falling. He does it by teaching
   us the Truth, by warning us against secret sin and by His Providential
   leading. Sometimes He keeps temptation from us. At other times He
   allows a temptation to come to us that, by overcoming it, we may be the
   stronger to meet another one. Oftentimes He delivers us from temptation
   by letting affliction come upon us. Many a man has been kept from
   falling into sin by being stretched upon a bed of sickness. Had it not
   been for the loss of the eye, he would have looked upon vanity. Had it
   not been for that broken bone, he would have run in the ways of
   ungodliness. We little know how much preservation from falling we owe
   to our losses and crosses! The story of Sir James Thornhill painting
   the inside of the cupola of St. Paul's is probably well known to you.
   When he had finished one of the compartments, he was stepping backward
   that he might get a full view of it and so went almost to the edge of
   the scaffolding--and would have fallen over if he had taken another
   step--but a friend, who saw his danger, wisely seized one of his
   brushes and rubbed some paint over his picture. The artist, in his
   rage, rushed forward to save his painting and so saved his own life! We
   have all pictured life--what a fairy picture we made of it! And as we
   admired it, we walked further and yet further away from God and
   safety--and got nearer and nearer to perilous temptation! But when
   trial came and ruined the picture we had painted and then, though
   scarcely knowing why, we came forward and were saved, God had kept us
   from falling by the trouble He had sent to us!

   God has often kept us from falling by a bitter sense of our past sin.
   We have not dared to go near the fire again for our former burns have
   scarcely healed. I have also noticed, in my own case, that when the
   desire for sin has come with force, the opportunity for sin has not
   been present--and when the opportunity of evil has been present, then,
   by God's Grace, the desire has been absent. It is wonderful how God
   prevents these two things from meeting and so keeps His people from
   falling.

   Above all, it is by the Divine Spirit that God bears us up as upon
   eagle's wings. The Spirit teaches us to hate sin and to love
   righteousness--and so we are daily kept from falling.

   Brothers and Sisters, join with me in adoring the Lord that He will
   keep us to the end. Have we committed our souls into the hands of
   Jesus? Then our souls are safe forever! Are we trusting to Him to keep
   us till the day of His appearing? If so, He will keep us--not one sheep
   or lamb out of His flock shall by any possibility be destroyed by the
   wolf, or the bear, or the roaring lion of Hell! They shall all be His
   in the day when they pass again under the hands of Him that counts
   them!

   II. NOW, SECONDLY, LET US ADORE HIM BECAUSE HE WILL, AT THE LAST,
   PRESENT US

   "FAULTLESS BEFORE THE PRESENCE OF HIS GLORY WITH EXCEEDING JOY."

   There will come a day, Brothers and Sisters, when we shall either be
   presented in the courts of God as His courtiers, or else be driven from
   His Judgment Seat as rebels against His authority. We look forward with
   the confident expectation that we shall be presented as the friends of
   Christ, unto God, even the Father and that is, indeed, a cause for
   adoring gratitude!

   Do you notice how Jude puts it? "To present you faultless." There shall
   be none in Heaven but those who are faultless. There shall by no means
   enter into those holy courts anything that defiles. Heaven is perfectly
   pure and if you and I are ever to get there, we must be pure as the
   driven snow. No taint of sin must be upon us, or else we cannot stand
   among the courtiers of God. His flaming Throne would shoot forth
   columns of devouring fire upon any guilty soul that dared to stand in
   the courts of the Most High, if such a standing were possible! But we
   are impure--impure as to our acts and, worst of all, impure as to our
   very nature! How, then, can we hope to ever stand there? Yet, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, our confidence is that we shall. Why?

   Is it not because Christ is able to present us faultless there? Come,
   Christian, think for a minute how faultless Christ has made you so far
   as your past sin is concerned. The moment you believed in Him, you were
   so completely washed in His precious blood that not a spot of sin
   remained upon you. Try to realize that whatever your past life has
   been, if you now believe in Jesus Christ, you are cleansed from all
   iniquity by virtue of His atoning Sacrifice and you are covered by a
   spotless robe of righteousness by virtue of His blessed life of perfect
   purity and obedience to His Father's will. You are now without fault,
   as far as your past sin is concerned, for He has cast it all into the
   depths of the sea--but you feel that you are not without fault as to
   your nature.

   "Oh," you say, "I feel everything that is evil rising at times within
   me." But all that evil is under sentence of death. Christ nailed it to
   His Cross. Crucifixion is a lingering and very painful death--and the
   culprit struggles before he breathes his last. But your sins have had
   their deathblow. When Christ was nailed to the Cross, your sins were
   nailed there, too, and they shall never come down again. Die they must,
   even as He died. It will be a blessed hour when sin shall at last give
   up the ghost--when there shall be not even the tendency to sin within
   our nature! Then shall we be presented faultless before the Throne of
   God!

   "Can that ever be?" asks one. Well may you ask that question, Brother.
   Can it ever be that we shall not be tempted by one foul lust, nor be
   disturbed by one unbridled passion, nor feel the emotions of envy or of
   pride again? Yes, it shall surely be! Christ has secured this blessing
   for you. His name is Jesus, Savior, "for He shall save His people from
   their sins." He must and will do this for all who trust Him. Rejoice
   that He will do this, for no one but God can do it. It must be "the
   only wise God our Savior" who can accomplish this--and accomplish it He
   will! Does your faith enable you to picture yourself as standing
   faultless before the Throne of God? Well then, give to the Lord the
   glory which is due unto Him for such a wondrous act of Grace as that!

   This is how you are to be presented by Christ in Glory. There is a
   great stir in a family when a daughter is to be presented at court and
   a great deal is thought of it. But one day you and I who have believed
   in Jesus, shall be presented to the Father. What radiant beauty shall
   we then wear when God, Himself, shall look upon us and declare us to be
   without fault--when there shall be no cause for sorrow remaining and,
   therefore, we shall be presented with exceeding joy! It shall be so, my
   Brother! It shall be so, my Sister! Therefore do not doubt it. How soon
   it shall be, we cannot tell-- possibly, tomorrow. Perhaps before the
   sun rises again you and I may be presented by Christ "before the
   Presence of His glory with exceeding joy." We cannot tell when it will
   be, but we shall be there in His good time. We shall be perfect! We
   shall be "accepted in the Beloved" and, therefore, "unto Him be glory
   and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."

   III. That is the note with which I have to close my discourse. LET US,
   BECAUSE OF THESE TWO GREAT

   BLESSINGS OF FINAL PRESERVATION AND PRESENTATION BEFORE HIS GLORY,
   OFFER UNTO THE LORD OUR HIGHEST ASCRIPTIONS OF PRAISE.

   Jude says, "Both now and forever." Well, we will attend to the
   "forever" as eternity rolls on, but let us attend to the praise of God
   "now"--at this moment! "To the only wise God our Savior be glory and
   majesty, dominion and power" now! Come, Brothers and Sisters, think of
   what you owe to Him who has kept you to this day--and will not let you
   go! Think of where you might have been and think, I may say, of where
   you used to be in your unregenerate state. Yet you are not there
   now--but here you are, without self-righteousness, made to differ from
   your fellow men entirely through the Grace of God! You have been kept
   perhaps 20 years, 30 years, 40 years--possibly 50 years! Well, unto Him
   be the glory! Give Him the glory even now!

   How can you do it? Well, feel it in your hearts! Speak of it to your
   neighbors! Talk of it to your children! Tell everybody you meet what a
   good and blessed and faithful God He is, and so give Him glory now. And
   be happy and cheerful. You cannot glorify God better than by a calm,
   quiet, happy life. Let the world know that you serve a good Master. If
   you are in trouble, do not let anyone see that the trouble touches your
   spirit--no, more, do not let it trouble your spirit. Rest in God--take
   evil as well as good from His hands and keep on praising Him. You do
   not know how much good you may do and how greatly you may glorify God
   if you praise Him in your dark times. Worldlings do not care much about
   our Psalm-singing unless they see us in pain and sorrow and observe
   that we praise God then. I like, and the world likes, a religion that
   will wash--a religion that will stand many showers and much rough
   usage. Some

   Christians' joy disappears in the wear and tear of life--it cannot
   endure the world's rough handling. Let it not be so with us, Beloved,
   but let us praise, bless and magnify the name of the Lord as long as we
   have any being!

   I know that in speaking thus, I am only addressing a part of my
   congregation. I wish that every man and woman here were now praising
   the Lord--and I am sure that you could not have a better occupation to
   all eternity. Remember that if you do not praise God, it is impossible
   for you ever to enter Heaven, for that is the chief occupation of
   Heaven! And also remember that praise from your lips, until those lips
   are divinely cleansed, would be like a jewel in a swine's snout, a
   thing altogether out of place! For you, dear unsaved Hearer, the first
   thing is not praise, but prayer--no, not even prayer first, but faith
   "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." And then,
   in faith, pray the prayer which God accepts. But you must first believe
   in Jesus. "And what does believing in Jesus mean?" you ask. It means
   this--your sin deserves punishment, for God, who is just, must punish
   sin. But His Son came into the world to suffer in the place of those
   who trust Him. And now, God can be just and yet the Justifier of every
   soul that believes in Jesus! In the Person of His Son, God hangs upon a
   tree and dies a felon's death--will you believe in the merit of that
   death and in the love of God who spared not His own Son in order that
   He might spare us? Can you trust Jesus as your God and Savior? Will you
   do it now? Then you are saved!

   The first moment of thus trusting God is the beginning of a new life--a
   life which will drive out the old death of sin. The moment that you
   thus trust your God, you will be placed upon a new footing with regard
   to Him--your whole aspect towards God will be changed. Repentance will
   take such possession of your spirit that you will be actuated by new
   motives and swayed by new desires! In fact, you will be a new man in
   Christ Jesus. This is being saved--saved from the love of sin, saved
   from returning to sin, saved from falling and so completely saved that
   Christ shall one day present you "faultless before the Presence of His
   glory with exceeding joy." May God do this for everyone of you, my
   Hearers, according to the riches of His Grace! It is my heart's last,
   best and strongest desire that everyone of you may be saved. May we all
   meet in Heaven, before the Throne of God, never more to be parted!

   While I am away, listen with all earnestness to other heralds of the
   Cross, and pray the Lord to bless their messages to your salvation, if
   mine have not been so blest. I pray that by some instrumentality, you
   may all be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE.

   Verse 1. Jude. That is to say Judas, not Iscariot.

   1. The servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James. He does not say,
   "and brother of our Lord," for we know that James and Judas were, both
   of them, among the Lord's kinsman according to the flesh. But now,
   after the flesh, knows he Christ no more, but is content and happy to
   be known as "the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James."

   1. To them that are sanctified by God the Father. For the decree of
   election, the setting apart of the chosen is usually ascribed unto God
   the Father.

   1. And preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. We have here a very
   blessed description of the whole work of our salvation--set apart by
   the Father, joined unto Christ and preserved in Him--and then, in due
   time, called out by the Spirit of God.

   2. Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied. Christian letters
   should be full of love and good will. The Christian dispensation
   breathes beneficence--it is full of benediction! "Mercy unto you, and
   peace, and love, be multiplied." May the Divine Trinity give you a
   trinity of blessings!

   3. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
   salvation, it was necessary for me to write unto you and exhort you
   that you should earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered
   unto the saints. In the sense of being once and for all given to the
   saints, the faith of Christians is not a variable quantity. It is not a
   thing which changes from day to day, as some seem to suppose, vainly
   imagining that fresh light is bestowed upon each new generation. No,
   the Truth of God was delivered once and for all, it was stereotyped,
   fixed--and it is for us to hold it fast as God has given it to us.

   4. For there are certain men crept in unawares. They did not boldly
   avow their heresy when they came in--they would not have been allowed
   to enter if they had done so--but they sneaked in, they climbed into
   the pulpit, professing to be preachers of the Gospel when they knew,
   all along, that they intended to undermine it. Basest of all men are
   those who act thus! "There are certain men crept in unawares."

   4. Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Proscribed by
   God as traitors long ago! Those who have not the courage of their
   convictions probably have no convictions at all, but seek to undermine
   the faith which they profess to hold.

   4. Ungodly men, turning the Grace of our God into lasciviousness, and
   denying the only Lord God, and Our Lord Jesus Christ. Antinomians,
   "turning the Grace of our God into lasciviousness," falsely declaring
   that the Law has no binding force upon the Christian's life and saying
   that we may do evil that good may come--and Socinians, "denying the
   only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."

   5. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this,
   how that the Lord, having saved thepeople out of the land of Egypt,
   afterward destroyed them that believed not. If we have no real faith,
   we may appear to go a long way towards Heaven--but we shall not enter
   the heavenly Canaan.

   6. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own
   habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto
   the judgment of the great day. See, then, the need of stability, the
   need of abiding in the faith and abiding in the practice of it, lest we
   should turn out to be like the Israelites, who, though they came out of
   Egypt, left their carcasses in the wilderness, or like the angels, who,
   though they once stood in God's Presence in Glory, have fallen to the
   deeps of the abyss because of their apostasy!

   7. 8. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like
   manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange
   flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
   fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise
   dominion and speak evil of dignitaries. They cast off all restraint;
   they claim to have liberty to do whatever they like--and when reproved,
   they utter railing words against those who honestly rebuke them!

   9. Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil when he
   disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a railing
   accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you. To what does this refer? I
   am sure I do not know. I cannot think it refers to anything recorded in
   the Old Testament, but to some fact, known to Jude, who here speaks by
   Revelation and records it. We believe it and learn from it that when an
   archangel disputes with the devil, he does not use hard words even
   against him, for hard words are an evidence of the weakness of the
   cause which they are used to support! Hard arguments softly put, are
   the really effective weapons, but it takes some of us a long time to
   learn this and generally, in our younger days, we wear away our own
   strength by the violence with which we use it.

   10. But these speak evil of those things which they know not but what
   they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt
   themselves. It is a horrible thing when a man's sin goes the full
   length of his knowledge and he sins up to the degree of his
   possibilities!

   11. 12. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran
   greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the
   gainsaying of Korah. These are spots. "These are spoilers," so it may
   be rendered.

   12. In your feasts of charity. They spoil your love feasts at the
   Communion Table. They mar your fellowship when you gather together for
   worship.

   12. When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Some of
   the best Christians who come to the Lord's Table, come there in great
   fear and trembling. And I have known some who have had an undoubted
   right to be there, half afraid to come. Yet those very persons who have
   a holy fear lest they should come amiss, are those who really ought to
   come. "Feeding themselves without fear" is the mark of those who are
   further off from God.

   12. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds. They believe
   according to what is said to them by the last man who speaks to
   them--they are easily persuaded to this doctrine, and to that, and the
   other.

   12. Trees whose fruit withers, without fruit. They seem to be bearing
   fruit, but it drops off before it ripens.

   12, 13. Twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea.
   They have nothing to say for Christ, yet they must say something, so
   they are "raging waves of the sea."

   13. Foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved
   the thickness of darkness forever These are the false professors of
   religion, the members of the church for whom there are seats reserved
   in Hell! This is a dreadful thought--"to whom is reserved the blackness
   of darkness forever"--not for the heathen, not for the open refusers of
   the Gospel, but for such as creep into the churches unawares, teach
   false doctrine, live unholy lives!

   14, 15. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these,
   saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to
   execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among
   them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and
   of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against
   Him. How Jude knew that Enoch said that, I cannot tell--it is another
   instance of Divine Inspiration.

   16. These are murmurers, complainers. You know the sort of people
   alluded to here, nothing ever satisfies them. They are discontented
   even with the Gospel. The bread of Heaven must be cut into three pieces
   and served on dainty napkins, or else they cannot eat it! And very soon
   their soul loathes even this light bread. There is no way by which a
   Christian can serve God so as to please them. They will pick holes in
   every preacher's coat and if the great High Priest, Himself, were here,
   they would find fault with the color of the stones of His breastplate!

   16-19. Walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great
   swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of
   advantage. But, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before of
   the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there
   should be mockers in the last time who should talk after their own
   ungodly lusts. These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having
   not the Spirit. People who must, if they make a profession of religion
   at all, be continually breaking up churches and holding themselves
   aloof from others, having no fellowship with anybody but those who can
   say "shibboleth" as plainly as they can, and sound the "h" pretty
   loudly.

   20-22. But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy
   faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,
   looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And
   of some have compassion, making a difference. Some of those professors
   who are not living consistently with their profession, in whom you can
   see signs and tokens of sin, yet there may be some trace of repentance,
   some reason to hope that they will forsake the evil when they see it to
   be evil--"have compassion" upon them.

   23. And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating
   even the garment spotted by the flesh. When you have to deal with
   unclean professors, there must be an abhorrence and detestation of
   their sin even when there is great gentleness towards the sinner. We
   must never be such believers in the repentance of the guilty as to be
   willing to wink at sin, for sin is a great evil in any case and
   repentance cannot wipe it away. And though it behooves us to be tender
   to the sinner, we must never be tender to the sin. How beautifully this
   short and sad Epistle ends! Having described the many who, after making
   a profession, yet turn aside, Jude bursts out with this jubilant
   doxology!

   24, 25. 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 the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion
   and power, both now and ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Very Singular

   (No. 2995)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 5, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He...put his household in order, and hanged himself." 2 Samuel 17:23.

   AHITHOPHEL was a man of keen perception and those who consulted him
   followed his advice with as much confidence as if he had been an oracle
   from Heaven. He was a great master of diplomacy, versed in the arts of
   cunning-- far-seeing, cautious, deep. He was for years the friend and
   counselor of David. But thinking it judicious to be on the popular
   side, he left his old master that he might, like many other courtiers,
   worship the rising sun and hold an eminent position under Absalom.
   This, to use diplomatic language, was not only a crime, but a mistake.
   Absalom was not the man to follow the warnings of wisdom and Ahithophel
   found himself supplanted by another counselor. And whereas he was so
   incensed that he left Absalom, hurried home, arranged his personal
   affairs and hanged himself in sheer vexation.

   His case teaches us that the greatest worldly wisdom will not preserve
   a man from the utmost folly. Here was a man worthy to be called the
   Nestor of debate, who yet had not wit enough to keep his neck from the
   fatal noose! Many a man, supremely wise for a time, fails in the long
   run. The renowned monarch, shrewd for the hour, has before long proved
   his whole system to be a fatal mistake. Instances there are, near to
   hand, where a brilliant career has ended in shame--a life of wealth
   closed in poverty--an empire collapsed in ruin. The wisdom which
   contemplates only this life fails even in its own sphere. Its tricks
   are too shallow, its devices too temporary and the whole comes down
   with a crash when least expected to fall! What sad cases have we seen
   of men who have been wise in policy, who have utterly failed from lack
   of principle! For lack of the spirit of honor and truth to establish
   them, they have built palaces of ice which have melted before they were
   complete. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." The wisdom
   which comes from above is the only wisdom--the secular is folly until
   the sacred blends its golden stream therewith!

   I desire to call your attention to the text on account of its very
   remarkable character. "He put his house in order, and hangedhimself"To
   put his house in order showed that he was a prudent man. To hang
   himself proved that he was a fool. Herein is a strange mixture of
   discretion and desperation, mind and madness. Shall a man have wisdom
   enough to arrange his worldly affairs with care and yet shall be so
   hapless as to take his own life afterwards? As Bishop Hall pithily
   says, "Could it be possible that he should be careful to order his
   house who regarded not to order his impetuous passions? That he should
   care for his house who cared not for either body or soul?" Strange
   incongruity--he makes his will and then, because he cannot have his
   will, he wills to die! 'Tis another proof that madness is in the hearts
   of the sons of men! Marvel not at this one display of folly, for I
   shall have to show you that the case of Ahithophel is, in the spirit of
   it, almost universal. And as I shall describe sundry similar
   individuals, many of you will perceive that I speak of you. Thousands
   set their houses in order, but destroy their souls! They look well to
   their flocks and their herds, but not to their hearts' best interests.
   They gather broken shells with continuous industry, but they throw away
   priceless diamonds. They exercise forethought, prudence,
   care--everywhere but where they are most required. They save their
   money, but squander their happiness. They are guardians of their
   estates, but suicides of their souls. This folly takes many forms, but
   it is seen on all hands, and the sight should make the Christian weep
   over the madness of his follow men. May the series of portraits which
   will now pass before us, while they hold the mirror up to Nature, also
   point us in the way of Grace!

   See before you, then, the portrait of AN ATTENTIVE SERVANT. He is
   faithful to his employers and fulfils well the office to which he is
   appointed. He is up with the lark. He toils all day--he rests not till
   his task is done. He neglects nothing which he undertakes. I see him
   among the throng, I will single him out and talk with him.

   You have been engaged for years in farming. You have plowed, sown,
   reaped and gathered into the barn--and no one has done the work better
   than you, and yet, though you have been so careful in your labor, you
   have never sown to the Spirit, nor cared to reap Life Everlasting. You
   have never asked to have your heart plowed with the Gospel plow, nor
   sown with the living Seed--and the consequence will be that at the
   last, you will have no harvest but weeds and thistles--and you will be
   given over to eternal destruction! What causes you to care for the
   clover and the turnips, the cows and the sheep, but never for yourself,
   your truest self, your ever-existing soul? What? All this care about
   the field, and no care about your heart? All this toil for a harvest
   which the hungry shall eat up--and no care whatever about the harvest
   that shall last eternally?

   Or you have been occupied all your life in a garden and there, what
   earnestness you have shown, what taste in the training of the plants
   and flowers, what diligence in digging, planting, weeding and watering!
   Often has your employer congratulated himself that he has so careful a
   servant. You take a delight in your work and well you may, for some
   relics of Eden's memories still linger around a garden--but how is it
   that you are so choice with yonder tulip and so indifferent about your
   own spirit? What? You care for a poor rose which so soon is
   withered--and have no thought about your immortal nature? Does this
   sound like a reasonable man? You were very careful, in the winter, to
   keep up the heat of the greenhouse, lest those feeble plants should
   suffer from the frost. Have you, then, no care to be protected from
   temptation and from the dread storms of Almighty Wrath which are so
   soon to come? Can it be that you are diligent in ordering the walks,
   beds and shrubberies of your master's grounds, and yet are utterly
   careless about the garden of your heart in which fairer flowers would
   bloom and yield you a far richer reward? I marvel at you! It seems so
   strange that you should be so good a worker for others, but take such
   poor care of yourself! I fear your lament will have to be, "They made
   me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept."

   It would be too long a task to dwell particularly on each of your
   employments, but I will hope that, in each case, you are anxious to do
   your work thoroughly, so as to secure approval. The horse is not badly
   fed, nor the carriage recklessly driven, nor the wall carelessly built,
   nor the woods ill planed--you would be ashamed to be called a negligent
   workman. Put it, then, to yourself--will you watch over another man's
   goods and be unmindful of your own highest good? What? Do you mind the
   horse and the wagon, the parcels, the errands, all sorts of little
   matters and shall that soul of yours, which will outlast the sun and
   live when stars grow dim, be left without a thought? What? Do you love
   others so much and yourself so little? Are minor matters to absorb all
   your thoughts, while your own eternal concerns are left in utter
   neglect?

   Some of you are domestic servants and endeavor to discharge your duties
   well. You have much to do from morning till night and you would be
   ashamed for anyone to say, "The room is unswept, cobwebs are on the
   walls, the floors are filthy, the meals are badly cooked because you
   are a bad servant." No, you feel rather proud that when you have a
   situation, you can keep it and that the mistress is content with you.
   Suffer me, then, to ask you, in the gentlest manner, Is your heart
   never to be cleansed? Are your sins always to defile it? Have you no
   thought about the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?"
   Do you think God made you to be a mere sweeper and cleaner of rooms, a
   cooker of meat, and so on, and that this is all you were designed for?
   There must be a higher and a better life for you--and do you altogether
   disregard it? Will you weary yourself, day by day, about another
   person's house and have you no interest in your own soul? Have you so
   much care to please (as you should) your master and mistress, and no
   care about being reconciled to God? I will not think that you are so
   bereft of reason!

   I address a still larger class, probably, if I say there are many here
   who will go off to the City, in the morning, to fulfill the duties of
   confidential accountants. You never suffer the books to be
   inaccurate--they balance to a farthing! It would distress you if,
   through your inadvertence, the firm lost even a sixpence. You have
   perhaps been many years with the same employers and have their
   unbounded respect. From your boyhood to this day, you have been
   connected with the house. I have known several admirable men of high
   integrity and thorough faithfulness, whom their employers could never
   sufficiently value, for they laid themselves out with intense zeal to
   promote their commercial interests and worked far harder than the heads
   of the house ever did! Had the whole concern been their own, they could
   not have been more diligent--and yet these very men gave no head to
   their own personal interests for another world! It was grievous to
   observe that God was not in all their thoughts, nor Heaven, nor Hell,
   nor their own precious souls. You good and faithful servants of men,
   will you perish as unfaithful servants of God? What? Will you never
   look onward to the last

   great reckoning? Is it nothing to you that the debts due to Divine
   Justice are undischarged? Are you willing to be called before the Lord
   of All and to hear Him say, "You wicked and slothful servant! I gave
   you a talent, but you have wrapped it in a napkin." God forbid that I
   should diminish one grain of your diligence in your secular avocations,
   but, from the very zeal you throw into these, I charge you, if you are
   reasonable men, see to it that you destroy not your own souls! Be not
   like Ahithophel who set his house in order and hanged himself! Set not
   your master's concerns in order and then destroy your own souls--for
   how shall you escape if you neglect the great salvation?

   Look now to another picture--THE PRUDENT MERCHANT. I must briefly
   sketch him. He knows the ways of trade, studies the state of the
   market, is quick to perceive the opportunity of gain, has been cautious
   in his speculations, has secured what he has obtained and is now in
   possession of a competency, or on the road to it! He prides himself in
   a quiet way, upon the prudence with which he conducts all his worldly
   transactions. And, my dear Friend, I am sure I am glad to see you
   prudent in business, for much misery would be caused to others as well
   as to yourself by recklessness and folly. But I want to ask you, if you
   are thoughtless about religion, how it is that you can be so
   inconsistent? Do you study how to buy, and buy well, but will you never
   buy the Truth of God? Do you put all that you get into a safe bank, but
   will you never lay up treasure in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust
   corrupts? You are wary of your speculations, but will you play so deep
   a hazard as to jeopardize your soul? You have been for years accustomed
   to rise up early, sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness--will
   you never rise early to seek the Lord? Will you never prevent the night
   watches to find a Savior? Is the body everything? Is gold your god?
   Why, you are a man of intelligence and reading and you know that there
   are higher considerations than those of business and the state of
   trade! You do not believe yourself to be of the same order of beings as
   the brute that perishes--you expect to live in another state! You have
   a Book which tells you what that life will be and how it may be shaped
   for joy--or left to be drifted into endless sorrow.

   Am I a fanatic, my dear Sir, if I respectfully put my hand on yours and
   say, "I beseech you, think not all of the less, and nothing of the
   greater, lest haply, when you come to die, the same may be said of you
   as of a rich man of old who had been as cautious and as careful as
   you--'You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then
   whose shall these things be which you have provided?' I charge you, if
   you are prudent, prove it by being prudent about the weightiest of all
   concerns. If you are not, after all, a mere bragger as to prudence, a
   mere child enraptured with silly toys, then show your wisdom by
   following the wisest course." I have heard of one, the stewardess of an
   American vessel, who, when the ship was sinking, saw heaps of gold coin
   scattered upon the cabin floor by those who had thrown it there in the
   confusion of their escape. She gathered up large quantities of it,
   wrapped it round her waist, and leaped into the water! She sank like a
   millstone, as though she had studiously prepared herself for
   destruction! I fear that many of you traders are diligently collecting
   guarantees for your surer ruin, planning to bury yourselves beneath
   your glittering hoards. Be wise in time. My voice, no, my heartpleads
   with you, for your soul's sake and for Christ's sake, be not like
   Ahithophel who set his house in order, and hanged himself! Take sure
   bond for enduring happiness! Invest in indisputable securities! Have
   done with infinite risks and be assured of life everlasting!

   A third photograph shall now be exhibited. This will describe a
   smaller, but a very valuable class of men--and if they were blessed of
   God, how glad would I be! THE DILIGENT STUDENT. He seeks out the best
   of books to assist him in the pursuit of his branch of knowledge. He
   burns the midnight oil. He is not afraid of toil. He cares not for
   throbbing brain and weary eyes, but he presses on--he trains his
   memory, he schools his judgment and all with the hope that he may be
   numbered with the learned. The examinations of his university are to
   him the most important periods in the calendar--his degree is the prize
   of his high calling. Knowledge is sweet and the honor of being
   associated with the learned is coveted. My young Friend, I would not
   for a moment abate your zeal, but I would beg space for one
   consideration worthy of immediate attention. Ought the best of sciences
   to be left to the last? Should self-knowledge and acquaintance with God
   be treated as secondary importance? Should not the Word of God be the
   chief volume in the wise man's library? Should you not burn the
   midnight oil to peruse the Infallible page written by the Divine
   finger? With all your getting, should you not get the understanding
   which comes from above and the knowledge which is the gift of God, and
   which will introduce you, if not among the learned, yet among the
   gracious? If not into the academy of savants, yet into the general
   assembly and Church of the First-Born, whose names are written in
   Heaven? Should there not be with you the wish to train your complete
   manhood and to educate yourself to the fullness of the stature of what
   a man should be? Should not the noblest part have the chief care? I
   speak to a wise man! I would have him be truly wise. I would not have
   him set his study in order and tutor himself--and then forget the
   eternal life and the destiny that awaits him. O Student, seek you first
   the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and then shall your temple
   of wisdom be built upon a

   Rock!

   I will take another character, a character which is very common in
   great cities--I am not sure but what it is common enough--THE REFORMING
   POLITICIAN. I value our politicians highly, but we scarcely need to be
   overstocked with those who brawl in public houses and discussion rooms
   while their families are starving at home! Some men who spend a great
   deal of time in considering politics, are hardly benefiting the
   commonwealth to the extent they imagine. I will suppose I am addressing
   a man who feels the home and foreign affairs of the nation to be his
   particular department. Well, my respected Friend, I trust you occupy a
   useful place in the general economy, but I need to ask you one or two
   questions well worthy of a Reformer's or a Conservative's
   consideration. You have been looking up abuses--have you no abuses in
   your own life which need correcting? There is no doubt about the Reform
   Bill having been needed, but do you not think a Reform Bill is needed
   by some of us at home--in reference to our own characters and
   especially in reference to our relation towards our God and our Savior?
   I think only he who is ignorant of himself will deny that. And would it
   not be a fine thing to begin at home and let the politics of our house
   and our heart be set quite right, and that immediately? You have in
   your brain a complete scheme for paying off the National Debt,
   elevating the nation, remodeling the navy, improving the army, managing
   the Colonies, delivering France and establishing the best form of
   government in Europe! I am afraid your schemes may not be carried out
   as soon as you desire, but may I not suggest to you that your own heart
   needs renewing by the Spirit of God, your many sins need removing by
   the Atonement of Jesus and your whole life requires a deep and radical
   change? And this is a practical measure which no aristocracy will
   oppose, which no vested interests will defeat and which need not be
   delayed for another election or a new Premier!

   I daresay you have faced much opposition and expect to face much more
   in agitating the important question which you have taken up, but ah, my
   Friend, will you not sometimes agitate questions with your conscience?
   Will you not discuss with your inner nature the great Truths which God
   has revealed? Would it not be worth your while, at last, to spend some
   time in your private council chamber with yourself thinking of the now,
   and of the past, and of the to come--considering God, Christ, Heaven,
   Hell and yourself as connected with all these? I press it on you--it
   seems to me to be the greatest of all inconsistencies that a man should
   think himself able to guide a nation and yet should lose his own soul!
   That he should have schemes by which to turn this world into a Paradise
   and yet lose Paradise for himself! That he should declaim violently
   against war and all sorts of evils and yet, himself, should be at war
   with God! Himself a slave to sin! Shall he talk of freedom while he is
   manacled by his lusts and appetites? Shall he be enslaved by drink and
   yet be the champion of liberty? He that teaches freedom should himself
   be free! It is ill to see a man contending for others and a captive
   himself! To arrange the nation's affairs and to destroy yourself is as
   foolish as Ahithophel who put his household in order, and hanged
   himself!

   We will pass to another character--and how much of what I am now to
   utter may concern myself I pray God to teach me--THE ZEALOUS PREACHER.
   The character is no imaginary one. It is not suggested by bitterness,
   or colored by fanaticism--there have been such and will be such to the
   end--men who study the Scriptures, are masters of theology, versed in
   doctrine, conversant with law--men who teach the lessons they have
   gathered and teach them eloquently and forcibly, warning their hearers
   of their sins, pointing out their danger--and pleading with them to lay
   hold on Christ and life eternal. And yet--for all this, they are
   themselves unconverted! They preach what they never felt, they teach
   what they never knew by experience. Brother ministers, I allude not to
   you any more than to myself, but of all men that live we are most
   called upon to watch lest our very office should help us to be
   hypocrites--lest our position as teachers should bring upon us a double
   curse! Do not let us seek the salvation of others and lose our own
   souls! To preach Christ and not to have Him--to tell of the Fountain,
   and not to be washed in it--to speak of Hell, and warn men to escape
   it, and yet go there ourselves--God grant it may never be so with any
   of us!

   But, mark you, the point of this warning comes to many here who are not
   altogether ministers. You are not preachers, but you are Sunday school
   teachers, tract-distributors, Bible women, or city missionaries. Then
   hear you the same warning! Will you go round with those tracts from
   house to house and yet have no religion in your own houses? O miserable
   souls! Who has required it at your hands to teach others of God when
   you are not reconciled to God yourselves? What can you teach those
   children in the Sunday school? I say, what can you teach those
   children, when you

   yourselves are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity?
   May not the very words you spoke to your classes today, rise up against
   you in the Day of Judgment and condemn you? Do not be content to have
   it so. Do not point out the right way to others, yet run in another
   road yourself! Do not set others in order and slay yourselves!

   I have another picture to look upon--it represents A CAREFUL PARENT.
   Many who may not have been included under other descriptions will be
   mentioned here. You love your children well and wisely. As far as this
   world is concerned, you are careful and prudent parents. You were very
   watchful over them in their childhood, you were afraid that those
   infant sicknesses would take them to the grave. How glad you were, dear
   mother, when once again you could lift the little one from the bed and
   press it to your bosom, and thank God that it was recovering its health
   and strength! You have denied yourself a great deal for your children.
   When you were out of work and struggling with poverty, you did not so
   much grieve for yourselves as for them--it was so hard to see your
   children needing bread. You have been so pleased to clothe them, so
   glad to notice their opening intellect and you have, many of you,
   selected with great care places where they will receive a good
   education. And if you thought that any bad influence would come across
   their path, you would be on your guard at once. You wish your children
   to grow up patterns of virtue and good citizens--and you are right in
   all this. I wish that all felt as you do about their families and that
   none were allowed to run loose in the streets, which are the devil's
   school.

   Now, as you have been so very careful about your children, may I ask
   you--ought not your own soul to have some thought bestowed on it, some
   anxiety exercised about it? It is a child, too, to be educated for the
   skies, to be nurtured for the Father's House above. Look in the baby's
   face and think of the care you give to it--and then turn your eyes
   inwardly upon your soul and ask, "What care have I given to you, my
   Soul? I have left you unwashed, unclothed, unhoused. No blood of Christ
   has fallen on you, my Soul. No righteousness of Christ has wrapped you.
   For you, my Soul, my poor, poor Soul, there is no Heaven when you must
   leave this body. For you there is no hope but a fearful looking for
   judgment and of fiery indignation! My Soul, forgive me that I have
   treated you so ill. I will now think of you and bow my knee and ask the
   Lord to be gracious to you." I wish I could call upon you personally
   and press this matter upon you. Think that I am doing so! When you
   reach home, think that I am following you there and saying to you, "If
   you care for your children, care for your soul." Look at the boys and
   girls sleeping in their cots, tonight, and if you are unconverted, say
   to yourself, "There they lie, the dear ones, they are little sermons to
   me. I will remember what the preacher said when I look at them. My God,
   my Father, I will turn to You--do turn me, and I shall be turned."

   The last of my crayon sketches is one which may concern many. It is
   that of THE OUTWARD RELIGIONIST who yet is regardless of his own soul.
   It is the oddest and strangest of all that there should be such people.
   I have met with Protestants, flaming Protestants, I might add, raving
   Protestants who, nevertheless, know no more about Protestantism than
   about the genealogy of Greek gods! And were they questioned as to what
   it is that was protested against by the Reformers, they would guess
   wide of the mark. Yet are they very concerned that our glorious
   constitution in Church and State should be "thoroughly
   Protestant"--though I cannot for the life of me see what difference it
   would make to them! If they have no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
   what matters it to them how a man is justified? There are others who
   are "Dissenters to the backbone," but yet sinners to their marrow! To
   ungodly men I say solemnly, What matters it what you are in these
   matters? In all probability, the side which has the honor of your
   patronage is a loser by it! If you are leading bad lives, I am very
   sorry that you are Dissenters, for you injure a good cause. What fools
   you must be, to be so earnest about religions in which you have no
   concern!

   Many, again, are very orthodox, even to being strait-laced and yet are
   unbelievers. If the preacher does not come up to their weight and
   measure, they denounce him at once and have no word bad enough for him.
   But now, my Friend, though I cannot say that I am altogether sorry that
   you think about doctrines and churches, let me ask you--Is it wise that
   you should set up for a judge upon a matter in which you have no share?
   You are vociferous for setting the church in order, but you are
   destroying your own soul! If these things belonged to you, I could
   understand your zeal about them. But since you have nothing to do with
   them, (and you have not if you have no faith), why do you look after
   other people and let your own salvation go by default? It may be a very
   important thing to somebody how the Duke of Devonshire may lay out his
   estate at Chatsworth, but I am sure it is not important to me, for I am
   in no degree a part proprietor with his grace. So it may be very
   important to some people how such-and-such a doctrine is taught--but
   why should you be so zealous about it when you are in no degree a part
   proprietor in it unless you have believed in Jesus Christ? What
   startles me with some of you is that you will cheerfully contribute for
   the support of a Gospel in which you have never believed! There are
   those of you here to whom I am thankful for help in Christ's service.
   You put your hand into your pocket and are "generous to the Lord's
   cause." But how is it that you do this and yet refuse to give Jesus
   your heart? I know you do not think you are purchasing His favor by
   your money--you know better than that--but why do you do it? Are you
   like those builders who helped Noah to build the ark and then were
   drowned? Do you help to build a lifeboat--and being yourself
   shipwrecked, do you refuse the assistance of the lifeboat? You are
   strangely inconsistent! You keep God's Sabbaths, and yet you will not
   enter into His rest! You sing Christ's praises and yet you will not
   trust Him. You bow your heads in prayer and yet you do not pray! You
   are anxious, too, sometimes, and yet that which would end all your
   anxiety, namely, submission to the Gospel of Christ, you will not
   yield! Why is this? Why this strange behavior? Will you bless others
   and curse yourselves?

   I speak to the whole of you who as yet have not believed in Jesus and I
   ask--What is it with which you are destroying your souls? Every
   unbeliever is an eternal suicide--he is destroying his soul's hopes.
   What is your motive? Perhaps some of you are indulging a pleasurable
   sin which you cannot give up. I entreat you, cast it from you! Though
   it is dear as the right eye, pluck it out! Or useful as the right arm,
   cut it off and cast it from you! Suffer no temporary pleasures to lead
   you into eternal destruction! Escape for your life! Sweet sin will
   bring bitter death--may God give you Grace to cast it away!

   Or is it some deadly error with which you are destroying your soul?
   Have you a notion that it is a small thing to die unsaved? Do you
   imagine that, by-and-by, it will all be over and you can bear the
   temporary punishment? Dream not so! Not thus speaks the Infallible Word
   of God, though men would thus buoy up your spirits and make your
   forehead brazen against the Most High! It is an awful thing to fall
   into the hands of the living God! God grant that you may not run that
   risk and meet that fate!

   Or perhaps some self-righteous trust holds you back from Christ. You
   can destroy yourself with that as well as with sin. To trust to
   ourselves is deadly--only to trust to Jesus is safe. I will explain
   that to you and have done. Inasmuch as we had sinned against God, God
   must punish us--it is necessary that sin should be punished, or there
   could be no moral government. Now, in order to meet that case, to have
   mercy upon men in conformity with justice, Jesus Christ, the Son of
   God, came into the world and became Man and, as Man, He took upon
   Himself the sins of all His people and was punished for them. And
   whoever trusts Jesus is one of those for whom Jesus bore the smart, for
   whom He paid the debt. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, if you
   trust your soul with the Christ of Nazareth, your sins, which are many,
   are all forgiven you! Go in peace--your soul is saved! But if you put
   away from you the Christ who says, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all
   the ends of the earth," you may be very wise and you may arrange your
   business very cleverly, but, for all that, you are no wiser than the
   great fool of my text who set his house in order, and hanged himself!
   God teach both hearers and readers to be wise before it is too late!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 SAMUEL 15:12-37.

   Verse 12. And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David's
   counselor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices.
   And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually
   with Absalom. Absalom had, by graft, insinuated himself into the hearts
   of the children of Israel and led a rebellion against his father David,
   that he might obtain the crown for himself.

   13, 14. And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the
   men of Israel are after Absalom. And David said unto all his servants
   that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee, for we shall
   not else escape from Absalom; make speed to depart, lest he overtake us
   suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of
   the sword. It must have been a sore peril which compelled so brave a
   man as David to say to his servants, "Arise, and let

   us flee."

   15. And the king's servants said unto the king, Behold, your servants
   are ready to do whatever my lord the king shall appoint. What a loyal
   spirit they displayed in the time of trial! Oh, that such loyalty could
   always be found in all the servants of King Jesus! But, alas, many of
   His servants pick and choose as to which of His commands they will
   obey!

   Some of them will not understand the plain letter of Scripture and
   others of them know their duty, yet they do it not. There is reason to
   question whether we are the servants of Christ if we have not the
   spirit of obedience to Him. Brothers and Sisters, let us search and
   look in the book of the King's ordinances and see whether we are
   walking in all of them blamelessly. If we can say that we are, it is
   well. But I am afraid that there are some of His commandments which we
   would rather not understand--or if we do understand them, we are not in
   a hurry to obey them. How easy it is to make excuses for not doing what
   we have no wish to do! Blessed are those Christians who can say,
   "Behold, Your servants are ready to do whatever my Lord the King shall
   appoint"

   16-18. And the king went forth, and all his household after him. And
   the king left ten women which were concubines, to keep the house. And
   the king went forth and all the people after him, and tarried in a
   place that was far off And all his servants passed on beside him; and
   all the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites, six
   hundred men which came after him from Gath, passed on before the king.
   The king's bodyguard of personal friends who had seen long service with
   him in the contest with Saul--these kept close to him.

   19, 20. Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, why go you also with
   us? Return to your place, and abide with the king: for you are a
   stranger, and also an exile. Whereas you came but yesterday, should I
   this day make you go up and down with us? Seeing I go where I may,
   return you, and take back your brethren: mercy and truth be with you.
   This was the manifestation of a generous spirit on the part of David
   and therein he was like the Son of David, who thought more of the
   safety of His disciples than He did of any way of escape for Himself.
   Let the same mind be in us which was also in David, and in Christ
   Jesus, great David's greater Son! And let us look, not only on our own
   things, but also on the things of others.

   21. And Ittai answered the king, and said, As the LORD lives, and as my
   lord the king lives, surely in what place my lord the king shall be,
   whether in death or life, even there also will your servant be. He was
   a newcomer, but he was a fine recruit--and when our young converts who
   have lately joined the Church, have this spirit of loyalty in them,
   they will make mighty men of valor in the Lord's army! Whether Christ's
   cause be held in honor or in contempt, we will cast in our lot with
   Him! Whether He is reigning on the earth or His name is cast out as
   evil, we will share His fortunes. To whom should we go but to Him? And
   where could we find a better Master than this gracious King under whose
   banner we have enlisted?

   22-26. And David said to Ittai, go andpass over And Ittai the Gittite
   passed over and all his men, and all the little ones that were with
   him. And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people
   passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, andall
   the people passed over, toward the way ofthe wilderness. Andlo, Zadok
   also, and all the Levites were with him, bearing the Ark ofthe Covenant
   of God: and they set down the Ark of God; and Abiathar went up, until
   all the people had done passing out ofthe city. And the king said unto
   Zadok, Carry back the Ark of God into the city: if I shall find favor
   in the eyes of the LORD, He will bring me again, and show me both it
   and His habitation; but if He thus says, I have no delight in you;
   behold, here am I, let Him do to me as seems good unto Him. David would
   run no risks with this sacred treasure--and though it would have been a
   great comfort to him to have had the Ark of the Covenant with him, yet
   he cared too much for it to think only of his own comfort. How careful
   ought we to be of the Truth of God and of the things of God--of which
   this Ark was but a type! Lord, let us run what risks we may, but we
   would not expose Your Truth, or Your good cause to any risk.

   "Let Him do to me as seems good unto Him." What a grand spirit there
   was in David even in his exile! There was a sweet spirit of song in him
   before his great fall, but that fall broke his voice and he sang more
   hoarsely ever afterwards. Yet what depth, what volume, what melody and
   harmony are here--"deep calls unto deep." What submission and
   subjection to the Divine will and, withal, what a holy confidence! Let
   the Lord do as He wills--David feels himself to be less than nothing
   and submits himself absolutely to the Divine Purpose. It is not easy to
   get to that way, but we must be brought to it. If we are the Lord's
   servants, we must lie passively in His hands and know no will but His.
   Yet deep waters will have to be passed through before we reach this
   blessed experience.

   27-30. The king said also unto Zadok the priest, Are not you a seer?
   Return into the city in peace, and your two sons with you, Ahimaazyour
   son, and Jonathan the son of Abiathar. See, I will tarry in theplain
   ofthe wilderness, until there comes word from you to certify me. Zadok
   therefore and Abiathar carried the Ark of God again to Jerusalem: and
   they tarried there. And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet,
   and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot:
   and all the people that were with him covered every man his head, and
   they went up, weeping as they went up.David probably wept partly
   because of his troubles, but also because of his sin which the thought
   of his troubles doubtless brought to his mind--and especially that sin
   which he has so deeply deplored in the seven penitential Psalms--and
   most of all in the 51st Psalm. He wore no royal robe on this pilgrimage
   of sorrow! And "he went barefoot" up the slopes of Olivet.

   31. And one told David, saving, Ahithophel is among the conspirators
   with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray You, turn the counsel of
   Ahithophel into foolishness. Ahithophel was David's choicest friend,
   companion and counselor, yet he had failed him in his time of need.
   David could use the weapon of all-prayer when he could use no
   other--and this is like the flaming sword at Eden's gate which turned
   every way. It will slay our foes if they come from Hell. It will drive
   away Satanic suggestions. It will overcome our adversaries if they come
   from earth. It will sanctify our afflictions even if they come from
   Heaven. To know how to pray is to know how to conquer! David checkmated
   Ahithophel when he said, "O Lord, I pray You, turn the counsel of
   Ahithophel into foolishness."

   32. And it came to pass that when David was come to the top of the
   mount, where he worshipped God, behold Hushai the Archite came to meet
   him with his coat torn and earth upon his head. Here was an immediate
   answer to David's prayer, for the very man who alone could deal
   effectually with Ahithophel, comes to the king!

   33-37. Unto whom David said, If you pass on with me, then you shall be
   a burden unto me: but if you return to the city, and say unto Absalom,
   I will be your servant, O king; as I have been your father's servant
   hitherto, so will I now also be your servant: then may you for me
   defeat the counsel of Ahithophel And have you not there with you Zadok
   and Abiathar the priests? Therefore it shall be that what thing soever
   you shall hear out ofthe king's house, you shall tell it to Zadok and
   Abiathar the priests. Behold, they have there with them their two sons,
   Ahimaaz, Zadok's son, and Jonathan, Abiathar's son; and by them you
   shall send unto me everything that you can hear So Hushai, David's
   friend came into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem.

   You know the rest of the history, how Absalom took the advice of Hushai
   and Ahithophel was defeated. God does not always answer prayer quite so
   rapidly as He did in this case, yet, when His people are in sore
   straits, they often have prompt replies to their petitions, to
   encourage their faith and to keep their hope alive in the time of
   trial!
     __________________________________________________________________

Enquiring of God

   (No. 2996)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
   10, 1863.

   "And it came to pass after this, that David enquired of the LORRD,
   saying, Shall I go up to any of the cities of Judah?" 2 Samuel 2:1.

   You perceive, dear Friends, that, although David knew that he was
   anointed to be king over Israel, yet he would not take a step towards
   his rightful position without first asking guidance from God and,
   moreover, he was not content with a general direction, but wanted to
   have a particular and special indication as to where he was to go. It
   was not enough for God to say to him, "Go up"--he wants to know
   precisely to which town of Judah he shall go!

   Nor, mark you, was this an exception to David's usual habit. From his
   youth up, he had been accustomed to ask the Lord's direction in all
   cases of difficulty. When he fled from Saul and went to Nod, to
   Abimelech the priest, Doeg told Saul that Abimelech enquired of the
   Lord for David. It was not enough for David that he had Goliath's
   sword, he must also have guidance from God. When he was in the town of
   Keilah, which he had rescued from the Philistines, after he had twice
   enquired of the Lord whether he should do so, he asked whether the men
   of Keilah would deliver him up to Saul and, as a result of the oracular
   response which he obtained from God, he was able to make good his
   escape. Afterwards, when David had become king over Israel in Hebron,
   before he fought with the Philistines, he enquired of the Lord, "Shall
   I go up to the Philistines? Will You deliver them into my hand?" The
   Lord's answer was favorable and David gained a great victory. But when
   the Philistines came up again, David did not go out to fight with them
   until he had once more enquired of the Lord--and then it was that God
   gave him that memorable answer, "And let it be when you hear the sound
   of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then you shall
   bestir yourself; for then shall the Lord go out before you, to smite
   the hosts of the Philistines." David was a man who always needed to see
   God's finger pointing out the right road, to hear God's voice, saying,
   "This is the way, walk you in it." And he never seemed to be satisfied
   unless he could hear the sound of his Master's feet close behind him,
   or see a clear indication that his Master was just in front of him, or
   walking by his side!

   I hold up David to you as a model for your imitation in this respect,
   although I am going to leave David and talk more generally of the duty
   of enquiring of God as to what we shall do when we are in any
   difficulty and, indeed, of enquiring of Him at all times, whether we
   are in difficulty or not!

   I. My first remark is that TO ENQUIRE OF THE LORD AND TO SEEK GUIDANCE
   AT HIS HANDS IS THE DUTY OF ALL CHRISTIANS.

   This may be inferred from God's relationship to them. God is their
   Father and they are His children--minors who have not yet come of age.
   When a son is of age, it is respectful and often very prudent for him
   to still consult his experienced sire, but the child in his minority
   should venture upon nothing of importance without first going to tell
   his father. And if that child is beset by many false friends--by those
   who would mislead and ruin him--it will be his privilege as well as his
   duty to be often running to his parent and saying, "Father, what shall
   I do in this matter? What is true and what is not? Show me what you
   would have me do." If God is our Father, we are His children. And if we
   do not consult Him, surely we are but sorry children. We lose a great
   blessing and incur no small guilt if, professing to be the sons and
   daughters of our Father who is in Heaven, we never ask Him to direct
   our way!

   We also talk of God as our Shepherd. And an important part of a
   shepherd's duty is that of guiding his flock. What would you think if,
   in the East, where the shepherd leads the way, the sheep should all
   think themselves wise enough to find the road alone? Why, the flocks
   would soon be broken up and the pastoral relationship would become mere
   farce! If

   God is your Shepherd, follow Him. Often say to Him, "Show me the
   footsteps of the flock." Desire always to hear the Shepherd's voice,
   for this is the mark of God's sheep! "My sheep hear My voice, and I
   know them, and they follow Me." How can you call God your Shepherd if
   you do not follow Him and never consult Him?

   Do you not know also, dearly Beloved, that Christ calls us His spouse?
   But what sort of spouse would she be who never entrusted any of her
   secrets to her husband and who asked no counsel of him even when she
   came into dire distress? There may be some women who are wiser than
   their husbands and who can give advice rather than require to ask it,
   but it is not so in this case, for never did any other husband have so
   weak and foolish a spouse as Jesus Christ has! In fact, her only wisdom
   is to confess her folly and to throw herself into her Husband's arms,
   and cry--

   "Lead me all my journey through!'

   What can be our reason for calling God our Lord if we refuse to consult
   Him? Do not even the heathen always conclude that a god is to be
   consulted? Though their lying oracles have deluded them, yet have they
   always been right in the idea that the very thought of godhead implied
   guidance! And shall we turn away from Jehovah who really can guide us?
   While the heathen look to stocks of wood and stone, shall we confide in
   human oracles and neglect to consult God who knows all things?

   I find an argument for this Truth of God in the offices of the Lord
   Jesus Christ What is our blessed Lord to us? He is a Prophet. But how
   can He be a Prophet to us if we never go to Him? What does the sacred
   mantle that He wears mean if He is never consulted? Is not His office a
   mere name, an empty title, an office which has no value, if we call Him
   Prophet and yet never seek His face, nor say to Him, "What is the way
   that I am to take? Be pleased to direct me in it." He is a Priest--but
   is it not part of a priest's duty to use the Urim and the Thummim upon
   His breastplate and to show to those who go to Him what is the proper
   path for them to take? But how can I call Christ my Priest if I never
   consult Him? He is neither Prophet nor Priest to me if I choose my own
   way or cut out my own path for myself.

   In one place, at least, Christ is called a Counselor--"His name shall
   be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father,
   The Prince of Peace." But how is He your Counselor if you never consult
   Him? I cannot think that Christ takes upon Himself empty names and
   titles! I read in a Preface to our Bible, "James, by the Grace of God,
   King of Great Britain, France and Ireland." There is an empty title,
   for he was never king of France, though he was called so. But Christ
   has no empty titles! He is called King because He reigns! And He is
   called Counselor because He gives advice to His people and pleads their
   cause! If you would not, therefore, make out Christ's offices to be
   worthless, and His glorious titles to be but empty words, go and
   consult Him, for thus you shall make His heart glad and magnify His
   name and prove your love to Him!

   But, dear Friends, there is an argument which comes closer home than
   this. Our own character should teach us the duty of enquiring of the
   Lord. If you know yourself rightly, you know that you are very far from
   being wise. If I understand myself rightly, I was born like the wild
   ass colts--with strong passions and much willfulness, but with no
   knowledge, or experience--and needing much guidance for the whole of
   life. What is the experience of the most experienced of men worth? I
   can conceive that in the eyes of God, the greatest wisdom of Solomon
   was the greatest folly, and that the experience of Job was but as the
   knowledge of a day! One of Job's friends said, "We are but of
   yesterday, and know nothing." And when we think we know the most, we
   generally know the least.

   You have probably noticed that good men usually fail just where they
   think they are strongest, yes, and where they really are strongest!
   Noah was a preacher of righteousness, yet did he fail in righteousness
   when his sons saw him in a state of drunkenness. Moses was exceedingly
   meek, yet did he lose his temper and say, "Hear now, you rebels! Must
   we fetch you water out of this Rock?" Look, too, at Job, one who
   excelled in patience, yet he failed in patience. And you and I will
   find that the devil will carry our hearts by storm, not where we think
   the walls are weak, or the fortress is dismantled, but just where the
   flag waves defiantly over the strongest and loftiest part of our
   bastion, for Satan delights to pull down our lofty things of which we
   are so proud--just as God loves to pull down the lofty things of sin!
   See to it then, Christian, since you are so weak and since you cannot
   see a day, nor a minute before you, that you often enquire of your God!
   I think, too, your past indiscretions and the distresses into which
   your willfulness has driven you might teach you henceforth to wait only
   upon God.

   I shall give only one other argument, here, because I need not prove
   what all admit, but what so few practice. The Christian should enquire
   of his God for his own avowed objective in life. We profess, though we
   do not carry it out as we

   ought, that we are living for God. Is there a man living who could
   truly say, with Paul, "For to me to live is Christ"? I believe there
   are hundreds and thousands of such men, but I do not believe that
   anything like one-half of the professing Christians of today know what
   that test really means. "For to me to live is Christ." If they
   truthfully wrote their own commentaries upon it, many of them would
   say, "We cannot say that. We never could be so enthusiastic or so
   fanatical as to say that." And they would almost as soon give up their
   profession of Christianity as attempt to carry out that text as it
   ought to be carried out! Yet this is what we profess--and if we profess
   to live for God's Glory and for the extension of Christ's Kingdom, how
   can we do it except in God's strength? And how will God give us His
   strength without also giving us His wisdom with which to use it? A man
   clothed with Divine energy, unaccompanied by Divine wisdom, would be
   one of the most dangerous persons in the whole world! A man who can
   speak so as to move the multitude and to stir the souls of men, is a
   very dangerous person unless piety fills his heart and the Grace of God
   controls his tongue. Suppose that man to have Divine power given to
   Him, as Judas had in a certain sense, but without the wisdom of God to
   guide him? We might as well have a devil on earth as have such a man as
   that! No, if we could succeed in attaining our avowed objective in
   life--the glorifying of God--we must enquire of Him!

   II. Now I come to a second remark which is this. IF CHRISTIANS ASK GOD
   TO GUIDE THEM IN EVERYTHING THEY DO, THEY OUGHT TO SEE TO IT THAT THEY
   NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT WHICH

   THEY CANNOT ASK GOD'S GUIDANCE.

   This Truth of God comes close to home to some people. For instance,
   unlawful pleasures are manifestly forbidden to the Christian. Those
   which the worldling may indulge in without any very great injury to
   himself are forbidden to the true Christian because he cannot enquire
   of the Lord about them. I have heard of people who say that they can go
   to the theater and yet are Christians. Well now, I would like somebody
   to write a form of prayer to be used by Christians in theatres,
   something to this effect--"O Lord, lead me not into temptation, but be
   pleased to bless the play tonight to my soul's welfare. Grant that if
   it is Your will that I should die here, I may enter into eternal life
   having gone from the pleasures of this life to the pleasures that are
   to be hereafter!" If I were to write such a prayer as that, you would
   say, "Oh, that is shocking! It is shocking for anybody even to thinkof
   praying there!" Ah, it is shocking--not shocking to think of praying,
   but shocking to go where you dare not pray Should a Christian ever be
   anywhere where he would be ashamed to die? I heard a lady once say that
   religion ought to be confined to places of worship and that it ought
   not to be talked about anywhere else. So I suggested to her that we
   ought to have our places of worship made larger, for, of course, people
   would want religion when they came to die--so they had better die where
   religion would be in its proper place!

   A Christian knows that he should not go to such places of amusement as
   worldlings frequent--they may go without any very great mischief, but
   he may not. He could not feed on the fare that is provided there, for
   it is not to his taste and, moreover, he would not go there because he
   could not expect to have communion with Christ there. And he could not
   ask God's blessing upon his going there. There are many amusements in
   the world--and you can always tell which are right and which are wrong
   by this text. You may do anything upon which you can ask God's
   blessing--but if you cannot ask God's blessing upon it, have nothing to
   do with it! If there are any things about which you have any doubt,
   leave them alone! Another man who has no doubt about the matter, may do
   without sin what you must not do if you have any doubt about it. If you
   feel, in your conscience, that you can expect the Lord's blessing and
   maintain communion with Christ in what you do, then you may do it. But
   if not, it is at your peril that you will do it.

   Then there are unlawful avocations in which Christians must not be
   engaged. I could not ask the Lord's blessing if I were selling gin and
   other liquors all day long. I do not know how some men may feel, but if
   I had pocketed the fools' pence, I could not pray, "Lord, be pleased to
   guide me where I shall open the next devil's-house and set traps to
   catch poor drinking men." I should expect, if I went to ask God's
   guidance about that matter, that I should receive a very sharp rebuke
   from Him for having the impudence to ask Him about any such thing!
   There are also other trades and employments which you must not touch,
   as you know that they are so beset with evil customs that you cannot
   ask the Lord's blessing upon them. I am sure that man up in the gallery
   did not ask the Lord to bless him when he was taking his shutters down
   this morning--and as he could not ask God's blessing upon it, he ought
   not to have done it! There are some of you here who still have your
   shops open. Your daughter hates the business, but she is chained to the
   counter while you are here. How can you come to the House of God and
   yet violate the Day of God? Have you any conscience or have you drugged
   it to sleep? If you should have your house full of silver and gold
   gained by such trading as that, it will be a curse to you and a curse
   to your children--and to your children's children! It is a curse to
   have that which has not God's blessing upon it--and ill-gotten gains
   never can have it. Old Hard-Fists cannot ask God's blessing upon his
   action when he takes his brother by the throat, and says, "Pay me what
   you owe, even to the uttermost farthing." And the man who grinds down
   the poor needlewomen who work for him cannot ask God's
   blessing--neither can the man who pays his employees barely enough to
   get a crust of bread, yet spreads out his money and says, "Thank God
   that He has given me wealth!" No, the curse of the Almighty rests upon
   them and God will one day avenge the blood of those whom they have
   cruelly put to death that they might increase their ill-gotten gains!

   I pray you, members of this Church, and members of Christ's body
   everywhere, touch nothing upon which you cannot ask God's blessing! The
   moment you perceive that God cannot be consulted about a thing, turn
   your back upon it and say, "Let those who mean to damn their souls do
   the devil's work! But a Christian must not and will not touch it." I am
   aware that in my saying these things, I may strike some persons who are
   engaged in trades which they conduct lawfully. My censure is not
   intended for those persons who, though in a trade which I might not
   choose, yet do their best to conduct it honorably. Still, I would make
   the censure as sweeping as it ought to be, for there are far too many
   men merely for gain following that which they know is damnable--and
   must in the end ruin their own souls!

   I think this rule may help guide you through life--Do nothing upon
   which you cannot ask God's blessing. Young woman, if you can ask the
   Lord's blessing upon your contemplated marriage, you may enter upon it.
   Young man, if you can ask the Lord's blessing upon the taking of that
   new shop, you may do it. You who already have plenty of business and
   who now give some of your time to God's cause, but who know that if you
   take that next shop, you cannot continue to do so, ought not to give up
   the service of God's House in order to increase your worldly business.
   I am not always sorry when men do not get on in business as fast as
   they wish, for I remember the case of good Jehoshaphat who "made ships
   of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold: but they went not, for they were
   broken at Eziongeber." And a great mercy that they were, for if they
   had gone and had brought the gold to the king, I do not know what
   Jehoshaphat might have done with it! Was it not Mr. Cecil, who, on
   hearing that one of his friends had come in for a great deal of money,
   went to sympathize with him and to pray for him, "under the trying
   circumstances"? Doubtless, the more a man has, the more is he tempted
   not to use it rightly. And while it is, in some senses, a high
   privilege to have wealth, yet it involves such solemn responsibilities
   that a man should never have it without enquiring of God how he can
   rightly use it.

   III. Now, thirdly, THIS DIVINE GUIDANCE IS AS NECESSARY, NOW, AS IT
   EVER WAS, AND IT IS

   NECESSARY IN ALL THINGS.

   Some people say, "Yes, we believe that the Lord's guidance would be a
   great blessing to us, and that it is our duty to seek it. But how can
   we get it? There is no priest to whom we can go for direction and we
   cannot go to our minister and say, 'What shall we do?' He is not able
   to give us the Infallible answer we need." Your minister does not wish
   to do it, for he thinks he is better employed in preaching the Gospel
   to you and giving you Infallible directions concerning your immortal
   souls! I certainly do not approve of the practice by which some people
   say they can tell the Lord's will by just opening the Bible and
   noticing the first text which catches their eye. I know that Mr. Wesley
   frequently practiced this plan, but, like some other good men, he had
   his faults and I know that others have imitated him. But I should think
   myself no more justified in seeking guidance in that way than I should
   in shuffling a pack of cards! I could no more expect to be guided by a
   text of Scripture, picked out in that haphazard style, than by a
   Norwood Gypsy. No, no! We are above all that kind of thing!

   How, then, does God guide His people? Well, there are several ways
   which are very clear, and the first is, God guides them by His Word. I
   will suppose there is a young woman here who is contemplating marriage
   and she wants to know whether it would be right. She turns to her Bible
   and she finds this text--"Be you not unequally yoked together with
   unbelievers." The young man in question is an unbeliever, so she does
   not need to turn to any other passage of Scripture, for this one is
   decisive. If she really wants to know God's will, here it is--and she
   could not have it more clearly even if God were to flash it in
   lightning across the sky, or roll it out in tones of thunder! This is
   the way plainly marked out for her and I would that she and all other
   young Christians--before they ruin their prospects, before they bring
   upon themselves lifelong misery--would hear the voice of God saying to
   them, "Be you not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." The case
   is as plain as possible. Nobody need be consulted. You need not go to
   friends. You need not come to me and ask, "What ought I do?" If you are
   disobedient and are afterwards made miserable, it is nothing more than

   you ought to expect. I single that case out because it happens to be
   one that often comes up, especially in a large congregation like the
   present, with so many in it who are young. And here, I say, God's Word
   becomes a faithful and unerring guide!

   I have heard of a poor Christian man who was in great difficulty. One
   day, when his wife and children were almost starving, and were
   shivering with cold, and he had nothing with which to make a fire, the
   devil said to him, "Your rich neighbor has a good stack of wood and you
   may go and take some of it, for the Bible says that, "all things are
   yours.'" He was going to take it, but, all of a sudden, that old
   command came into his mind, "You shall not steal." That was quite
   enough for him--he did not need anything else. He turned back at once,
   for God's Word was to him a sufficient guide.

   The next guidance is our own spiritual profit and God's Glory. You need
   to know whether you shall move to such-and-such a town. Well, is there
   a good Evangelical minister there? Can you hear the Word to profit in
   that town? If not, unless there are some very strong reasons why you
   should go there, you ought to remain where your soul can be best
   profited. A man would often be better off with less earnings where he
   could hear a faithful minister than with more money in a place where
   the Gospel is not preached! Ask the question, too, "Can I serve God
   there?" If you cannot, what right have you to go there? If you have to
   give up a sphere of usefulness and there is no other sphere open to
   you, then pause. You will always know which way to go if you have this
   compass in your hand, for it will always point you to the right pole.
   And if you use it, you will always be guided to the paths of
   righteousness--Can I serve God there? Will my soul be in a more healthy
   state if I go there?

   Then another way of guidance is by the leadings of Divine Providence.
   This is nothing as clear as the rules I have already given you, because
   when you want to do a thing, you can always find a Providence which
   seems to be in favor of it. It is remarkable how many ministers leave
   salaries of £200 a year in places where they might still have been
   comfortable and useful, to go where they would get £250 a year--they
   have said it was Providence--but it is equally remarkable how very few
   of them ever move from £250 to £200. I have but little faith in
   "Providence" of this sort! I believe in Divine Providence, but I do not
   always believe in what people speak of as Providence. They say, "There
   is such-and-such a thing. I know it is not quite right, but I would
   like to have it. And then, you see, there is so-and-so, and so-and-so,
   and so-and-so, and--it looks quite like Providence." Nonsense! God's
   Providence never permits you to do wrong! But when you wish to act for
   the Glory of God, a path cleared before you and an open door will help
   you to feel that you are being Infallibly led by the Providence and the
   Word of God--and by His Spirit in your heart.

   Beside this, I think that young people would do well to seek advice
   from experienced and consistent Christian friends. By stating their
   difficulty, it may be that God's servant will be helped to tell them
   just what they need and, often, you may receive through the lips of a
   preacher who knows nothing of your case, guidance from God. Many and
   many a time have I seen this to be the case! God has told the preacher
   what to say about a certain person's case although he did not even know
   who the person was to whom he was unconsciously speaking--and who was
   rightly guided by what the preacher was moved to say.

   Sometime, too, but rarely, God guides us by very vivid impressions. I
   have seen so much of people who have been impressed this way and that
   way, and the other way, that I do not believe in impressions except in
   certain cases. I was once in conversation with two friends, one of whom
   was guided by his judgment, while the other was swayed by impressions,
   and I could not help noting that the man who was guided by impressions
   was, as such people will always be, "unstable as water." If I am
   impressed in one way one day, I may be impressed in another way the
   next day, so impressions are unreliable guides. There was a young man
   who was impressed with the idea that he ought to preach for me one
   Lord's-Day. But as I was not impressed to let him do so, he lost out
   and probably will continue to lose out for some little time! He had no
   gifts of speech, but he thought his impression was quite sufficient.
   When I receive a similar impression, the Revelation will be a proper
   one and you will have the pleasure of listening to his voice, but
   certainly not before that!

   Occasionally, impressions do guide a man right. A Quaker, one night,
   could not sleep and he had a very strong impression that he must get up
   and saddle and mount his horse. He did so and rode along the streets,
   his horse's hoofs noisily clattering in the silence of the night. He
   did not know where he was to go, but there was a light in one house,
   and something seemed to say to him, "This is the house to which you are
   to go." He dismounted and knocked at the door. A

   man came down and asked why he was there at that time of night.
   "Perhaps, Friend," answered the Quaker, "you can tell me, for I do not
   know, but I have been moved to come here." "I can tell you, indeed,"
   said the man, with much emotion, and he took him upstairs and showed
   him a short halter with which he was about to hang himself when the
   Quaker came to his door! Such strong impressions are not to be despised
   and I have no doubt that highly spiritual minds do become like the
   photographer's sensitive plate and receive impressions. What another
   man may be a fool for talking of, such men may truly speak of, for God
   does sometimes reveals His will in that way.

   IV. And now, to close, let me say that WHEN WE HAVE RECEIVED COUNSEL
   FROM GOD ABOUT

   ANYTHING, LET US ACT ACCORDING TO IT.

   If you go and ask God about anything, do not, as some people do when
   they consult their minister, make up your mind beforehand as to what
   you will do. But having consulted your God and learned what is His
   will, mind that you do it. If all the devils in Hell stand in your way,
   mind that you do it. If friends oppose and foes assail you, still do
   it. There may be a point on which I differ from you, but I shall do
   what I believe is right and shall not hesitate, whoever may oppose.
   When God moves us, we are not to be turned aside by any man's words, or
   by a thousand men's words. If once we have, "Thus says the Lord," we
   must and will go on over the mountains and through the seas if God so
   wills it.

   I will finish with an instance of what I mean. There was a missionary,
   who is still living, who had given himself to God's cause and had gone
   out without purse or scrip, simply depending on the bounty of Heaven.
   He was called, in the Providence of God, to go in a vessel to one of
   the guano islands where a great number of ships were congregated to
   take away that valuable manure. He found very little opportunity of
   serving his Master for some time until a mutiny broke out on the
   island. The mariners rebelled. They fought with the men employed in
   moving the manure and the most fearful scenes ensued--the men being
   drunk from morning till night. The ship-masters did not know what to
   do, but at last they sent for one of Her Majesty's men-of-war. It came
   and when the captain had landed with the marines, he told the mutineers
   that unless they submitted at once, he would fire upon them. They
   appeared to be very humble and seemed to be subdued at once. The vessel
   could not stay long, for she was looking out for slavers on the African
   coast, and as soon as the ship was out of sight, the mutineers were as
   wild and ferocious as they were before.

   There was one man there--no very extraordinary man in his own
   esteem--he sits behind me now. He was the missionary of whom I spoke.
   He felt in his heart that he had a call from God to speak to those men,
   so he begged the captain to send him on shore in a boat. But the
   captain said he was not such a fool, for the missionary would be killed
   directly. He asked again, but received a similar refusal. He found
   another captain and persuaded him to plead his cause and, at last,
   after much talking, it was agreed that he should go, though the captain
   said, "You will surely not go and preach the Gospel to those
   devils--they ought to be hung, everyone of them." The missionary said
   that he felt that God had called him to do it and he would go. So he
   was rowed ashore and down came these fiends in human shape to meet him.
   He felt some little apprehension, but he was sure that he was doing the
   right thing. He had asked counsel of God and he knew that God would
   help him, so he pulled out of his pocket a Bethel flag.

   The great, rough fellows came crowding round him, but, holding up the
   Bethel flag, he began talking to them as if he had been the coolest and
   most collected man in the world, though I expect his heart was beating
   fast all the time. He said, "My good fellows, they tell me that you are
   like devils, that you won't work, and that it is no use for me to come
   to talk to you. But I believe that some of you had pious mothers who
   used to teach you the Gospel. And I know that when you were in England,
   you were not what you are now. Besides, I have heard you sing your
   songs and I should like you to sing with me now." Then he gave out the
   hymn--

   "O God of Bethel by whose hand Your people still are fed Who through
   this weary pilgrimage Have all our fathers led."

   After they had sung the hymn, he went on talking to them. And when some
   big fellows, a little way off, looked as though they were meditating
   mischief, he pointed to them and said, "If any of you attempt to
   disturb me, there are plenty of good fellows round me who will stop
   you, so you had better come and listen to what I have to say." The men
   came near and he preached to them with fervency and power--and his
   Master's blessing was upon him, for, the next day, all the men were at
   their work again--and many of them were ready to do as they had done in
   their better days! And what Her Majesty's ship, with so many guns,
   could not do, the poor preacher's word did, for it turned the lions
   into lambs!

   Whenever any of you have anything to do which you know is right, do it!
   After you have enquired of God, do not stop to consult friends, but go
   and do it! Take your sling and your stone and, in God's name, sling the
   stone into the giant's forehead and, like David, come back victorious,
   for that shall be your last answer to those who would persuade you not
   to do it! Never ask God to guide you and then, when He says, "This is
   the way," stand still, and say, "That way is too hard, too stern, too
   difficult, I will not walk in it." Go forward, for, if Hell, itself,
   were before you, God would divide it even as he divided the Red Sea for
   His ancient people! Only have faith in God, for "all things are
   possible to him who believes." There is one short message that God
   gives for guidance to everyone of us and more especially to you who are
   not converted! It is this, "Seek you My face." This very moment,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved," for, "now is
   the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!" When you have
   taken God's advice concerning your poor soul's eternal welfare. When
   you have believed in Jesus to the salvation of your soul--then go to
   Him about your temporal concerns and about everything--and you will
   then be able to say, with the Psalmist, "You shall guide me with Your
   counsel, and afterward receive me to Glory."

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALM 63.

   "A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah."

   Shall we praise God in the garden and not praise him in the wilderness?
   No! We will sing a new song when we come into the desert, for, even if
   we are in a desert, that is no reason why there should be a desert in
   us, so let us praise God even in our wilderness experience!

   Verse 1. O God. Two very solemn words. Never use them, I pray you, as
   hasty, thoughtless expressions. God's name must never be taken in vain.
   I fear that there are some who do this and are not rebuked for it. When
   we say, "O God," there ought to be something solemn to follow.

   1. You are my God. The second word, "God," signifies, "my strong one,
   my mighty one, to whom I can bring all my weakness and all my care; for
   You are strong enough to take care of me even in the wilderness."

   1. Early will I seek You. That is, "at once." "I will not delay, but
   immediately will I seek You. I will not so much seek to get out of the
   wilderness, or seek for comfort in the wilderness, as seek for
   everything in You."

   1. My soul thirsts for You.This is a blessed experience. It is a sad
   thing to be without God in any degree, but it is a blessed thing when
   we cannot rest without Him.

   1. My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
   ' 'My flesh"--that lowest part of me--even that has been awakened and
   quickened! "My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no
   water is." "Where there is no water, no well, no cloud, no rain, I am
   longing for You, my God." "My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty
   land, where no water is"

   2. To see Your power and Your Glory, so as I have seen You in the
   sanctuary. David remembers better times that he had enjoyed in the past
   and he longs to have them back. He wants again to know, and feel, and
   enjoy all he has ever known, and felt and enjoyed. And, blessed be God,
   He will grant us that gift!

   3. 4. Because Your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall
   praise You. Thus will I bless You while I live. "Whether I live in a
   sterile wilderness or in a fertile land, I will bless You while I
   live."

   4. I will lift up my hands in Your name. "I will pluck up my spirit. I
   will begin to pray. I will begin to work. I will look toward Heaven--'I
   will lift up my hands in Your name.'"

   5. My soul shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness, and my mouth
   shall praise You with joyful lips. There is everything that is
   satisfactory in God. If we do but enjoy His Presence, we cannot lack
   anything. Are we not put, as it were, into Heaven itself when we are
   brought near to God? Are we not willing to remain for a while on earth
   and to stay out of Heaven, if we may but have the Lord with us and
   constantly enjoy His company?

   6. When I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the night
   watches. When one is living near to God, he is not afraid of
   sleeplessness. He would be glad of the rest that sleep brings, but if
   he cannot sleep, he finds a sweeter rest in God! I remarked, one day,
   to one who lives very near to God, that it was a weary and sad thing to
   lie sleepless. And he said to me something that stuck by me. "I do not
   think so," he said, "for when I wake in the night, my Heavenly Father
   talks so sweetly to me that I do not want to go back to sleep. And when
   He does not want to speak to me, I speak to Him in prayer, and so the
   hours glide away most happily."

   7. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings
   will I rejoice. "If I cannot look up and see the light of Your face,
   the very shade of Your wings shall make me glad, and I will sing like a
   nightingale in the dark."

   8. My soul follows hard after You. The Hebrew is, "My soul is glued to
   You." "I am like a dog that keeps close to his master's heels and will
   not leave him."

   8. Your right hand upholds me. We could not follow the Lord if His hand
   were not still underneath us to keep us going.

   9, 10. But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the
   lower parts of the earth. They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a
   portion for foxes. The jackal is the creature meant here, for he haunts
   the battlefield and devours the slain. So it came to pass with many of
   David's foes. They fell in battle and the wild beasts devoured them.

   11. But the king shall rejoice in God: everyone that swears by Him
   shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. If
   they cannot be stopped by reason or by repentance, they shall be
   stopped with a shovelful of earth, for God will stop the mouths of all
   liars in one way or another.
     __________________________________________________________________

"Tempted of the Devil"

   (No. 2997)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 19 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.

   "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
   of the devil." Matthew 4:1.

   WHAT a terrible incident! Well may our hearts be moved with fear and
   our blood run cold as we read it! Our adversary the devil goes about
   like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We are taught by our
   Lord Jesus to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
   the Evil One." What we are taught to seek or shun in prayer we should
   equally pursue or avoid in action. Very warily, therefore, should we
   endeavor to avoid temptation, seeking as to walk in the path of
   obedience that we may never be guilty of tempting the devil to tempt
   us! We are not to enter the thicket in search of the lion. Dearly might
   we pay for such presumption. The lion may cross our path, or come to
   our houses and doubtless he will, but we have nothing to do with
   hunting this lion. He that meets with him, even though he wins the day,
   will find it sharp work and a stern struggle! Let the Christian pray
   that he may be spared the encounter. Our Savior, who had experience of
   what temptation meant, thus earnestly admonished His disciples, "Pray
   that you enter not into temptation."

   But let us do what we will, we shall be tempted! God had one Son
   without sin, but He never had a son without temptation. The natural man
   is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward--and the Christian is born
   to temptation just as certainly and necessarily. It is our duty to be
   always on our watch against Satan because we do not know when he will
   come. He is like a thief--he gives no intimation of his approach. Like
   the assassin, he will steal upon his victim. If Satan acted always
   above-board--if he were a bold and open adversary, we might deal with
   him--it is because he meets us unawares, and besets us in dark and miry
   places on the way, that we have need to pray against temptation and
   have need to hear the Savior's admonition, "What I say unto you, I say
   unto all, Watch."

   Still, wise Believers, those who have had experience of the ways of
   Satan, will have found that there is a method about his
   temptations--that there are certain times and seasons when he will most
   probably attack the child of God. It often happens that a Christian is
   put on a double guard when he expects that he is in double danger. The
   danger may then be averted by his preparation to meet it. Prevention is
   better than cure--it is better to be so well armed that the devil will
   not attack you--than to endure the perils of the fight, even though you
   do come off conqueror.

   We have observed--you have all done so who know anything of the
   spiritual life--that the most likely times for Satan to attack a
   Christian are those he deems unlikely. In carnal security you are most
   insecure. In such an hour as you think not, the Prince of this world
   comes. Just when you would have said, speaking after the manner of
   men--"I am safe," then it is that you are in danger! When Mr. Carnal
   Security has said, "There is no need for us to be in perpetual
   alarm--evidently the Prince Emmanuel smiles upon us and the Holy Spirit
   dwells within us--we are the children of God, let us sit at the table
   and feast. Let us eat, drink and be merry"--it is at that very time
   that you might hear a sound as of One who says, "Arise, let us go
   hence, for this heart has become polluted. I will no longer shed abroad
   the conscious delights of My Presence in it." Beware, dear Friends, of
   the devil! Beware of him most when you think you have least need to
   beware of him!

   For a key-note to our meditation tonight, I propose to take the word,
   "Then," as it stands in the forefront of our text. I think there will
   be found something of instruction here, especially to young Believers,
   as to the times when Satan will most probably beset them and they will,
   probably, be surprised to find that the very times when Satan will be
   likely to attack them, according to the judgment of experience and the
   examples of God's Word, are the times when they would

   have thought him least likely to do so! I want you to observe the time
   of our Savior's temptation--first, with regard to the circumstances
   which preceded it and then the circumstances which followed it. When we
   have noticed those two things, we will take the whole case and see if
   we do not derive some instruction from it.

   I. First, OBSERVE THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH PRECEDED THE TEMPTATION OF
   OUR SAVIOR IN THE WILDERNESS.

   Jesus had been in an especially devout frame of mind before He was led
   into the wilderness. It is recorded by Luke that our Savior, when He
   was baptized, was praying. He was always a Man of prayer. This is,
   indeed, a Characteristic of the Savior--and if we should be asked what
   there was in Christ which distinguished Him from other men, besides His
   outward holiness and His inward consecration, we would say, "The
   habitual exercise of a spirit of prayer." It is recorded that Jesus, as
   He was baptized, was praying and yet, after this prayer was offered,
   after Jesus had thus worshipped at His Father's Throne, the temptation
   came! So, you may have been in your closet and had a season of special
   refreshing. The Lord may have manifested Himself to you, as He does not
   unto the world, in your private devotions--but do not, therefore,
   conclude that you are rid of Satan's temptations! You shall no sooner,
   it may be, have passed out of the closet than you shall be challenged
   to the conflict. The communion shall cease and the combat shall begin!
   Satan knows that you have been doing mischief to his cause in your
   prayers. Have you not been bringing blessings down from on high? Have
   you not been shaking the walls of the spiritual Jericho--and does he
   not, therefore, hate you? Satan has the same hatred of you that we find
   in evil men--and we know that all bad men are always more angry when
   good men are more busy. So Satan becomes the more Satanic when he knows
   that you have been unlocking the treasury of God to make those rich
   whom he would have poor. Why, your prayers, if I may use so daring a
   speech, have been instrumental in opening blind eyes, quickening dead
   hearts, unlocking the doors of spiritual prisons and shaking the gates
   of Hell--and do you not think that Satan will attack you now? Expect
   that Satan is at the closet doors and if, when you are lax in devotion,
   you are not tempted, rest assured that whenever you are much in prayer,
   you may expect Satan to be exceedingly enraged against you. Do you not
   see, dear Friends, that it is not to his advantage to let you continue
   in the act of prayer? He knows that when you grow more like your
   Master, you get more of the Holy Spirit in you and, therefore, it is to
   his interest to spoil this spirit of prayer! So he meets you, as it
   were, with his great club in his hand to knock you down. "Pray, will
   you?" he says. "No, that you shall not, for I will tempt you. Pray,
   will you?--Grow strong and laugh me to scorn? No, that you shall not,"
   he says! And he leaves no stone unturned to try, if he can, to lead you
   away from the heavenly, soul-enriching employment of private prayer!
   Now, if such a thing should happen to you, do not be surprised, as
   though some strange thing had occurred. It was so with your Lord. He
   prayed and temptation came! And when you have been in prayer, you may
   expect to be tempted by the devil.

   So, too, our Savior had been engaged in an act ofpublic obedience to
   His Father's will. You will not forgot that He had been baptized. He
   went to the Jordan's brim and gave Himself into the hands of the
   Baptist, that He might be immersed beneath Jordan's waves. "Thus it
   becomes us," He said, "to fulfill all righteousness." Some persons
   after Baptism are favored with great joy, as the eunuch, to wit, "he
   went on his way rejoicing." But this is no rule. It will often happen
   that after the public avowal, after our public confession of faith,
   there will come a time of unusual struggling and conflict. You are not
   to say, dear Friend, "I know I have done right because I feel so
   happy." You have done right if you have fulfilled God's command,
   whether you feel happy or not! The witness of the Spirit to an
   ordinance is not your happiness after the ordinance, for it may so
   happen that instead of happiness following immediately after your
   obedience, you may have to enter into a terrible conflict with the
   Prince of Darkness! Little children must have little rewards for every
   service that they do while they are little children, but those sons and
   daughters of the family who have had their senses exercised do not
   expect to have sweetmeats given to them every time they are obedient.
   No, they can be obedient and take medicine from a father's hand--and
   consider even the bitter draught to be as real a proof of acceptance as
   though it had been some sweet thing such as they had in their younger
   days. We are not to always be children--not always little babies. It
   was because the eunuch was but a babe in Grace that he went on his way
   rejoicing, but stronger Believers will often be tried as Christ was.
   They will come up dripping from Baptism to go down dripping into the
   floods of another river of deep temptations and sorrow. You must not
   always expect even the Lord's Supper to yield you excessive comfort,
   or, if it does yield you comfort, you may expect that Satan will meet
   you very soon after. The more soul-enriching ordinances become to you,
   the more probability there is that you will be tempted after them. If
   there is a

   pirate out at sea, what ship does he attack? An empty one? No, no! That
   which has been to the mines and is coming home with a rich freight!
   Then says the pirate, "Up with the black flag! Now is our time for
   prize money." And when you have been to Baptism, or the Lord's Supper,
   or to prayer and your soul has grown rich through fellowship with the
   Lord Jesus, "Now," says Satan, "it is my time! I will attack the
   heavenly-laden ship and see what spoil I can get!"

   Not only had our Savior been devout and obedient, but He had also been
   in an exceedingly humble frame of mind. He was baptized by John. John
   said, "I have need to be baptized of You," but the Master puts it,
   "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becomes us to fulfill all
   righteousness." Talk of what is becoming! The Son of God speaking, not
   only of what is right, but of what is becoming and expedient! This
   shows how holy was His mind as to humbleness before God--and yet He was
   tempted. When we are proud, we may expect to be tempted or, rather, we
   are already tempted, for the devil has at least one of the meshes of
   his net over us! But when we are humble, when God has been pleased to
   make us lie low at the foot of His Throne, we perhaps think that now no
   temptation can come. Let us not be quite so sure. Where did Christian
   meet with Apollyon? Do you remember? It was in the Valley of
   Humiliation! Not on the mountaintop, but in the valley where the
   shepherd boy said he who was down need fear no fall. The boy was right
   in one sense, but there are some of us who, in another sense, need to
   be watchful and afraid even there! Satan does so hate humility that he
   will spit all his venom on it--he does so thoroughly abhor that sweet
   flower, the perfume whereof God does delight in, the prayer of a humble
   and contrite heart--that he will pour all his malice upon it! If you
   have had a broken heart, Satan and you will never be friends, for you
   fulfill the promise, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
   between your seed and her Seed." God has put an enmity which never was
   in your heart before--between you and Satan! Your brokenness of heart
   is an evidence that God put that enmity there--of Grace, alone, comes
   such experience! Your antagonist, seeing that enmity against him in the
   fact of your humiliation and contrition before God, will do his utmost
   to tempt you, if he can, to commit sin!

   We find that our blessed Lord was on this occasion favored with a
   Divine seal and token of His Sonship. From the opened heavens, the
   Spirit, like a dove, descended upon Him and a Voice came from the
   excellent glory, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
   pleased." Will He nowbe tried by the arch-fiend? Did the devil hear
   that? He has much too quick ears not to have heard it. He therefore
   must have known that Christ was God's well-beloved Son--but has he the
   impudence to attack Him? Yes, so great a fool is the devil that he will
   thrust his hand into the fire and burn it! He will attack a child of
   God, though he must know that he cannot overcome him. So stultified is
   he by sin that he will rush upon the thick bosses of God's buckler and
   stand in conflict with the Spirit who is infinitely stronger and
   greater than he!

   Now, Beloved, you, perhaps, have had some very sweet witness with your
   spirit that you are born of God. "Abba, Father," has been upon your
   tongue all day. When you knelt down to pray, the sweet beginning of the
   Lord's Prayer was the beginning and end of it all, "Our Father, which
   are in Heaven," and you took your mercies as coming from a Father's
   hands and your sufferings and chastisements as from the same paternal
   love. I hope you are not sitting down and saying, "Now, my battle is
   over--my victory is won forever!" Beloved, if you do, you reckon
   without your adversary! You are thinking you are in port, while as yet
   you are only midway on the ocean! You are thinking about sweet fields
   before you have fairly crossed the swelling flood! Come and be wise,
   lest that arch-deceiver take you unawares! If you had hope of your
   adoption, be still on the watchtower, lest Satan come against you! The
   surer I am that I am a child of God, and the clearer that is made to
   appear to other people, the more the devil will make me a target for
   his arrows. I am borrowing many a good figure just now from one dear
   Friend who has written upon this subject fully and largely. He says,
   quoting an old Divine, "A man never goes forth to shoot his own fowls.
   When he goes forth with his gun, it is against wildbirds. And so the
   devil never goes out to tempt his own children--that is not necessary,
   for they are his, already--but when he knows that a man is a child of
   God, and is, as it were, a wild bird to him, then he goes out against
   him." The more surely, then, you are known to be a child of God, the
   more certainly will Satan be against you!

   Again, to return to the narrative, we are told by Luke that Jesus
   Christ was full of the Holy Spirit. He was full of the Holy Spirit, yet
   He was tempted. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is never given in vain
   and, if given to us, it is as a preparation for conflict in order that
   we may have strength proportioned to our need. And again, where the
   Holy Spirit is given, the evil spirit will soon labor for the very
   reason I have referred to before, because, where God's treasure is,
   there the thief will try to break in. I think it was one of my
   predecessors who said that nobody ever broke into a Baptist minister's
   house because it was well known there would be nothing for them to get!
   But thieves often broke into other people's houses because they knew
   there was treasure there. So the devil does not go after people who are
   without Divine Grace. "Why," he says, "there is nothing there for me to
   steal!" But if you are full of Grace, then you may expect the
   arch-adversary to come and attack you. When old Farmer Jones went home
   on Friday evening, nobody went to watch for him on the road. But it was
   on a market night, when he had been selling wheat and some fellow had
   marked him on the Exchange taking money--it was then that the thief
   stopped him and robbed him of his gold. The devil knows when you are
   getting rich and full of the Holy Spirit. Now he thinks there is
   something worth his time and trouble--and so he speeds with dragon
   wings to the place where this rich child of God is and he waylays
   him--that he may attack him and cast him down. Well, there is never a
   better time to fight the devil than when you are filled with the
   Spirit! So the devil is a fool for meddling with you then. There never
   was such a fool as the devil is and though he hears us say that now, he
   knows it! He is a fool and will be to the end of the chapter, till my
   Master puts the bit into his mouth and the bridle to his jaws and hurls
   him down to the regions where he shall dwell forever!

   Thus much, then, for the circumstances preceding our Lord's temptation.
   I think we may ring the alarm and this may be a note of warning to you,
   even though you may have been in deep devotion and may have performed
   acts of obedience in the most humble and acceptable manner--and
   received tokens of adoption and are now full of the Holy Spirit.

   II. Now, to change the strain, THE SUCCEEDING CIRCUMSTANCES ARE WORTHY
   OF YOUR SERIOUS REFLECTION.

   Jesus Christ was just beginning His public ministrations. As one says,
   "So long as Jesus Christ had nothing to meddle with but the chips in
   His father's carpenter's shop, the devil never tempted Him, but now
   that He was beginning to proclaim glad tidings to the poor, the devil
   attacked Him." While we have nothing to do in the cause of God and are
   secret and retiring, it may be we shall escape--but no common
   temptation will happen to the man who is engaged in unusual labor.
   Satan will find some extraordinary means of tempting him whom God puts
   upon extraordinary service. Satan is very much afraid of all beginnings
   except one. He loves the beginning of sin, for it is like the letting
   out of water, but he cannot bear the beginning of a new life in the
   Christian! "Behold, he prays!" "Ah," says the devil, "I hate that first
   prayer." Satan loves not the beginning of repentance. There is the
   letting out of water, indeed! The beginning of a holy project, the
   beginning of a Christian ministry, the beginning of some ardent
   missionary, the opening up of some new field of Christian labor, the
   devil hates. If he can nip these things in the bud, he knows they
   cannot come to perfection. So Jesus is beginning to preach the Gospel
   and Satan, therefore, attacks Him. To what may we trace the attacks of
   Satan just at these beginnings?

   A primary cause is Satan's malice. No sooner is Christ acknowledged
   openly to be Anointed of the Holy Spirit to preach glad tidings, than
   the devil says, "I will shoot my arrow at Him. This is the Heir! Come,
   let us kill Him and the inheritance shall be ours." So, in the
   beginning of the Christian life, and especially at the outset of the
   Christian minister, Satan says, "Here is another God-ordained man--here
   is another raised up against me," and there is another arrow directed
   at the child of God. It is the devil's complimentary arrow on the
   earnest soul when first God launches it in life. Another cause is
   Satan's craftiness. He can foresee where we cannot. When there is a
   good project in hand, many an unbeliever says, "Oh, nothing will come
   of it--it is an Utopian desire--fanaticism projected it and enthusiasm
   will carry it out for a little, but it will be all a bottle of smoke."
   Do you hear the devil? He is saying to himself, "I know the beginnings
   are good. I have crushed too many of them not to know the look of the
   Lord." "Ah," he says, "if I leave this Man alone, all Jerusalem and
   Judaea will go after Him. I must crush Him at once." There is a hellish
   industry about Satan. He knows that his Kingdom stands upon a rickety
   foundation and, therefore, he is always anxious. Like a man at sea in a
   leaky ship, who is afraid of every wind that blows, so is the devil
   afraid of every new good thing and every fresh device of Divine Grace!
   And when he sees the beginnings, he thinks, "I will destroy the
   beginnings! I will break down the foundations and then the walls can
   never be built."

   We may, then, attribute temptation, at the beginning of the Christian
   life or Christian effort, to Satanic craft as well as to Satanic
   malice.

   A further reason why you are thus tempted and tried is that God, in His
   wise Providence, is now testing you to see whether you are a right man
   for His work. Before a firearm is sold, it is taken to the proof-shop
   and there it is loaded

   with a charge much heavier than it will ever have to carry in the
   ordinary sportsman's hand. The barrels are fired and if they burst in
   the proof-house, no great hurt is done. Whereas it would be exceedingly
   dangerous if they should burst in the hand of some unskillful hunter.
   So God takes His servants--some of whom He will make special use He,
   perhaps, loads with five times more temptation than He means they
   should ordinarily have to endure, in order that He may see and prove to
   onlookers that they are fit men for His Divine service! We have heard
   that the old warriors, before they would use their swords, would bend
   them across their knees. They must see whether they were made of the
   right stuff or not before they would venture into battle with them. And
   God acts thus with His servants. Martin Luther would never have been
   the Martin Luther he was if it had not been for the devil. The devil
   was, as it were, the proof-house for Martin Luther. He must be tried
   and tempted by Satan and so he became fit for the Master's use.

   Our Savior Himself became perfect through His sufferings. Through His
   temptations He became able to succor those who are tempted, for He was
   tempted in all points like as they are. And you, Christian, will never
   be of great service in God's Church without temptation--you shall
   neither be able to strengthen the weak, nor to comfort the
   faint-hearted. You cannot teach the ignorant, or inspire with courage
   the wavering unless you have, yourself, been taught in the school of
   experience. John Bunyan, who teaches all the ages and will teach us
   till we meet in the Celestial City, must himself be taught, in five
   long years of dark despair, the ruin of the creature and the glory of
   Free Grace. I believe you will find it to be the case in regard to most
   of the preachers whom God has signally honored--in fact, I think in
   regard to all preachers who have been of great use in the Church, that
   there has been a preparatory struggle in the wilderness, a preparatory
   forty days' fasting before they have come forth to labor for the Lord!

   "Well!" says one of my hearers, "I think I have found something out
   tonight. When I came into this Tabernacle, this was my state of mind. I
   have been lately undertaking some new project and ever since I have
   thought of it, and commenced it, I have had such a gloom of heart as I
   have never known before." My dear Friend, I think I have told you the
   reason of this. Take is as a favorable omen. Satan knows that your
   project will do a serious injury to his Kingdom and this is why he is
   endeavoring, with his entire strength, to divert you from it. I am sure
   you and I would do the same if we were engaged in the same struggle as
   Satan is--and as he has a vast deal more sense than we have, he will
   not be likely to leave that stone unturned. Go on, Brother, go on! If
   you tread on a dog, he will bark--and you may depend upon it that you
   have trodden upon him when he does bark--and so you may know you have
   done mischief to Satan when he begins to roar at you! Go on! Make him
   roar more! Never mind his roaring--make him roar again! Yes, stir him
   up if you are in God's service and count it a triumph when you hear a
   growl! It is a good sign that angels are singing when devils are
   howling. It is a good omen that you are progressing when Satan is so
   endeavoring to cast you down!

   III. Taking the case of the Savior being tempted, as a whole, I may
   offer a few closing reflections.

   First, a holy character does not avert temptation. Perfect, spotless,
   without any propensity to sin, yet is Jesus tempted! In Him the Prince
   of this world found nothing congenial to his temptations. When Satan
   tempts us, he strikes sparks on tinder. But, in Christ's case, when the
   devil tempted Him, it was like striking sparks on water, yet he kept on
   striking. Now, if the devil goes on striking where there is no better
   result than that, how much more will he do it when he knows what
   inflammable stuff our hearts are made of? Expect it, then. Though you
   become ever so sanctified by the Holy Spirit and destroy sin after sin
   and lust after lust, you will have this great dog of Hell still barking
   at you!

   The greatest distance from the world will not insure you from
   temptation. When we mix with the world, we know that we shall be
   tempted. In our business in the banking-house, on the farm, on the
   vessel, in the street, we expect that in the world we shall have
   temptation. But if you could get out of the world, you would still be
   tempted! Jesus Christ went right away from human society into the
   wilderness and, "then," was He tempted by the devil. Solitude is no
   preservative against temptation from Satan! Solitude has its charms and
   its benefits and may be useful in curbing the flesh, and certainly in
   checking the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life--but the devil
   should be worsted by other weapons than that of solitude! Still he will
   attack you even there. Do not suppose, then, that it is only the
   worldly-minded who have dreadful thoughts and blasphemous temptations,
   for even spiritually-minded persons may have to endure the same! And
   with the boldest character and the holiest position, there may yet be
   the darkest temptation.

   The utmost consecration of spirit will not insure you against Satanic
   temptation. Christ was consecrated through and through. His Baptism was
   real. He was truly dead to the world. He lived only to do His Father's
   work. It was His meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent
   Him--yet He was tempted. Your hearts may glow with a seraphic or
   cherubic flame of love to Jesus and yet the devil will try to throw
   cold water upon it and to bring you down to Laodicean lukewarmness.

   Nor will the highest form of Grace or the greatest development of a
   spiritual mind prevent our being tempted. No, the most eminent public
   service and the most favored private communion will not keep us from
   being assailed! Asked one, "At what time may the Christian take off his
   armor?" If you will tell me when God permits a Christian to lay aside
   his armor, I will tell you when Satan has left off temptation. Inasmuch
   as we are to do as the old knights did in war time--to sleep with the
   helmet and breast plate buckled on--you may rest assured there is good
   need for it. At the very time we think not, the arch-deceiver will be
   on the watch to make us his prey! The Lord keep us watchful in all
   seasons and give us a final escape out of the jaw of the lion and out
   of the paw of the bear!

   Alas, there are some here who are not thus tempted and who are,
   perhaps, congratulating themselves and saying, "We were never tempted
   like that!" Ah, you are never emptied from vessel to vessel! You are
   settled on the lees and why are you left so quiet? Is it not because
   there is no spiritual life in you? You are dead in trespasses and sins!
   You are the devil's own--why should he hunt you? A man does not go
   forth with a lasso to catch a horse that stands in his stable already
   bridled and saddled for him to ride whenever he likes! He goes forth to
   hunt the wild horse that is free. So the devil knows that he has you
   bridled and saddled--and that he can ride you whenever he pleases--so
   he does not need to hunt you. But he will hunt the free Christian, upon
   whose back he cannot place a saddle and into whose mouth he cannot fix
   a bit. I wish you were tempted. I wish there was something in you worth
   the devil's efforts, but there is not. May God renew your hearts and
   give you a right spirit! Remember that the way of salvation is to trust
   Jesus. Do that and you are saved. He that believes and is baptized
   shall be saved. If you are believing in Jesus--trusting only in Jesus,
   entirely, with your whole head--then you are saved. Then you may defy
   the power of Hell and come off more than conqueror! May the Master
   bless these words to the warning of many and the comfort of some, for
   Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 4:1-11.

   Verse 1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
   tempted by the devil He had just been baptized, the Spirit of God had
   descended upon Him and the Father had borne witness to Him, saying,
   "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," yet immediately
   after all that, He was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the
   devil! So, after your times of sweetest fellowship with God. After the
   happiest enjoyment of Gospel ordinances. After the sealing of the
   Spirit within your hearts, you must expect to be tempted by the devil.
   You must not suppose that in your Christian life, all will be
   sweetness--that all will be spiritual witness-bearing. You have to
   fight the good fight of faith and your great adversary will not be slow
   to begin the encounter! You are a pilgrim in a strange land, so you
   must expect to find rough places on the road to Heaven. Yet, since you
   are so much weaker than your Master was, you will do well to pray the
   prayer that He taught His disciples, "Lead us not into temptation, but
   deliver us from the Evil One."

   2. 3. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was
   afterward hungry. And when the tempter came to Him, see how Satan
   seizes opportunities. When he finds us weak, as the Savior was through
   long fasting--when he finds us in trying circumstances, as the Savior
   was when hungry in the desert--then it is that he comes to tempt us.
   This dastardly foe of ours takes every possible advantage of us, that
   he may, by any means, overthrow us.

   3. He said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be
   made into bread. He begins with an, "if." He tries to cast a doubt upon
   the Savior's Sonship--and this is the way that he often attacks a child
   of God now. He says to him, "If you are a son of God, do
   such-and-such." He challenged Christ to work a miracle for Himself--to
   use His Divine Power on His own behalf, but this the Savior never did.
   He challenged Christ to distrust the Providence of God and to be His
   own Provider--and this is still a very common temptation to God's
   people.

   4. But He answered and said, It is written. That is the only sword that
   Christ used against Satan--"the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
   of God." There is nothing like it! And the old dragon himself knows
   what sharp edges this sword has. Christ said, "It is written."

   4. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
   out of the mouth of God. God can sustain human life without the use of
   bread, although it is the staff of life, bread does not sustain life
   unless God puts power into

   it to do so. And He can, if it pleases Him, use that power without the
   outward means. Our Lord thus showed that God could provide for Him in a
   desert without His interference with the plans of Divine Providence by
   selfishly catering for Himself. So the first victory was won,

   5. 6. Then the devil took Him up into the Holy City, and set Him on a
   pinnacle of the Temple. And said unto Him, If You are the Son of God,
   cast Yourself down: for it is written. Here He plays with the Word of
   God, for the devil can quote Scripture when it suits his purpose to do
   so--"It is written."

   6. He shall give His angels charge concerning You: and in their hands
   they shall bear You up, lest at any time You cast Your foot against a
   stone. The devil did not quote correctly from Psalm 91:11, 12. He left
   out the most important words--"He shall give His angels charge over
   You, to keep You in all Your ways"--but it was not Christ's way to cast
   Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple! Jesus therefore answered
   Satan's misquotation with a true quotation.

   7. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the
   Lord your God. I know some people who earn their living in employments
   which are very hazardous to their immortal souls. They are in the midst
   of evil, yet they tell me that God can keep them in safety there. I
   know that He can, but I also know that we have no right to go,
   voluntarily, where we are surrounded by temptation! If your calling is
   the wrong one and you are continually tempted in it, you may not
   presume upon the goodness of God to keep you, for it is your business
   to get as far as you can from that which will lead you into sin! God
   does not put His servants on the pinnacle of the Temple--it is the
   devil who puts them there and if they ever are there, the best thing
   they can do is to get down as quickly and as safely as they can--but
   they must not cast themselves down! They must look to Him who alone can
   bring them down safely. With some professors, presumption is a very
   common sin. They will go into worldly amusements and all sorts of
   frivolities and say, "Oh, we can be Christians, and yet go there!" Can
   you? It may be that you can be hypocrites and go there--that is far
   easier than going there as Christians!

   8-10. Again, the devil took Him up into an exceedingly high mountain
   and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
   and said unto Him, All these things will I give you, if you will fall
   down and worship me. Then said Jesus unto him, Get you hence, Satan:
   for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only
   shall you serve. Christ will not endure any more of this talk! When it
   comes to a bribe--the promise that the devil will give Him earth's
   glory if He will but fall down and worship him--Christ ends the whole
   matter once and for all. Thrice assaulted, thrice victorious, blessed
   Master, enable us, also, to be more than conquerors through Your Grace!

   11. Then the devil left Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered
   unto Him. Regarding it as their highest honor to be the servants of
   their Lord!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Rule of Christ

   (No. 2998)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 26, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   20, 1875.

   "And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even
   a morning without clouds, as the tender grass springing out of the
   earth by clear shining after rain." 2 Samuel 23:4.

   No doubt, in the first place, David was speaking of the benefits of a
   wise and just ruler over man. In the East, where rulers are despotic,
   they can very soon lay on such heavy taxation and make such oppressive
   laws that the people are grievously impoverished. Sometimes the
   inhabitants almost cease to cultivate their lands, since they feel that
   if they do produce crops, they only produce them for a tyrant's table.
   By such cruel exactions, the trade of a country is often driven away
   and fruitful lands are turned into a desert. At the present moment
   there seems to be little or no reason why Palestine, for instance,
   should not once again become as fruitful as it used to be, were it not
   that the Turkish rule is so severe and so unjust that the people have
   no reason for industry and no motive for economy, since they are so
   ground down by those who are in power. It was largely so in David's
   day. Nations were so completely subject to the rule of their kings that
   according to the character of their ruler was the state of the people.
   It is a happy circumstance for us that, as a nation, we have ended all
   that, but it was the prevailing state of things in the days of David.
   So, I suppose, as a description of what he, himself, had been and as
   expressive of his hope of what Solomon would be, he says, "A good ruler
   is to a people like the rising of the sun." Their troubles
   disappear--he conquers for them in foreign wars and he deals out
   justice to them at home. A good ruler removes, or at least reduces, the
   sorrows of the people over whom he rules. He is to them as "a morning
   without clouds." They cannot find fault with his administration, for
   all his days he does them good and no harm--and he makes even their
   past sorrow to contribute to their present good. Under his rule they
   enjoy a season of clear shining after a long rain of sorrow and, by his
   wise laws, he makes the land so fruitful and the people so prosperous,
   that he is to them "as the tender grass springing out of the earth by
   clear shining after rain." No doubt that was a part of what David
   meant.

   But, please remember that this was David's swan song, for the chapter
   begins thus, "Now these are the last words of David." And also remember
   that these last words of David are prefaced by this most important
   declaration, "The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on
   my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me." So,
   under these circumstances, we cannot suppose that the meaning which I
   have given to the text can be the full interpretation of it, since
   there would be no necessity for Inspiration to teach that, and no need
   whatever for the God of Israel so to speak and the Rock of Israel thus
   to deliver Himself. We may feel quite sure that there must be some
   deeper, fuller, more mystical and spiritual meaning here.

   And Christians of all times, and Jews also of former ages, have all
   been agreed that this passage relates to the Messiah. And we who know
   that the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, can,
   without the slightest difficulty, apply these words to Him and feel
   that they are most true concerning Him. Even if they did not primarily
   refer to the Messiah, we would be quite right in making them do so,
   because, if it is a general rule that a good ruler is all this to his
   people, then Jesus Christ, being the best of Rulers, must be all this
   to His people and He, ruling among men as He does--for this day we call
   Him Master and Lord--and ruling as He does, most wisely and in the fear
   of God, He must be, to those who belong to His blessed Kingdom, all
   that any other good ruler could possibly be and far more, so that for
   many reasons, we are quite right in ascribing to our Lord Jesus the
   language of our text--"He shall be as the light of the

   morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the
   tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain."

   I want to do two things. First, to show you that this passage describes
   our experience of the rule of Christ Secondly, to prove to you that our
   experience should encourage others to receive Him as their Ruler.

   I. First, then, there are many of you, my dear Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, who can join with me in saying that the text IS A TRUTHFUL
   DESCRIPTION OF OUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF THE RULE OF CHRIST since that dear
   hour which brought us to His feet, cut up all our self-righteousness by
   the root and blessedly taught us to trust and rest in Him.

   Let us take the sentences as they stand and let the hearts of God's
   children respond as I speak upon each one of them. Has it not been
   true, Beloved, that Jesus has been to us as the light of the morning,
   when the sun rises Was He not so when first you saw Him? You were in
   the dark--an Egyptian darkness that might be felt was upon you. You had
   aforetime walked in the feeble and fickle light of the sparks of your
   own kindling, but those sparks were, at last, all stamped out and the
   light of all your candles was quenched in thickest gloom. Was it not
   like the rising of the sun when you--

   "Saw One hanging on a tree, In agonies and blood"--

   and as He fixed His languid eyes on you, you realized that He had
   suffered in your place and borne the wrath of God on your behalf! The
   weary sentinel who has stood upon the watchtower all night, keeping
   guard in the pitiless tempest, longs to see the first streak of
   daylight--and he will not readily forget the moment when, in the East,
   he first perceived the glow which betokened the rising of the sun! He
   may forget that, but we shall never forget the hour when, in our
   deepest sorrows, we caught the first glimpse of a Savior and of His
   wondrous plan of salvation! We saw that there was salvation for sinners
   and we perceived that it was suitable for us--and we perceived yet more
   gladly the fact that we might have it--that we might have it then and
   there by simply looking to Jesus Crucified! And we did look to Him and,
   oh, the brightness and the glory that we then saw! I am sure that I
   have no need to enlarge upon that--I have only to awaken your joyful
   recollections of that wondrous period and you will at once take down
   your harps from the willows and awaken all the strings to melodious
   praise of that rising sun which then arose with healing for you beneath
   its widespread wings!

   Now, since that time, has not Jesus been as the sun in the morning,
   from the fact that He has never gone down? There have been clouds which
   have, for a time, obscured His light--in this misty world, there must
   be clouds. You have not always seen the golden light of Christ's love
   as you have seen it at certain times in your experience, yet since you
   first looked to Him by faith, you have never been in the same darkness
   that you were in before, for Jesus has never forsaken you, even though
   He has, for a while, hidden His face from you. Your vessel has rocked
   to and fro, but you have not been driven from your anchorage--your
   anchor has held fast even in the stormiest gale. You have been,
   sometimes, in great straits, yet Jesus has always been your rest and
   your stay. You have wandered in heart from Him again and again, but He
   has never refused to take you back to His bosom, as Noah took back the
   weary dove. O Soul, you know that Jesus Christ is not like the sun at
   its setting, when it goes from brightness into shade, but Jesus is the
   Sun of Righteousness which continues increasing in brilliance until it
   attains its perfect noontide glory! Have you not found it to be so
   until now? O child of God, if it were right for you to stand up and
   bear your testimony here, you would say, "Yes, He has not given me
   transient pleasure, but constant joy. He has given me peace like a
   river and righteousness like the waves of the sea. By trusting in Him I
   have had a continual holiday and a perpetual festival! Or if I have
   not, it has been because my faith has flagged, or my unstable heart has
   wandered from His love--but HE has always been 'as the light of the
   morning when the sun rises!'"

   And, Brothers and Sisters in Christ have we not a good hope that the
   light which we have enjoyed will continue with us all our journey
   through? Thank God that Sun will not go down before the last stage of
   our life's pilgrimage shall be over! No, it will still rise higher and
   higher until the perfect day. And though the perfect day has not yet
   come, it will come. By faith our souls anticipate greater knowledge of
   Christ, greater enjoyment of Him, greater likeness to Him. We expect
   that as years tell upon us, although the flesh will decay, the spirit
   will grow stronger and stronger! We believe that we shall still "bring
   forth fruit in old age" "to show that the Lord is upright." We know and
   are fully persuaded that

   with us, at eventide, it will still be light and that when the sun of
   our natural life goes down, the Sun of our spiritual life will not
   decline, but rather we shall be absent from this land of clouds,
   eclipses and shades, and enter into the glory that excels! Milton
   speaks of an angel who lives in the sun, but what will it be to live in
   the light of Christ--to live in that Sun forever and ever? The distant
   glimpses of His Glory, the transient gleams of His face are Heaven
   below to us! "But what must it be to be there" where they behold Him
   with eyes supernaturally strengthened to bear the sight--a sight which
   we could not bear now? John says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet
   as dead." And that would be the case with us if we could see Him now.
   But, by-and-by, we shall be able to endure that beatific vision and
   then we shall be favored with it! And then shall we understand to the
   full, the meaning of these words, "He shall be as the light of the
   morning, when the sun rises."

   This must suffice for the first sentence of our text. There is not one
   of us who has believed in Christ, but can say that this is true! We
   have not all experienced it in the same measure, but we can all say
   that it has been true to us up to the measure of our capacity to see
   this Sun and to bear the light of His beams upon us.

   Now look at the next words--"even a morning without clouds." And it is
   true that to those in whose heart Christ has risen, He has been a
   morning without clouds. When He first came to us, there was a great
   cloud--an inconceivably black cloud of sin which hung over us. Oh, what
   tempests there were hidden in its dense shadows! Eternal hurricanes and
   unending destruction were couched in the black bosom of that cloud! But
   we saw Jesus and the cloud instantly vanished! Where had it gone?
   Perhaps, at that time, we scarcely knew more than that it was gone by
   reason of our having looked to Him. But, oh, you know the story--how a
   blessed wind came and caught that cloud and bore it away up where there
   stood a lofty hill that towered above the clouds--a mountain whose
   summit reached to Heaven itself! Can you look up and see it? Can you
   bear the dazzling glory of its brightness, for it was a mountain all of
   sapphire, like the terrible crystal for its brightness and its glory?
   But the cloud came sweeping over the head of this sapphire mountain
   and, lo, it burst! Dreadful were the volleys of its thunder! Terrific
   were the flashes of its flame! It shivered the peaks of that wondrous
   mountain and the storm burst there in terrible fury!

   That Mountain was the Lord Jesus Christ and for all of us who trust
   Him, the thundercloud spent itself there forever, leaving only mercy
   drops to fall on us in the valley below! Christ's coming was to us
   henceforth as a morning without clouds! There is now no accusation to
   be brought against God's people anywhere. If all the Believers who have
   ever lived, or who ever shall live, could be gathered together, we
   might maintain that there is not, in the whole universe, a single sin
   that can be laid to the charge of any soul that believes in Jesus! What
   says the Scripture? "The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and
   there shall be none." The work of the Messiah was thus revealed to
   Daniel, "To finish the transgression, and to make an end of
   sins"--dwell on that-- "to make an end of sins, and to make
   reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting
   righteousness." Do you not see, then, that as compared to the black
   cloud of sin, Jesus Christ, when He came to us, was as "a morning
   without clouds," since He took all that sin away?

   And since that time, He has been the same to us, for no clouds have
   come. No clouds of fear, for instance, except some vain and foolish
   fears which our poor flesh has tolerated, but there has been no ground
   for fear. On the brightest day, in our changeful English climate, the
   fairest morning cannot always prophesy a clear day and, oftentimes, in
   other lands, you may long look up to a cloudless sky but, by-and-by,
   there may be a little cloud, like a man's hand, and it will gather and
   grow until the storm bursts and puts an end to the brightness of the
   morning. We have no fear of that happening to us, notwithstanding all
   our shortcomings, mistakes, errors, failures and sins! Can any of us
   count them? None of us can! But they are not being treasured up against
   us--they are not gathering into a tempest to burst over our devoted
   heads. We are not laying by in store a dreadful measure of Divine
   Wrath, to be dealt out to us, by-and-by. That is to be the portion of
   those who are out of Christ--but those who are in Christ certainly have
   no need to fear any future storm of Divine Anger. As their sin is gone
   today, it is gone forever, for Christ has forever perfected those whom
   He has redeemed! Is it not a very delightful thing to live in this
   sense, on a morning without clouds--to look all around you and to feed
   that there is nothing to dread now that Christ is yours, and that,
   above, beneath, around, there is no cause for fear? Why, sometimes this
   glorious Truth of God makes our heart beat so quickly with joy that we
   wonder whether it will not leap out of our physical frame--to think
   that all is well, all well without, all well within, all well above,
   all well below, all well behind, all well before, all well for time,
   all well for eternity! "A morning without clouds"--where will you find
   this, in a spiritual sense, but beneath the blessed rule of Jesus, the
   King of kings, and Lord of lords?

   So, Brothers and Sisters, our morning is without clouds because we have
   no fear of any future trouble when we live under the rule of Christ.
   "Ah," says one, "but I sometimes have." But, my dear Friend, if you are
   really a Christian, you have no reason to have any fear of future
   trouble! "But I shall grow old," says one, "perhaps I shall not be able
   to earn my daily bread. I am very feeble even now and, by-and-by, I may
   be completely bedridden, or I may have to undergo a painful surgery. I
   am already sadly depressed in spirit--so what shall I be when I get
   into even worse troubles than I have now?" Ah, my dear Friend, the Lord
   has provided for you, not merely for tomorrow, but for all your days!
   You may say with David, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."
   Some people may starve, but God's saints shall not. Everyone who "walks
   righteously, and speaks uprightly," may claim the ancient promise,
   "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure." You may make
   clouds if you like. You may take down the telescope and breathe on it
   with the hot breath of your anxiety and then, when you look through it,
   you may say, "I can see clouds!" There are no clouds there--it is only
   your breath on the glass that makes you fancy that you see them! God
   will make all things work together for good to you. If He shall send
   you troubles, it will only be when it is better for you to be troubled
   than to be at peace. And He will always make a way of escape for you
   out of them and give you all necessary support while you are in them.
   Your shoes shall be iron and brass and as your days, so shall your
   strength be. Be of good cheer, Mrs. Despondency and Miss Much-Afraid!
   Fetch out your harps and let us have a joyful tune to the praise of our
   ever-gracious God! There are no clouds where Jesus dwells! And where He
   rules, it is as "a morning without clouds."

   There is not even the cloud of death to be feared. What a fuss many of
   us make about dying! Children of God, what a turmoil some of you
   sometimes make in your own souls about dying! I was speaking to a dear
   Brother whom you all know and he said to me, "I have once or twice
   lately been brought face to face with death. In extreme pain I thought
   that I should not be able to hold out many more minutes and that I must
   die. And oh, my dear Pastor," he said to me, "it seemed the sweetest
   thing in all the world to expect to see my Savior face to face in a few
   minutes! I have, sometimes," he added, "dreaded death, but when I
   seemed to be in the very article of death and thought that I must soon
   expire, I have wondered how I could ever have entertained such
   thoughts." What is there for a Christian to fear in death? It is not
   dying--it is living--about which we ought to be anxious, if anxious at
   all! But you say, "It is the thought of the pains of death that trouble
   me." But pains belong to life, so do not lay them upon poor death's
   back! Death is the physician that easespain! He does but lay his
   skeleton hand upon the patient and, straightway, the fever has departed
   and the sufferer is where the inhabitant shall no more say, "I am
   sick."--

   "One gentle sigh, the fetter breaks-- We scarce can say, 'They're
   gone!' Before the willing spirit takes Her mansion near the Throne!"
   Blessed be God, where Jesus rules, even the thought of death is not a
   cloud! If you are not under the rule of Jesus Christ, you will have
   many clouds, but if you are under His rule, if you have faith in Him,
   and live upon Him, and are a subject of His Kingdom, you will find that
   He is to you as "a morning without clouds."

   The other sentence of the text teaches us that Jesus Christ sanctifies
   to His people their varied experiences "As the tender grass springing
   out of the earth by clear shining after rain."

   Dear Friends, even under the rule of Christ we know that some trouble
   will come to us--there will be "rain." There will be the rain of sorrow
   for sin. That is a blessed rain. I would like to be wet through with
   that. Sometimes there will be the rain of depression of spirit, but God
   forbid that we should have too much of that! There will be the rain of
   affliction and trial--but we are taught to rejoice in affliction and to
   count it all joy when we fall into divers trials. Sometimes there comes
   the rain of spiritual humiliation. We are conscious of our own
   emptiness and we seem to be in such a place as the Valley of
   Humiliation, of which Bunyan has written so sweetly in his "Pilgrim's
   Progress."

   Yes, we do get times of rain, but there also come to us times of "clear
   shining." You know what that means to you after a time of trouble. It
   is very sweet, after you have been ill, to feel that you are getting
   better. I do not know any enjoyment in life that, to my mind, is equal
   to that of getting better after a severe illness--that is truly the
   "clear shining after rain." And when you have been depressed and have
   gotten back your joy, that is more clear shining. It is all the clearer
   because of the rain! And the clear shining does you more good because
   there has been rain, for clear shining without rain might bring on
   dryness and barrenness. But when the soil has been well soaked and the
   clear shining of the sun follows, then the tender grass appears--and
   what tender emotions of love, joy, peace, rest and gratitude, have
   often

   come into the soul when, after we have had a heavy rain, which has
   deluged us, there has come the clear shining--the full assurance, the
   applied promise, the conscious love, the certain Presence, the blessed
   manifestation, the sweet communion! Many of you know, from happy
   experience, what I mean. I am only giving you a brief summary, for I
   cannot fully describe that clear shining though I have felt it full
   often.

   Then it is that Jesus becomes to us like "the tender grass springing
   out of the earth." In the East, when there has been no rain for a long
   while, everything looks dry and brown, but travelers tell us that in a
   few hours, after a heavy shower and a little sunshine, patches of green
   grass will be seen where everything was brown--and the daffodil, lily
   and all sorts of beautiful plants will spring up almost as if by magic!
   Is not that the case with us spiritually? When Jesus Christ appears to
   us, our soul, which had been saturated with sorrow, becomes joyous
   through the clear shining--and then brings forth the tender grass of
   gladness, gratitude, thankfulness and holy service for the Lord Jesus
   Christ! But if there is anything of that kind brought forth in us, let
   us remember that it is Christ, Himself, who is the sum and substance of
   it all, for it is He who is as the tender grass. "Without Me, you can
   do nothing," said Christ to His disciples--and the fruit of the
   Christian is practically Christ, for if the Christian brings forth the
   fruit of holiness, it is the glory of Christ reflected in him! If he is
   bright with hope, it is Christ within him who is the hope of Glory. If
   there are any graces in us, they are the virtues which Christ has given
   to us! Our green grass is Christ, Himself, appearing in us! Our
   verdure, our beauty, our fruit, our everything is Christ manifest in
   us!

   I like this metaphor of the "tender grass springing out of the earth."
   Jesus Christ is to us what the green grass is to the field. In the
   story of the Creation, it is suggestive to read that the same day that
   God separated the water from the land and called this, "Earth," and
   that, "Seas," He saw that something was needed to make it perfect.
   Imagine this earth just lifted up out of the waters--there are the
   mountains, the little hills, the plains and the valleys, but they are
   all like masses of mud, so God says, "Let the earth bring forth
   grass"--"tender grass" is in the margin, the very expression we have in
   our text. It looks as though God Himself could not bear to see the
   world naked, so He wrapped it up in those beautiful green garments
   which are like the holiday dress of this poor brown earth! And I
   believe that whenever God makes a Christian, the moment he is born
   anew, God looks at him and sees that he is just like the earth was
   before it was clothed with grass, so God gives him Grace to enable him
   to bring forth fruit. One of the first instincts of a true convert is
   to ask, "What can I do for Jesus Christ?" Though it is not much that he
   can do, it is like the grass--it covers him. Very soon the fruits begin
   to appear, bearing seed after their kind--it is Christ being displayed
   in the convert's life, work and fruit! I remember when Jesus Christ was
   to me the first fruit of righteousness that I ever brought forth and,
   to this day, all the fruit I ever have. And I am sure it is the same
   with you, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and you are glad to
   confess that it is so--all your fruit comes from Christ alone! He is to
   us as "the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining
   after rain."

   Thus I have spoken about our experience of the rule of Christ tallying
   with the Word of God as we have it in our

   text.

   II. I will spend only a few minutes in speaking upon the second part of
   our subject, lest I weary you. It is this--OUR EXPERIENCE SHOULD
   ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO RECEIVE JESUS CHRIST AS THEIR RULER.

   If we had found Him a bad Master, we would tell you. As we have found
   Him inexpressibly good to us, we come to you and gladly bear our
   witness on His behalf. I am addressing a good many who have heard the
   Gospel for a long time and yet are not saved. When are you going to lay
   these things to heart? When shall the time of decision be? Listen to me
   with great earnestness for these last few minutes. I want you to
   receive Jesus Christ as your Ruler, but, before you do so, you must
   receive Him as your Savior! You cannot truly say, "I will serve
   Christ," until you have first said, "I will trust Him." The Gospel
   message is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."
   May the Spirit of God enable you, at this very moment, sitting where
   you are, or standing in the crowd, [or reading this] to trust the Son
   of God who lived and died that sinners might not perish. Trust Him and
   you are saved!

   But, at the same time that you trust Him, please remember that Jesus
   Christ has come to be a Prince as well as a Savior. So if He is to save
   you, you must give yourself up to Him to be ruled by Him. Obedience to
   Christ must always accompany faith in Him. Jesus says to you, "Come
   unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
   rest." But He adds, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am
   meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls." Are
   there not some young men here who need a Leader--who desire to have a
   Pilot who will conduct

   them safely through the voyage of life and land them at the Port of
   Peace? Then, accept the Lord Jesus Christ, once crucified, but now
   risen and gone into the Glory. Take Him as Savior to cleanse you and as
   Prince to govern you--and all shall be well with you forever!

   Have you come to Him? That is the important point. How you come is
   quite a secondary matter. There is much discussion about how we are to
   come to Christ, but the great discussion should be about Him to whom we
   are to come-- not so much about your coming, as about the Christ to
   whom you come--not so much about your faith, as about the Object of
   your faith--the Lord Jesus Christ. If you build upon the Rock of Ages,
   you build securely. And if you rest in Jesus, you rest safely. If you
   come to Him, you came to the right place, or, rather, to the right
   Person. O poor Souls, there are some of you who if you had to come to
   Jesus Christ in very beautiful order, marching like the Life Guards on
   parade, would never come! But you may come creeping like little
   children who fall at every second step that they take. So long as you
   do but come, you may come in the most irregular fashion, with some
   faith and a great deal of unbelief--with many a doubt and many a
   struggle--many a pang and many a cry--many a groan and many a mistrust!
   Yet, as long as you do but believe in Jesus, lean upon Him and trust in
   Him, He will not cast you out! I sometimes find that all I can do is
   just to swoon away into Christ's arms, but as long as I get there, He
   never casts me out. It is a very blessed thing, I find, to come to
   Christ arguing with myself as to why I come and understanding much
   concerning His blessed Person and Offices, His finished work, His
   Everlasting Covenant and the Election of Grace. That is a very happy
   way of coming to Christ, but there are hundreds of people who are such
   babes in spiritual things, that they do not know these great Truths of
   God. They are so weak that they cannot grasp them and so confused in
   their minds that they cannot understand them. Well, then, they must
   come as they can! For he who comes, enabled by the Grace of God to come
   straightway to Jesus-- for that is the vital point--he that comes to
   Jesus, He will in no wise cast out!

   Christ says nothing about coming to a priest for pardon. We read in the
   Scriptures of one who had sinned very grossly against Jesus. He went to
   the priests and confessed his sin and then he went out and hanged
   himself. And I do not wonder that he did so, for there is no comfort to
   be had from a priest! But if Judas had gone to Christ--if he had been
   like Peter and had gone to the Savior and confessed his sin, he might
   have been forgiven and might have rejoiced in being pardoned. It will
   not do to go to man for forgiveness--you must go to Christ! And it will
   not do to look to yourself. Christ does not say, "Him that amends
   himself, I will in no wise cast out." No, but, "Him that comes to Me."
   [This subject is more fully considered in the very remarkable Sermon,
   #3000, Volume 52--NO. 3,000--OR, COME AND WELCOME]

   Is not this a very simple matter? I have read a great many definitions
   of faith and a great many books explaining what faith is. And I have
   always felt, when I have finished reading them, like the good woman who
   read Thomas Scott's explanation of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." After
   that worthy minister had sent his book to an old lady, he went to see
   her and he said to her, "Have you been reading the book I sent you?"
   "Oh, yes, Sir," she said. "Could you understand it?" asked Scott.
   "Well, Sir," she said, "I can understand what Mr. Bunyan wrote and I
   think that, one day, by the Grace of God, I may be able to understand
   your explanation of it." It is just like that with explanations of
   faith. I can understand the Gospel and I have no doubt that, one day, I
   shall be able to understand the explanations that some writers give
   concerning what faith means. Very often, a cloud of words is only like
   a cloud of dust and explanations of faith often minister confusion
   rather than edification. There is Jesus Christ--will you trust Him? If
   you do, He will not cast you out. May He help you to trust in Him now!

   Do you still hang back? Then let me plead with you. You surely do not
   hold back from Christ because you think His service will be hard. Many
   of us have tried it and we have proved that His yoke is easy and His
   burden islight. Oh, if you could but look the Prince Immanuel in the
   face--if those blind eyes of yours could be opened so that you could
   see Him--you would fall in love with Him! The poet was right when he
   wrote--

   "His worth if all the nations knew, Surely the whole world would love
   Him too." A spiritual sight of the Prince Immanuel would so enamor you
   of Him that you would count it your honor and glory even to be allowed
   to unloose His shoelaces! I would, young people, that you would so
   value the Christian experience of others that you would trust Christ
   for yourselves! He has been a good Master to me. I have served Him,
   now, for 25 years and, blessed be His name, He has never once done me
   or mine an ill turn! His work is good, His wages are good and He,
   Himself, is best of all! Oh, that you all would trust, and love, and
   serve Him!

   Do you still hang back? Then what is your reason for doing so? Is it
   that you need more light? Listen! Christ is "as the light of the
   morning, when the sun rises," and you say that you are needing more
   light? Wanting more light, yet not coming to the Sun? You are awake in
   the morning with your shutters closed, your blinds dawn and you are
   fumbling about to find a match--and you are going to strike it and
   light a farthing candle--what for? Well, after you have lit it, you are
   going to open the shutters and see whether the sun is up! Very sensible
   behavior on your part, is it not? Yet this is what the sinner often
   does! He wants to get light enough to see whether Jesus, the Sun of
   Righteousness, is shining! Oh, put away your matches and your candles!
   Do not look for any spiritual light but that which comes from Christ,
   for all the light that you ever get, unless it comes from Christ, is
   gross darkness! Go in your darkness to Jesus Christ, for He has light
   enough in Himself without your carrying any light to Him! We have an
   old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, but there is no folly in
   that compared with the folly and sin of carrying light to the Sun of
   Righteousness! Go in your darkness to Jesus Christ and He will be light
   to you!

   "Oh, but!" you say, "there are the clouds!" Yes, I know there are--your
   sins, your doubts, your fears, your hard hearts--and you are going to
   get all these put away and then you are coming to Christ, are you? You
   are something like a man who might be foolish enough to say, "My heart
   is affected, my limbs are full of pain and my eyes are bad--but when I
   get my heart better, and my limbs better, and my eyes better, I am
   going to a physician." And why are you going to see a physician thenl
   To show him what a fine fellow you are, I suppose! Why, Man, the time
   to go to a physician is when you are sick! And the time to go to Christ
   is when you are sinful, when you are surrounded by clouds, for He is as
   "a morning without clouds." You can never get rid of the clouds, but HE
   can! So you must go to Him with all the clouds, all the sins and all
   the doubts about you--with a thousand ills wrapped round you, if so it
   must be--as full of devils as that poor man was out of whom Christ cast
   a whole legion! If you have all Hell within you, if you will but go to
   Christ just as you are, He will deliver you, here and now, with a
   single word! If you believe in Him, you need no preparation for going
   to Him!

   "But," says one, "I really want to be doing something before I come to
   Christ." Possibly you have noticed what a fuss is being made in various
   newspapers concerning that hymn which contains the words--

   "'Doing' is a deadly thing, 'Doing' ends in death."

   Certain gentlemen are very fond of talking about the immorality of the
   Doctrine of Justification by Faith, and trying to show how it is
   destructive of good works. I think that those who talk thus should try
   to practice a few good works on their own account. And one of the good
   works I would suggest to them is that of being honest enough to quote
   the whole of a verse, instead of half. Suppose I were to go about, and
   say, "Oh, the Bible is a dreadful book. It says, 'There is no God'"?
   Somebody would very probably say to me, "How dare you make such a
   statement as that? The Bible says, 'The fool has said in his heart,
   There is no God.' You have quoted only part of the verse." That is just
   what these objectors have done. The whole verse says--

   "Till to Jesus' work you cling By a simple faith, 'Doing'is a deadly
   thing, 'Doing' ends in death."

   That is true. But if you cut off the first two lines, you have not
   quoted fairly and you have made the poet say what he did notsay--and
   then you go on to say that teaching people to sing like that is
   teaching them to sing against good works. I am sick of this canting,
   hypocritical talk on the part of worldlings! They say that there is
   cant in the Church and among Christians. Well, perhaps there is a
   little, but not half as much as there is among those who quote half a
   verse and then go on to rail at Evangelical preachers as if that were
   all that they taught! Yet there is much of that kind of evil in many
   unrenewed hearts--they want to get some good thing, first, and then
   they will come to Christ. They want to get the tender grass without
   coming to Christ, but they never will, for the fruits of holiness will
   never be produced in any man's soul until he comes to Jesus, for Jesus
   is "as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining
   after rain." Come to Jesus Christ fr fruit, not with fruit! Come to Him
   for all good things and, poor Sinners, He will give them to you--

   "True belief, and true repentance,

   Every Grace that brings us nigh,

   Without money

   Come to Jesus Christ and buy."

   We preach good works with all our hearts, but they can only be worked
   by and through Jesus Christ! And we never dare tell sinners to do good
   works and then come to Christ. That would be putting the cart before
   the horse, planting the stem instead of planting the root and reversing
   the natural order of things, which, God forbid, that we should ever do!
   Come, you guilty! Come, you lost! Come, you ruined! My Lord Jesus loves
   such as you are. He has not come to heal the healthy, but the sick! He
   came, "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." May He
   call you and bring you, for His own name's sake! Amen.

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--716, 711, 30. AND FROM "SACRED SONGS
   AND SOLOS"--39.
     __________________________________________________________________

Railings

   (No. 2999)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing for your
   roof that you bring not guilt of bloodshed on your household, if any
   man fall from it." Deuteronomy 22:8.

   [This sermon was originally entitled BATTLEMENTS.]

   THIS interesting law which, in its letter, was binding on the Jewish
   people, in its spirit furnishes an admirable rule for us upon whom the
   ends of the world are come.

   It is not necessary to inform this audience that the roofs of Eastern
   dwellings were flat and that the inhabitants were accustomed to spend
   much of their time upon the tops of their houses, not only conversing
   there during the day, but sleeping there at night. If the roofs were
   without any fencing or protection around their edge, it might often
   happen that little children might fall over--and not infrequently
   grown-ups might inadvertently take a false step and suffer serious
   injury, if not death itself. Where there were no railings or low walls
   around the roof, accidents frequently occurred. But God commanded His
   people, while they were yet in the wilderness, that when they came into
   the promised land and proceeded to build houses, they should take care
   in every case to build a sufficient railing that life might not be lost
   through preventable casualty.

   This careful command clearly shows us that God holds life to be very
   valuable and that as He would not permit us to kill by malice, so He
   would not allow us to kill by negligence, but would have us most tender
   of human lives. Such rules as the one before us are precedents for
   sanitary laws and give the weight of Divine sanction to every wise
   sanitary arrangement. No man has a right to be filthy in his person, or
   his house, or his trade, for even if he, himself, may flourish amid
   unhealthy accumulations of dirt, he has no right, by his unclean
   habits, to foster a deadly typhus, or afford a nest for cholera. Those
   whose houses are foul, whose rooms are unventilated, whose persons are
   disgusting, cannot be said to love their neighbor--and those who create
   nuisances in our crowded cities are guilty of wholesale murder. No man
   has a right to do anything which must inevitably lead to the death or
   to the injury of those by whom he is surrounded--he is bound to do all
   in his power to prevent any harm coming to his fellow men. That seems
   to be the moral teaching of this ordinance of making railings around
   the housetops--teaching, mark you, that which I would like all
   housewives, workingmen, manufacturers and vestrymen to take practical
   note of.

   But, if ordinary life is precious, much more is the life of the soul
   and, therefore, it is our Christian duty never to do that which
   imperils either our own or other men's souls. To us there is an
   imperative call from the great Master that we care for the eternal
   interests of others and that we, as far as we can, prevent their
   exposure to temptations which might lead to their fatal falling into
   sin.

   We shall now lead you to a few meditations which have, in our mind,
   gathered around the text.

   I. First, GOD HAS RAILINGS ON HIS OWN HOUSE. Let this serve as a great
   Truth with which to begin our contemplations. God takes care that all
   His children are safe. There are high places in His House and He does
   not deny His children the enjoyment of these high places, but He makes
   sure that they shall not be in danger there. He sets railings around
   them lest they should suffer harm when in a state of exaltation.

   God, in His House, has given us many high and sublime doctrines. Timid
   minds are afraid of these, but the highest doctrine in Scripture is
   safe enough because God has railed it--and as no man in the East need
   be afraid to walk on the roof of his house when the railing is there,
   so no man need hesitate to believe the Doctrine of Election, the
   Doctrine of

   Eternal and Immutable Love, or any of the Divine teachings which circle
   around the Covenant of Grace--if he will at the same time see that God
   has guarded those Truths so that none may fall from them to their own
   destruction.

   Take, for instance, the Doctrine of Election. What a high and glorious
   Truth of God this is, that God has, from the beginning, chosen His
   people unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and the
   belief of the Truth! Yet that Doctrine has turned many simpletons dizzy
   through looking at it apart from kindred teachings. Some, I do not
   doubt, have willfully leaped over the railing which God has set about
   this Doctrine and have turned it into Antinomianism, degrading it into
   an excuse for evil living and reaping just damnation for their willful
   perversion! But God has been pleased to set around that Doctrine other
   Truths of God which shield it from misuse. It is true He has a chosen
   people, but "by their fruits you shall know them." Without holiness no
   man shall see the Lord! Though He has chosen His people, yet He has
   chosen them unto holiness--He has ordained them to be zealous for good
   works. His intention is not that they should be saved in their sins,
   but saved from their sins! Not that they should be carried to Heaven as
   they are, but that they should be cleansed and purged from all
   iniquities and so made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the
   saints in light!

   Then there is the sublime brush of the Final Perseverance of the
   Saints. What a noble height is that! A housetop Doctrine, indeed! What
   a Pisgah view is to be had from the summit of it--"The Lord will keep
   the feet of His saints." "The righteous also shall hold on his way and
   he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger." It will be a
   great loss to us if we are unable to enjoy the comfort of this Truth.
   There is no reason for fearing presumption through a firm conviction of
   the true Believer's safety. Mark well the railings which God has built
   around the edge of this Truth! He has declared that if these shall fall
   away, it is impossible "to renew them again unto repentance; seeing
   they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open
   shame." If those who are true saints should altogether lose the life of
   God that is within their souls, there would remain no other salvation!
   If the first salvation could have spent itself unavailingly, there
   would be no alternative but "a certain looking for ofjudgment and fiery
   indignation." When we read warnings such as, "Let him that thinks he
   stands take heed lest he fall," and others of that kind, we see how God
   has made a railing around this tower-like Truth of God so that saints
   may ascend to its very summit and look abroad upon the land that flows
   with milk and honey--and yet their brains need not whirl, nor shall
   they fall into presumption and perish!

   That wonderful Doctrine of Justification by Faith which we all hold to
   be a vital Truth of God, not only of Protestantism but of Christianity,
   itself, is quite as dangerous by itself as the Doctrine of Election, or
   the Doctrine of the Final Perseverance of the Saints--in fact, if a man
   means to sin, he can break down every bulwark and turn any doctrine
   into an apology for transgression! Even the doctrine that God is
   merciful, simple as that is, may be made into an excuse for sin. To
   return to the doctrine that we are justified by faith and not by the
   works of the Law, Luther put it very grandly, very boldly and, for him,
   very properly. But there are some who use his phrase, not in Luther's
   way, and without Luther's reasons for unguarded speaking--and such
   persons have sometimes done serious damage to men's souls by not
   mentioning another Truth which is meant to be the railing to the
   Doctrine of Faith, namely, the necessity of sanctification. Where faith
   is genuine, through the Holy Spirit's power, it works a cleansing from
   sin, a hatred of evil, an anxious desire after holiness and it leads
   the soul to aspire after the image of God. Faith and holiness are
   inseparable. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature." Good
   works are to be insisted on, for they have their necessary uses. James
   never contradicts Paul--it is because we do not understand him that we
   fancy he does so. Both the doctrinal Paul and the practical James spoke
   as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Paul builds the tower and James
   puts the railing around it--Paul conducts us to the summit of God's
   House and bids us rejoice in what we see there. And then James points
   us to the railing that is built up to keep us from leaping over the
   Truth of God to our own destruction. Thus is each doctrine balanced,
   bulwarked and guarded, but time would fail us to enter into detail--let
   it suffice for us to know that the Palace of the Truth of God is railed
   with wisdom and prudence!

   Take another view of the same thought. The Lord has guarded the
   position of His saints if endowed with wealth. Some of God's servants
   are, in His Providence, called to very prosperous conditions in
   life--and prosperity is filled with dangers. It is hard to carry a full
   cup without a spill. A man may travel on the ground well enough, and
   yet find it hard work to walk on a high rope. A man may be an excellent
   servant who would make a bad master--and one may be a good tradesman in
   a small way who would make a terrible failure of it as a merchant. Yet
   be well assured that if God shall call

   any of you to be prosperous and give you much of this world's goods,
   and place you in an eminent position, He will see to it that His Grace
   is given suitable for your station and affliction necessary for your
   elevation!

   The Lord will put railings around you, and it is most probable that
   these will not commend themselves to your carnal nature. You are going
   on right joyously, everything is "merry as a marriage bell," but, all
   of a sudden you are brought to a dead still. You kick against this
   hindering disappointment, but it will not move out of your way. You are
   vexed with it, but there it is. Oh, how anxious you are to go a step
   farther and then you think you will be supremely happy--but it is just
   that perfect happiness so nearly within reach that God will not permit
   you to attain, for then you would receive your portion in this life,
   forget your God and despise the better land! That bodily infirmity,
   that lack of favor with the great, that sick child, that suffering
   wife, that embarrassing partnership--any of these may be the railing
   which God has built around your success, lest you should be lifted up
   with pride and your soul should not be upright in you! Does not this
   remark cast a light upon the mystery of many a painful dispensation?
   "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Your Word."
   That experience may be read another way and you may confess, "Had I not
   been afflicted, I would have gone far astray. But now I have kept Your
   Word."

   The same prudence is manifested by our Lord towards those whom He has
   seen fit to place in positions of eminent service. Those who express
   great concern for prominent ministers, because of their temptations, do
   well, but they will be even more in the path of duty if they have as
   much solicitude about themselves. I remember one whose pride was
   visible in his very manner. He was a person unknown, of little service
   in the church, but as proud of his little badly plowed, weedy half acre
   as ever a man could be! He informed me very pompously, on more than one
   occasion, that he trembled lest I should be unduly exalted and puffed
   up with pride! Now, from his lips, it sounded like comedy and reminded
   me of Satan reproving sin. God never honors His servants with success
   without effectually preventing their grasping the honor of their work.
   If we are tempted to boast, He soon lays us low. He always whips behind
   the door at home those whom He most honors in public. You may rest
   assured that if God honors you by enabling you to win many souls, you
   will have many stripes to bear--and stripes you would not like to tell
   another of, they will be so sharp and humbling. If the Lord loves you,
   He will never let you be lifted up in His service. We have to feel that
   we are but just the pen in the Master's hand so that if holiness is
   written on men's hearts, the credit will not be ours, but the Holy
   Spirit must have all the praise--and this our Heavenly Father has
   effectual means of securing! Do not, therefore, start back from
   qualifying yourself for the most eminent position, or from occupying it
   when duty calls. Do not let Satan deprive God's great cause of your
   best service through your unholy bashfulness and cowardly retirement.
   The Lord will give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your
   ways. If God sets you on the housetop, He will place a railing around
   you. If He makes you to stand on the high places, He will make your
   feet like hind's feet, so that you shall not fall. If God commands you
   to dash against the enemy single-handed, still, "as your days, so shall
   your strength be." He will uphold you and on the pinnacle you are as
   secure as in the valley, if Jehovah set you there!

   It is the same with regard to the high places of spiritual enjoyment.
   Paul was caught up to the third heavens and he heard words unlawful for
   a man to utter. This was a very, very high place for Paul's mind,
   mighty brain and heart as he had--but then, there was the
   railing--"Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance
   of the Revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the
   messenger of Satan to buffet me." Paul was not in love with this
   drawback. He besought the Lord to remove it three times, but still the
   thorn could not be taken away, for it was necessary as a railing around
   the eminent Revelations with which God had favored His Apostle! The
   temptation, if we are at all happy in the Lord, is to grow secure--"My
   mountain stands firm," we say, "I shall never be moved."

   Even much communion with Christ, though in itself sanctifying, may be
   perverted through the folly of our flesh, into a cause of
   self-security. We may even dream that we are brought so near to Christ
   that common temptations are not likely to assail us--and by these very
   temptations we may fall. Hence it is that as sure as ever we have high
   seasons of enjoyment, we shall sooner or later endure periods of deep
   depression. Scarcely ever is there a profound calm on the soul's sea,
   but a storm is brewing! The sweet day so calm, so bright, shall have
   its fall and the dew of the succeeding night shall weep over its
   departure. The high hill must have its following valley and the
   flood-tide must retreat at ebb. Lest the soul should be beguiled to
   live upon itself and feed on its frames and feelings--and by neglect of
   watchfulness fall into presumptuous sins--railings are set around all
   hallowed joys, for which in eternity we shall bless the name of the
   Lord.

   Too many of the Lord's servants feel as if they were always on the
   housetop--always afraid, always full of doubts and fears. They are
   fearful lest they shall, after all, perish, and of a thousand things
   besides. Satan sets up scarecrows to keep these timid birds from
   feeding upon the wheat which the great Husbandman grows on purpose for
   them! They scarcely ever reach the assurance of faith. They are stung
   by "ifs and "buts," like Israel by the fiery serpents, and they can
   scarcely get beyond torturing fear which is as an adder biting their
   heel. To such we say, Beloved, you shall find, when your faith is
   weakest, when you are just about to fall, that there is a glorious
   railing all around you--a gracious promise, a gentle Word of the Holy
   Spirit shall be brought home to your soul so that you shall not utterly
   despair. Have you not felt, sometimes, that if it had not been for a
   choice love-word heard in the past, your faith would have given up the
   ghost? Or if it had not been for that encouraging sermon which came
   with such power to your soul, your feet had almost gone, your steps had
   well-near slipped? Now, the Infinite Love of God, dear child of God,
   values you far too much to allow you to fall into despair--

   "Mid all your fear, and care, and woe, His Spirit will not let you go."
   Railed by eternal Grace shall this roof of the house be--and when you
   are tremblingly pacing it, you shall have no cause for alarm!

   II. From the fact of the Lord's carefulness over His people, we
   proceed, by an easy step, to the consideration that as imitators of
   God, we should exercise the same tenderness. In a word, WE OUGHT TO
   HAVE OUR HOUSES RAILED.

   A man who had no railing to his house might himself fall from the roof
   in an unguarded moment. He might be startled in his sleep and in the
   dark mistake his way to the stairs, or, while day-dreaming, his steps
   might slip. Those who profess to be the children of God should, for
   their own sakes, see that every care is used to guard themselves
   against the perils of this tempted life. They should see to it that
   their house is carefully railed. If any ask, "How shall we do it?" we
   reply--

   Every man ought to examine himself carefully, whether he is in the
   faith, lest professing too much, taking too much for granted, he should
   fall and perish. At times, we should close our spiritual warehouse and
   take stock. A tradesman who does not like to do that is generally in a
   bad way. A man who does not think it wise to sometimes sit down and
   give half a day, or such time as he can spare, to a solemn stocktaking
   of his soul, may be afraid that things are not going right with him.
   Lest we should be, after all, hypocrites, or self-deceivers! Lest,
   after all, we should not be born-again, but should be children of
   Nature, neatly dressed, but not the living children of God, we must
   prove ourselves whether we are in the faith. Let us protect our souls'
   interests with frequent self-examinations!

   Better still, and safer by far, go often to the Cross as you think you
   went at first. Go every day to the Cross--still with empty hands and
   with a bleeding heart, go and receive everything from Christ and seek
   to have your wounds bound up with the healing ointment of His atoning
   Sacrifice. These are the best railings I can recommend
   you--self-examination on the one side of the house, and a simple faith
   in Jesus on the other.

   Rail your soul about well with prayer. Go not out into the world to
   look upon the face of man till you have seen the face of God. Never
   rush down from your chamber with such unseemly haste that you have not
   time to buckle on your helmet and gird on your breastplate and your
   coat of mail.

   Be sure and rail yourself about with much watchfulness and, especially,
   watch most the temptation peculiar to your position and disposition.
   You may not be inclined to be slothful. You may not be fascinated by
   the silver of Demas into covetousness and yet you may be beguiled by
   pleasure. Watch, if you have a hasty temper, lest that should overthrow
   you. Or if yours is a high and haughty spirit, set a double watch to
   bring that demon down! If you are inclined to indolence, or, on the
   other hand, if hot passions and evil desires are most likely to attack
   you, cry to the Strong for strength! And as he who guards well sets a
   double guard where the wall is weakest, so do you the same.

   There are some respects in which every man should rail his house by
   denying himself those indulgences which might be lawful to others, but
   which would prove fatal to himself. The individual who knows his
   weakness to be an appetite for drink should resolve to totally abstain.
   Every man, I believe, has a particular sin which is a sin to him, but
   may not be a sin to another. No man's conscience is to be a judge for
   another, but let no man violate his conscience. If you cannot perform a
   certain act in faith, you must not do it at all. I mean if you do not
   honestly and calmly believe it to be right, even if it is right in
   itself, it becomes wrong to you. Watch, therefore, watch at all points.
   Guard yourselves in company,

   lest you are carried away by the force of numbers. Guard yourselves in
   solitude, lest selfishness and pride creep in. Watch yourselves in
   poverty, lest you fall into envy of others. And in wealth, lest you
   become lofty in mind. Oh, that we may all keep our houses well-railed,
   lest we fall and grieve the Spirit of God and bring dishonor on
   Christ's name!

   III. As each man ought to rail his house, in a spiritual sense, with
   regard to himself, SO OUGHT EACH MAN TO CARRY OUT THE RULE WITH REGARD
   TO HIS FAMILY.

   Family religion was the strength of Protestantism at first. It was the
   glory of Puritanism and Non-Conformity. In the days of Cromwell it is
   said that you might have walked down Cheapside, at a certain hour in
   the morning, and you would have heard the morning hymns going up from
   every house and along the street. And at night, if you had glanced
   inside each home, you would have seen the whole household gathered, the
   big Bible opened and family devotion offered. There is no fear of this
   land ever becoming Popish if family prayer is maintained. But if family
   prayer is swept away, farewell to the strength of the Church! A man
   should rail his house for his children's sake, for his servants' sake,
   for his own sake, by maintaining the ordinance of family prayer. I may
   not dictate to you whether you should sing, or read, or pray--or
   whether you should do this every morning or evening, or how many times
   a day. I shall leave this to the free spirit that is in you, but do
   maintain family prayer and never let the fire on the altar of God burn
   low in your habitation.

   So in the matter of discipline. If the child shall do everything it
   chooses to do. If it shall do wrong and there is no admonition. If
   there is no chastisement, if the reins are loosely held, if the father
   altogether neglects to be a priest and a king in his house--how can he
   wonder that his children grow up to break his heart? David had never
   chastised Absalom, nor Adonijah--and remember what they became. And
   Eli's sons who never had more than a soft word or two from their
   father--how were his ears made to tingle with the news of God's
   judgments upon them! Rail your houses by godly discipline. See that
   obedience is maintained and that sin is not tolerated--and so shall
   your house be holiness unto the Lord--and peace shall dwell therein!

   We ought to strictly rail our houses as to many things which in this
   day are tolerated. I am sometimes asked, "May not a Christian subscribe
   to a lottery? May not a Christian indulge in a game of cards? May not a
   Christian dance, or attend the opera?" Now, I shall not come down to
   debate upon the absolute right or wrong of debatable amusements and
   customs. The fact is that if professors do not stop till they are
   certainly in the wrong, they will stop nowhere! It is of little use to
   go on till you are over the edge of the roof and then cry, "STOP!" It
   would be a poor affair for a house to be without a railing, but to have
   a net to stop the falling person half-way down--you must stop before
   you get off the solid standing! There is need to draw the line
   somewhere and the line had better be drawn too soon than too late. And
   whereas the habit of gambling is the very curse of this land--ah,
   during the last Derby week, what blood it shed! How it has brought
   souls to Hell and men to an unripe grave!--as the habit of speculating
   seems to run through the land, and was doubtless the true cause of the
   great panic which shook our nation a few years ago--there is the more
   need that we should not tolerate anything that looks like it.

   For another reason, we should carefully discern between places of
   public amusement. Some that are perfectly harmless, recreative and
   instructive--to deny these to our young people would be foolish. But
   certain amusements stand on the border between the openly profane and
   the really harmless. We say do not go to these--never darken the doors
   of such places. Why? Because it may be the edge of the house and though
   you may not break your neck if you walk along the railing, yet you are
   best on this side of the railing! You are least likely to fall into sin
   by staying away--and you cannot afford to run risks. We have all heard
   the old story of the good woman who required a coachman. Two or three
   young fellows came to seek for the situation. Each of them she saw and
   questioned alone. The first one had this question put to him, "How near
   could you drive to danger?" And he said, "I do not doubt but that I
   could drive within a yard of danger." "Well, well," the lady said, "you
   will not do for me." When the second came in, the good woman questioned
   him in like manner, "How near could you drive to danger?" "Within a
   hair's breath, Madam," he said. "Oh," she said, "that will not suit me
   at all." A third was asked the same question and he prudently replied,
   "If you please, Madam, that is one of the things I have never tried. I
   have always tried to drive as far from danger as I can." "You are the
   coachman for me," she said, and surely that is the kind of manager we
   all should have in our households! Oh, let us not so train up our
   children that in all probability they will run into sin! Let us, on the
   contrary, exhibit such an example in all things that they may safely
   follow us. Let us so walk that they may go step by step where we go and
   not be cast out of the Church of God as a reproach, nor be cast away
   from the Presence of God. Rail your houses, then! Do not be afraid of
   being too strict and too Puritan! There is no fear of that in these
   days--there is a great deal more danger of bringing solemn judgments on
   our families through neglecting the worship of God in our households!

   IV. THE PREACHER WOULD NOW REMIND HIMSELF THAT THIS CHURCH IS, AS IT
   WERE, HIS OWN

   HOUSE AND THAT HE IS BOUND TO RAIL IT.

   Many come here, Sabbath after Sabbath, to hear the Gospel. The immense
   number and the constancy of it surprise me. I do not know why the
   multitudes come and crowd these aisles. When I preached yesterday in
   Worcestershire and saw the thronging crowds in every road, I could not
   help wondering to see them--and the more so because they listened as
   though I had some novel discovery to make--they listened with all their
   ears, eyes and mouths! I could but marvel and thank God. Ah, but it is
   a dreadful thing to remember that so many people hear the Gospel and
   yet perish under the sound of it! Alas, the Gospel becomes to them a
   savor of death unto death--and there is no lot so terrible as perishing
   under a pulpit from which the Gospel is preached!

   Now, what shall I say to prevent any of my Hearers falling from this
   blessed Gospel? Falling from the house of mercy--dashing themselves
   from the roof of the temple to their ruin? What shall I say to you? I
   beseech you, do not be hearers only! Do not think that when you come
   here Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays it is all done! No, it is only
   begun then! Praying is the end of preaching and to be born-again is the
   great matter. It is very little to occupy your seat, unless you listen
   diligently, with willing hearts--looked upon as an end, sitting at
   services is a wretched waste of time! Dear Hearers, be dissatisfied
   with yourselves unless you are DOERS of the Word! Let your cry go up to
   God that you may be born-again. Rest not till you rest in Jesus!

   Remember, and I hope this will be another railing, that if you hear the
   Gospel and it is not blessed to you, still it has a power. If the Sun
   of Grace does not soften you as it does wax, it will harden you as the
   sun does clay! If it is not a savor of life unto life, to repeat the
   text I quoted just now, it will be a savor of death unto death! Oh, do
   not be blind in the sunlight! Do not perish with hunger in the
   banqueting house! Do not die of thirst when the Water of Life is before
   you!

   Let me remind you of what the result of putting away the Gospel will
   be. You will soon die. You cannot live forever. In the world to come,
   what awaits you? What did our Lord say, "These shall go away into
   everlasting punishment." The righteous enter into life eternal, but the
   ungodly suffer everlasting punishment! I will not dwell upon the
   terrors of the world to come, but let me remind you that they are yours
   unless Christ is yours! Death is yours, judgment is yours and Hell will
   be yours--and all that dreadful wrath which God means when He says,
   "Beware, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be
   none to deliver you." Oh, run not on in sin, lest you fall into Hell! I
   would gladly set up this railing to keep you from a dreadful and fatal
   fall.

   Once more, remember the love of God in Christ Jesus. I heard, the other
   day, of a bad boy whom his father had often rebuked and chastened, but
   the lad grew worse. One day he had been stealing and his father felt
   deeply humiliated. He talked to the boy, but his warning made no
   impression. And when he saw his child, so callous, the good man sat
   down in his chair and burst out crying as if his heart would break. The
   boy stood very indifferent for a time, but, at last, as he saw the
   tears falling on the floor and heard his father sobbing, he cried,
   "Father, don't! Father, don't do that! What do you cry for, Father?"
   "Ah, my Boy," he said, "I cannot help thinking what will become of you,
   growing up as you are. You will be a lost man and the thought of it
   breaks my heart." "O Father!" he said, "pray don't cry. I will be
   better. Only don't cry and I will not vex you again." Under God, that
   was the means of breaking down the boy's love of evil--and I hope it
   led to his salvation. Just like that is Christ to you. He cannot bear
   to see you die and He weeps over you, saying, "How often would I have
   blessed you, but you would not!" Oh, by the tears of Jesus, wept over
   you in effect when He wept over Jerusalem, turn to Him! Let that be a
   railing to keep you from ruin!

   God bless you, and help you to trust in Jesus, and His shall be the
   praise! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 6:1-14; 30-45.

   Verses 1-6. After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee,
   which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed Him,
   because they saw His miracles which He did on them that were diseased.
   And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.
   And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. When Jesus then lifted
   up

   His eyes and saw a great company come unto Him, He said unto Philip,
   Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this He said to test
   him: for He Himself knew what He would do. That verse is worth thinking
   over. How often does Christ seem to ask us riddles and place us in
   difficulties, so that we begin to say, "What will come of this? How
   shall we escape from this temptation, or how shall we stand under this
   trial?" He Himself knows what He will do and it is a very blessed thing
   when our faith, being tried, shows itself to be strong enough to leave
   the burden with Him who can bear it, and to leave the difficulty with
   Him who can meet it! "He Himself knew what He would do."

   7. Philip answered Him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not
   sufficient for them, that everyone of them may take a little. That is
   our way. When our faith is little, we begin calculating the pennyworths
   that are needed, and we make them out to be so much more than we
   possess or can possibly scrape together. That is not faith, it is
   reason--poor, dim, shallow reason which forgets the Infinite and begins
   to calculate its own limited and insufficient forces!

   8-10. One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said unto
   Him, there is a lad here who has five barley loaves, and two small
   fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men
   sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down,
   in number about five thousand. When Christ bids men sit down, He has a
   dainty carpet for them to sit upon. "There was much grass in the
   place." One might have thought that some of those people would have
   refused to sit down, for it is not everybody who will sit at a table
   that has nothing on it--but God knows how to move the hearts of men, so
   these people, if they had not strong faith, yet had faith enough to do
   as they were told--I wish that we all had as much faith as that!

   11. And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He
   distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set
   down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. "As much as
   they would." Note those words, for they are the rule at Christ's
   feasts. Of earthly things, He gives us as much as we need--and of
   heavenly things, as much as we would! "Open your mouth wide, and I will
   fill it." "According to your faith be it unto you."

   12, 13. When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, gather up
   the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they
   gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of
   the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that
   had eaten. "Waste not, want not." Heavenly economy is to be practiced
   in the things of God. Christ is not stingy, but He is no waster.

   14. Then those men, when they hadseen the miracle which Jesus did,
   said, This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into the world.
   They were convinced through their stomachs! They came to this
   conviction merely through eating and drinking--and that faith which
   comes by the senses is no faith at all, or it is a sensual faith which
   cannot save the soul! These people who came to this belief through
   eating, were very poor followers of Christ, as He said to them, "You
   seek Me not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of
   the loaves, and were filled."

   30-32. They said therefore unto Him, What sign show You then, that we
   may see, and believe You? What do You work? Our fathers did eat manna
   in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.
   Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave
   you not that bread from Heaven; but My Father gives you the true bread
   from Heaven. Jesus did not say to them, "I gave that bread to your
   fathers in the wilderness," as He might truly have said. It was not
   Moses who fed their fathers in the wilderness, it was God who had fed
   them and if they would but think, they would clearly see that it was
   so. But the Master took them on to another tack and led their thoughts
   to a higher topic.

   33, 34. For the Bread of God is He which comes down from Heaven, and
   gives life unto the world. Then said they unto Him, Lord, evermore give
   us this bread. Not knowing the meaning of their own request.

   35-39. And Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of Life: He that comes
   to Me shall never hunger, and He that believes on Me shall never thirst
   But I said unto you, That you also have seen Me, and believe not All
   that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, andhim that comes to Me, I
   willin no wise cast out For Icame down from Heaven, not to do My own
   will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father's will
   Many want to pry between the closed leaves of God's secret purposes to
   see what His will is. Now this is it--"This is the Father's will."

   39-44. Which has sent Me, that of all which He has given Me, I should
   lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is
   the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which sees the Son, and
   believes on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise Him up at
   the last day. The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the
   Bread which came down from Heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus,
   the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

   How is it then that He says, I came down from Heaven; Jesus therefore
   answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can
   come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him. Note how that
   Doctrine of Sovereign Grace is used by Christ. He seems to wave it,
   like a lighted torch, in the faces of His adversaries, as if He said to
   them, "I did not expect you to understand Me. I did not expect you to
   receive Me. Do not think that you surprise Me by your action. Imagine
   not that you frustrate My eternal purposes by rejecting Me. I knew that
   you would not receive Me and that, as you are, you could not come to
   Me, for 'no man can come to Me, except the Father which has sent Me
   draw him.'"

   44, 45. And I will raise Him up at the last day. It is written in the
   Prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that
   has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto Me. May we so hear
   and so learn of the Father that we may come to Jesus Christ!
     __________________________________________________________________

COME AND WELCOME

   (No. 3000)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   19, 1876.

   "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37.

   [This Sermon is the 3000th that has been published in regular weekly
   succession since No. 1, "The Immutability of God," was issued in
   January, 1856. The Lord's-Day morning Sermons, with many of those
   preached in the evening, were published during Mr. Spurgeon's lifetime.
   The rest of the evening Sermons are now being issued and there are
   still sufficient unpublished manuscripts to last for some years. The
   whole of the 3000 Sermons are kept in stock, and any quantity of any of
   them can be obtained of the publishers, Messrs. Passmore a Alabaster,
   Paternoster Buildings, London, EC. No. 3000 has been especially
   selected in harmony with Mr. Spurgeon's custom of issuing, on such
   memorable occasions, a striking and simple Sermon that might be even
   more widely distributed than the ordinary issues. Those previously
   published have been as follows: Volume 17, NUMBER ONE THOUSAND--OR,
   "BREAD ENOUGH AND TO SPARE"; Volume 25, NUMBER 1500--OR, "LIFTING UP
   THE BRONZE SERPENT"; Volume 33, NUMBER 2000--OR, "HEALING BY THE
   STRIPES OF JESUS"; Volume 43, NUMBER 2500--OR, "ENTRANCE AND
   EXCLUSION." The publishers are always pleased to quote special terms
   for quantities, and to send post free to all applicants their Textual
   Index of over 2900 Sermons, and a full List of C. H. Spurgeon's books
   at reduced prices. It is almost needless to say that in the whole
   history of religious literature, there has never before been such an
   event as the issue of 3000 of one Preacher's Sermons in weekly numbers
   for nearly 52 years! It is a remarkable fact that more than 750 of
   these Sermons have been published since Dr. Spurgeon was "called Home"
   on January 31, 1892. Will all believing readers pray for the Lord's
   blessing upon the whole of the 3000 Sermons now issued?] [Thought you
   might enjoy this quote of the publishers--EOD]

   WHILE I was trying to prepare a sermon for this evening, someone called
   at my door--I daresay the friend is here tonight, (I hope so)--and left
   this little note--"I entreat you to pray, especially this evening, for
   a most unhappy case-- for one who is in great agony of mind, that God,
   in His Infinite Mercy, would send one ray of light into the dark soul.
   Please ask all the converted ones in your congregation to pray for me,
   that Grace may be restored to a most unhappy soul." Well, I am sure
   that all Christians here will earnestly pray that the light may break
   into the thick darkness and that the troubled spirit may find rest,
   but, after all, there is a very strong temptation to a heart in trouble
   to rest in the prayers of others rather than to go immediately to
   Christ for relief. Yet all the prayers in the world cannot, by
   themselves, help a man who is in despair. The light can never come into
   that dungeon except through one window--and that is a window through
   which the tearful eyes may always look--the window of everlasting love
   as revealed in the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ!

   I thought that the text which I have selected might, by the blessing of
   the Spirit of God, be made the means of comfort, not only to that
   person who wrote to me, but to many others who may be seeking the
   Savior. There was also another circumstance which led me to select this
   text. A gentleman who pressed my hand very earnestly one day, said to
   me, "Do you remember preaching at the sawmills in the Old Kent Road?" I
   replied, "Yes." "I also remember it," he said, "indeed, I can never
   forget it. You preached from this text, 'There shall in no wise enter
   into it anything that defiles.' My comfort was that towards the close
   of the sermon, you said, 'I have preached upon this terrible no wise.
   Now, before I have done, I will preach upon a blessed no wise,' and
   then you began to talk to us about that text, 'Him that comes to Me, I
   will in no wise cast out,' and that message yielded me comfort which I
   have never lost."

   Well, medicine that has worked so well in one case may, perhaps, be
   just as efficacious in another. And if the Holy Spirit blessed the text
   when it was only brought in at the end of a sermon, perhaps He will
   bless it even more, now that we set it in the very forefront of our
   discourse. No, we know that He will, for we have asked His blessing
   upon it and, therefore, we expectthe blessing to come. Dear Friend in
   trouble of soul, I hope it will come to you!

   I. I am going to make five brief observations upon this passage, "Him
   that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." The first observation is
   that OUR TEXT IS FROM THE LIPS OF JESUS HIMSELF.

   And because Christ Himself said it, we dare not doubt that it is
   absolutely true. Imagine that you see Him standing here just now--that
   same Jesus who fed the multitude and loved the souls of men even unto
   death. And then imagine that you hear these words from His lips which
   are like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. Oh, with what wondrous
   accents would He say, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast
   out!" I can but feebly repeat what He must have uttered in the purest
   heavenly tones, yet I still pray you to remember that it is Jesus who
   still speaks to you, from His Word, even from Heaven! Do not dare to
   doubt this, or to question the truth of what He said. It was true
   before He died, but now that He has sealed His testimony with His most
   precious blood and proved His love to sinners by laying down His life
   for them, oh, do not doubt the truth of His utterance, but confide
   fully in Him who thus speaks to you from Heaven!

   The message, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," must
   be true, for it fell from the lips of Jesus! And next, it is eminently
   consistent with His Character. You cannot conceive of Him as casting
   out a soul that came to Him! The scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a
   woman taken in the very act of adultery, yet He did not condemn her,
   but said to her, "Go, and sin no more."--

   "His heart is made of tenderness; His heart melts with love."

   He was sometimes angry, but it was with self-sufficient Pharisees and
   self-righteous hypocrites who flaunted their lies before His face--but
   He wept over the doomed city of Jerusalem. He had a gentle word for the
   woman in the city who was a sinner, and tender compassion for the
   little ones that were brought to Him. To those who would have driven
   them away, He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and
   forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God." Look up into His
   face and then look upon His hands and His feet which still bear the
   scars of His passion and ask yourselves, "Is it consistent with the
   Character of Christ--with the heart of Christ--with the Person of
   Christ--with the great objective for which He came to this earth--for
   Him to cast out any soul that comes to Him?" No, the words of our text
   must be true, for Jesus uttered them and His whole life tallies with
   them!

   Remember, too, that when Jesus spoke these words, He spoke as One who
   knew everything. If you and I make a promise, or a statement concerning
   our future mode of procedure, we may not be aware of the position in
   which we may one day be placed--and it may become impossible for us to
   keep the promise. Or the course of action which we thought we would
   surely follow may become too difficult for us. But our Lord Jesus
   Christ knew all things--all things about Himself and all things about
   sinners--and when He said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise
   cast out," He included all possible contingencies with regard to
   Himself--if there can be any contingencies with Him--and all possible
   contingencies that have to do with those who come to Him. "He knew what
   was in man," and He also knew what was in His own heart and, therefore,
   when He spoke, He spoke deliberately and accurately--and with full
   knowledge of all the surroundings and circumstances of those who would
   come to Him!

   Let me also remind you, Brothers and Sisters, that this message has
   been true up to now. What Jesus said to these Jews has stood fast for
   more than 18 Centuries. There is not a sinner, now living, who can bear
   testimony that he has come to Christ and that Christ has cast him out.
   There is not a soul in Hell that, with all the fully-developed sin of
   that dreadful place, dares, even in blasphemy, to say, "I came to Jesus
   and He cast me out." Nor shall there ever live in the universe one
   soul, however guilty and defiled, that shall be able to truthfully say,
   "I came to Him, but He shut up His heart of compassion against me and
   cast me out."

   Well, if it is so--that Jesus spoke this message and, therefore, it is
   true. If it is just, like He and exactly according to His whole method
   of procedure, then let us believe it and let us plead it! If you want
   to come to Him, but have the haunting fear that He may, perhaps, cast
   you out, oh, lay hold upon Him and say to Him, "Lord, You have said,
   'Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.'" Remind Him of His
   own words! Plead His promise and you will never find Him run back from
   it, or revoke the word which has gone forth out of His lips! In your
   direst despair, when it seems as if He frowned upon you--when you call
   unto Him and yet receive no answer--when, as He spoke to the
   Syrophenician woman, He seems to give you harsh words instead of
   gracious promises--lay hold upon Him, grasp the hem of His garment and
   say to Him, "I will not let You go, for You have said, 'Him that comes
   to Me, I will in no wise cast out.' Lo,

   I come to You! I know You cannot lie--give me a welcome, or else I
   shall die. I know You cannot be false to Your word and here, if I
   perish, I will perish pleading the precious promise on which my soul
   would gladly stay herself!"

   II. The next observation is this--THESE WORDS WERE SPOKEN IN THE
   SINGULAR. "Him that comes to

   Me."

   This is all the more remarkable because the first part of the verse is
   in the plural--"Allthat the Father gives Me shall come to Me."And,
   naturally and grammatically, the second clause should run, "and those
   that come to Me I will in no wise cast out." But it is not so worded.
   There is a change from the plural to the singular and Jesus says, "Him
   that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." And, I think, with
   admirable reason, for the Lord is always wise even in the choice of
   numbers and there is a motive for this change.

   It may be this--here is personality recognized. You have been one of a
   crowd before, but you are all alone now. You used to think of a sort of
   national Christianity and say, "Yes, we are all Christians because we
   are Englishmen." But you know better than that now. You used to reckon
   that you might consider yourself a Christian because your father and
   mother were godly people--you belonged to a Christian family. But you
   know better than that now. You know that the mere hereditary faith
   which comes to men by natural birth is of no spiritual value, for "that
   which is born of the flesh is flesh." "You must be born-again." You
   feel one by yourself--to use an old metaphor, you are like the wounded
   stag which retires into the glades of the forest to bleed and die
   alone. I daresay, when you now hear a sermon, if it is full of threats,
   you think that it is all meant for you. You have begun to read the
   Bible and to look for texts that may speak to you. And though, as yet,
   you have not lighted on a promise that seems like a lone star to shine
   especially for you, yet you are looking for such a promise and you hope
   that you will find it. At any rate, you are now cut loose from
   everything and everybody else--you feel yourself to be a separate
   individual that is to be judged, before long, before the bar of God
   and, you fear to be cast away forever beneath His wrath. Think
   now--Jesus puts this message in the singular--"Him that comes to Me, I
   will in no wise cast out," and you, also, are in the singular! Does not
   this message just suit your personality?

   It is very possible that there is also in you a singularity suspected.
   You think that there never was anybody exactly like you. If you were
   like others, you would have hope, but there are certain points about
   your sin, certain aspects of your character and certain doubts and
   fears with which you are assailed which set you apart as a lot out of
   all catalogs. You feel that you are quite alone--you are the odd man or
   the odd woman. You cannot think that even the most general promises can
   relate to you. You consider that the act of indemnity exempts you from
   its operations--even if it does not exempt anybody else, it exempts
   you. It is for this very reason that Jesus Christ puts the matter as He
   does. He speaks to you odd people, to you solitary people, to you
   singularities, to you odds and ends of the universe and He says, "Him
   that comes to Me"--though such a man as he has never lived
   before--though he is the one exception to all rules, yet, "Him that
   comes to me"--any "him" in all the world "that comes to Me, I will in
   no wise cast out." What a blessed thing it is that thus, by using the
   singular number, Christ seems to meet our suspicions of being singular
   and calls the singular ones, the odd ones, to come to Him!

   And here, too, perhaps, there may be a kind of desertion supposed. You
   think you could come to Christ if the friends of your youth were with
   you. You could come if a beloved teacher or a godly parent could pray
   with you. But, possibly, you have sinned yourself out of society--your
   transgressions have made you to be like the leper whom they put outside
   the camp and they will not allow you to come in among the tribes of
   Israel lest you should pollute the rest. Well, poor leper, you that are
   set apart--you that feel yourself to be given up even by those who once
   had some sort of hope concerning you--you for whom good people scarcely
   venture to pray because you seem to have committed the sin which is
   unto death--you have staggered their faith and disappointed all their
   hopes yet here still stands the text and it is addressed to you,
   deserted and alone as you are! If nobody will help you, and nobody will
   pray for you--if your tears of repentance must fall in secret--if
   everyone who hears about you thinks you are only a hypocrite, trying to
   whine yourself into favor--yet, still come to Christ all alone, for He
   has said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out!"

   Perhaps this message is put in the singular for one more
   reason--emptiness confessed. Some people, when they come to Christ,
   bring with them a great deal that is not worth bringing. That is a
   false coming. But there are others who are so destitute that they feel
   that if they do come to Christ, they will have to come alone because
   they have nothing to bring to Him. Yet Christ does not say, "If you
   come to Me with good feelings. If you come repenting. If you come with
   this, or that, or another Christian excellence, I will in no wise cast
   you out." No! If you come to Christ as naked as you were when you were
   born and as naked as you will have to be when you go back to the
   earth--if you come with nothing whatever--as long as you come--Christ
   puts the word in the singular that it may mean you, and only
   you--bringing with you nothing but that which is your own, namely, your
   sin and your misery, your emptiness, your needs, your inability, your
   spiritual death and everything else which now crushes you well-near to
   despair--if you come, you, you, you, you, whoever you may be--if you
   come to Him, He will in no wise cast you out! Thus have we tried to say
   something which God may bless to the comfort of the singular ones.

   III. Notice, next, that THE TEXT DESCRIBES THE PERSON COMING TO CHRIST
   WITH VERY

   WONDERFUL SIMPLICITY. "Him that comes to Me" John Bunyan truly says,
   "That means any 'Him' in all the world." And I venture to say that it
   means anyone in all the world who does but come to Christ. In Christ's
   day there were some who came to Him doubtingly, like that man who said,
   "Lord, I believe; help You my unbelief," yet He did not cast them out!
   There were some who came to Jesus limping, for they were lame. There
   were some who came to Him with very great difficulty, for they were
   paralyzed in part of their bodies--but they did come to Him and He did
   not cast them out. And there were some who came blindly. They could not
   see who He was, nor what He was, but, nevertheless, they came to Him
   and He did not cast them out because they were blind. There were some
   who had to be carried to Him, yet, since it was with their own consent
   that they were carried, as long as they did but come, He did not cast
   them out! One man, you remember, came to Him through the ceiling--his
   friends had to take away the covering of the house to let him down into
   the Presence of Jesus. Well, if you get to Jesus over hedge or ditch,
   over the wall, or through the ceiling, or down the chimney--if you do
   but come to Him, it matters not how you come as long as you do but
   come!

   IV. My fourth observation shall be this--THE TEXT CONTAINS AN ABSOLUTE
   NEGATIVE. "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out"

   Indeed, it is more than one negative, for it might be rendered "I will
   not, notcast out," or, "I will never, never cast out." In our language,
   one negative cancels another, but in the Greek language, negatives
   strengthen one another. Indeed, we sometimes use similar expressions
   and do so very properly in order to make our meaning clear and
   forcible, as when we sing--

   "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, He will not, He will not
   depart to his foes. That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to
   shake, He will never, no never, no never forsake!"

   The difficulty which many feel is this--perhaps they are not elect--and
   if they are not, then, even though they come to Jesus, He must cast
   them out. Now, that is supposing what never did occur, because no
   non-elect soul ever came to Jesus! But I need not go into that matter,
   for my text suffices without any explanation. Read the first part of
   the verse-- "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me." There
   Christ is speaking about election and with that subject distinctly
   before His eyes, not forgetting the Predestination of God and His
   eternal will and Purpose, Jesus, knowing what He was saying, said, "Him
   that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." So, Predestination and
   Election cannot be inconsistent with the Truth of God in this text and,
   though you may sometimes fear that your ship will split on that rock,
   it really is not a rock in the harbor's mouth when Christ is the
   harbor! If you come to Him, you need not trouble about the secret
   decrees and purposes of God. There are such decrees and purposes, but
   they cannot, any one of them, be contrary to the Truth which Christ so
   explicitly declares here, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast
   out." In the prophecy of Isaiah, the Lord says, "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 have often blessed the Lord for that
   text--it does not tell us what God has said, but it tells us what He
   has not said, and that is, that He said not unto the seed of Jacob,
   "Seek you Me in vain." He never tantalizes us! He never bids us seek
   Him with the reserve in His own mind that we shall not find Him. So,
   speaking broadly, yet truthfully, Christ says, "Him that comes to Me, I
   will in no wise cast out." There is no secret purpose of God, nothing
   written in the great book of human destiny, nothing in the mysteries of
   eternity which can ever make this declaration of Christ untrue to you,
   or anyone else! "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."

   "I am not troubled about that matter," says one. "My difficulty is of a
   more practical kind. I can leave the mysteries, but there is something
   that I cannot leave, and that is my past sin." Well, Friend, when the
   Lord Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," He
   looked right down the centuries to the end of time. He did not say,
   "Him

   that comes to me today, I will in no wise cast out." The declaration,
   "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out," is as true at this
   moment as it was when the words first fell from Christ's lips. He knew
   then, for He knew all things, what a sinner you would be and you were
   in His mind then, for that mind of His is Infinite and Divine! And He
   knew that there would be such a man, or such a woman, as you are--and
   that you would sin just as you have done. Yet, taking all that into
   consideration, He said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast
   out."

   I do not know what your special sin may have been. Perhaps it would be
   wrong for me to try to guess, but this I do know, if you come to
   Christ, "though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as
   snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." It may
   be that you have to mourn over long years of aggravated
   transgression--sins against light and sins against knowledge. I cannot
   read your life story and I do not want to read it--it is sufficient for
   me that Jesus said, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out."
   If you came to Him and He cast you out because of these long years of
   sin, His declaration would not be true. If you had lived as long as
   Methuselah. If you had sinned as grossly as Manasseh. If you had lived
   a life of dishonesty and unchastity, yet, if you really came to Him, He
   could not, being a true Christ, cast you away! If all the sins that men
   have ever committed could be laid to the charge of one poor sinner, yet
   if that sinner came to Christ, He could not cast Him away! The phrase,
   "in no wise," has such a wonderful sweep that it comprehends the
   grossest of crimes and the most heinous transgressions.

   "Ah," says another, "it is not my past sins which trouble me so much as
   my present hardness of heart. My heart is like the nether millstone. My
   eyes never weep for sin. No, I can even think of sin almost without
   alarm." So, dear Friend, you judge yourself, but probably your judgment
   is a great mistake. Yet, even were it true, remember that Christ has
   not said, "Him that comes to Me, I will only cast out because his heart
   is hard," or, "because he refuses to weep." He has not put in any
   exception! He met your case when He said, "Him that comes to Me, I will
   in no wise--not even for that reason--cast out." If your heart is like
   iron, where will it ever be softened except in the furnace of His Love?

   "Oh," says another, "I have been thinking of my sins and I have tried
   to repent." Yes, but you must remember that--

   "Law and terrors do but harden All the while they work alone. 'Tis a
   sense of blood-bought pardon That dissolves the heart of stone."

   When a soul comes to Christ, then it gets repentance, it gets
   tenderness of heart, it gets all that it really needs! And all attempts
   to get these things beforeyou come to Christ are like trying to get the
   effect before you get the cause--to get the fruit before you get the
   root! O Soul, however old your condition may be, come to Christ, for He
   can cure you! A good deal of preaching has been addressed to persons of
   a certain character, and sinners who listen to that
   character-preaching, keep asking, "Is that our character?" In this way,
   their eyes are fixed upon themselves and their own characters, instead
   of upon Christ! That is a gospel which will do them no good. But
   Christ's Gospel turns a man's eyes away from his own character. It says
   to him, "Admit, once and for all, that your character is incorrigibly
   bad and that you deserve to be sent to the lowest Hell. But, that being
   the case, the Gospel still says to you, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and you shall be saved.'" Some gospels might help a man if he
   could get a certain distance on the way to Heaven, but the good
   Samaritan came just where the poor wounded traveler was--and Jesus
   Christ comes to sinners just where they are, and just asthey
   are--hard-hearted, callous, thoughtless, careless, yet often conscious
   of all this and, strange to say, lamenting that they cannot lament, and
   crying, "I would feel if I could! I feel that it is a pain to think I
   cannot feel. I am sad to think I am not sad, and weary to think I am
   not weary." Well, then, Jesus says, "Just as you now are, come unto Me.
   Leave your care, just as it is, in My hands, and I will undertake it
   for you."

   Did I hear somebody say, "Oh, but I am so ignorant"? Well, my dear
   Friend, so are all of us! The only difference between a very wise man
   and a very great fool is that the wise man knows that he is a fool, and
   the other does not. When all the knowledge of our wisest men is put
   together, it makes but a very small book compared with the vast volume
   that contains what they do notknow. Why, the most highly-educated man,
   now living, has only just gone to an A. B. C. school as yet, and as for
   those very learned divines--the D. D.s and the LL. D.s, and those
   doctors who think they know so much that they know better than the
   Bible--well, after all, their knowledge, as compared with what is yet
   to be known, is only the information of an ant or a magpie--nothing
   more! We are all fools together and what a mercy it is

   that the Lord Jesus Christ does not require a lot of knowledge of us!
   It is to know Him that suffices us. To know yourself as a sinner and
   Christ as your Savior is all the knowledge you really need in order to
   find eternal life. Never let your ignorance stand in your way, for
   Christ virtually puts the matter thus, "Him that comes to Me--though He
   cannot read a letter in the Bible, and hardly knows that twice two are
   four--if he does but come to Me, I will in no wise cast him

   out."

   "Ah, yes," says another, "but I am so poor!" Well, that is the very
   last thing that you should ever mention as a hindrance to your coming
   to Christ, for His Gospel is especially preached to the poor. One of
   the proofs that He gave of His Messiahship was this, "the poor have the
   Gospel preached to them." And, oftentimes, He has "chosen the poor of
   this world, rich in faith," to be the "heirs of the Kingdom which He
   has promised to them that love Him." So that you cannot truly say that
   you are too poor to come to Christ.

   "Ah," says another, "but I am so tried and troubled." Suppose you are?
   You do not imagine that the Lord Jesus Christ said, "Him that comes to
   me, I will not cast out unless he is tried and troubled," do you? Why,
   poor Soul, if there is one who could notbe left out, it is just the one
   who is most troubled! What is it that moves the heart of Jesus towards
   us? Nothing but His pity and love. And the more trouble you have, the
   more cause there is for His pity to display itself upon you. Instead of
   keeping back from Christ because you have so many troubles, come to Him
   to find comfort under them!

   "Everybody has been so unkind to me," says one. "My heart is broken."
   Well, the Savior, who uttered our text, could truly say, "Reproach has
   broken My heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to
   take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none."
   So He understands all about you and He will bind up your broken heart!
   "Ah, but I am so despised, and slandered, and misrepresented." So was
   He. They called Him "a gluttonous man, and a winebibber." He is exactly
   the Savior you need. "Ah, but I have lost my husband and all my friends
   are dead and gone. I hardly know where to find my daily bread." Christ
   said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but
   the Son of Man has not where to lay His head." He can sympathize with
   you in the deep affliction of your poverty, so go to Him! You should
   go, above all others--you who have not a comfortable home, before whom
   the whole earth seems a desert--you who seem to have been turned out of
   Paradise and there is nothing before you but the land which brings
   forth thorns and thistles--it is in your ears that I would especially
   repeat the ancient promise, "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the
   head of the serpent." You shall overcome all your enemies if you but
   come to Jesus Christ!

   It is a sweet thing to think that the text is so comprehensive--"Him
   that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out." Have you ever read Mr.
   John Bunyan's "Comeand Welcome" He very wonderfully expounds this text
   and, if I remember rightly, he makes the sinner say, "But I am so great
   a sinner." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I have sinned against
   knowledge." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I have been a
   thief." "I will in no wise cast you out." "I have been a fornicator and
   adulterer." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I have been a
   murderer." "I will in no wise cast you out." "But I cannot believe as I
   would." "I will in no wise cast you out." And he keeps on, page after
   page, supposing all things that he can well think of--but I will not
   keep on so long--I will just say this--Suppose what you like and though
   it is a fact, yet, still my text covers it--"Him that comes to Me, I
   will in no wise cast out!"

   V. My last observation is this, OUR TEXT PLEDGES OUR LORD'S PERSONAL
   ACTION. "Him that comes to

   Me, I will in no wise cast out."

   He does not say anything here about what His servants will do. Some of
   them look with disapproval at big sinners. They have been known to do
   so before now and some of them are still a little like that elder
   brother who said, "As soon as this, your son, was come, which has
   devoured your living with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted
   calf." But Christ says to the prodigal, "I will not cast you out. Your
   brother may be unwilling to receive you, but I will welcome you."

   Now, if the Lord Jesus Christ does not cast us out, it really does not
   matter who else wants to do so. So long as the Master of the feast does
   not reject us, we may keep our place at the table! It is a very
   suggestive thing that my text is in the very chapter which records the
   great feast when thousands sat down upon the grass and were fed by
   Christ. I daresay they were some very strange characters there that
   day. None of them were too good, but I expect that among that crowd of
   loafers around the Savior--for loafers many of them were, for they had
   followed for the sake of the loaves and that is just the meaning of the
   word, "loafer"--there were some fine gentlemen from Jerusalem who said,
   "Well, if that is the

   Messiah, He has a pretty following, indeed!" On another occasion they
   called Him "a friend of publicans and sinners." And they said, "This
   Man receives sinners, and eats with them." He never denied it, He
   rather gloried in it! He said that He was sent to the lost sheep of the
   house of Israel and that "they that are whole have no need of the
   physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous,
   but sinners to repentance." He loved to have them about Him--loafers
   and vagabonds as they were. I do not read that He said to Philip, and
   Peter, and Andrew, "Now, look. We are going to give a feast, but it
   must be on the principle of the Charity Organization Society and we
   must not give anything to people who are undeserving." It is true that
   God gives to the unthankful and the unbelieving, but modern charity
   says, "That is wicked!" Well, I daresay there is a good deal to be said
   for that view of the matter, but Jesus Christ did not believe in that
   view. There were many undeserving people there and He fed them all!
   Christ did not feed any man there because he was good, but because he
   was hungry. He saw that they were tired and faint, so he multiplied the
   loaves and the fishes, and fed them till they were satisfied.

   And today, Jesus Christ does not give His mercy to any man because he
   deserves it, or because there are any good qualities in the man that
   may merit the display of His Grace--He saves people because He loves to
   save the unworthy-- and He would not have them perish. "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." That is His only reason and,
   blessed be His name that it is His only reason for saving sinners,
   because you and I, who are among the most unworthy persons who have
   ever lived, may come and sit at the feet of His Grace and know that He
   has pledged His personal honor and His own private Character for it
   that him that comes to Him, He will not cast out! If HE does not cast
   us out, who can? As He says, "I will in no wise cast you out," rest
   assured that all His servants and all His enemies, even if they wanted
   to cast us out, would be quite unable to accomplish the task!

   When Jesus says, "I will not cast out Him that comes to Me," He means
   that He will let him stay with Him. If you get into Christ's family by
   simply trusting Him, you shall always be in His family. If you get into
   my Lord's house by simply trusting Him, you shall always be in His
   house! He will not cast you out, but He will receive you, pardon you,
   cleanse you, bless you. You shall have the power, the right, the
   authority to become a son of God--and you shall have the nature of a
   son, you shall receive the Spirit of adoption whereby you shall be able
   to cry, "Abba, Father." You shall have the blessings of a son--you
   shall be provided for, educated and trained for the skies. You shall
   not be denied any blessing or favor which is given to God's family. If
   you do but come to Christ, His Grace shall be free to you, His House
   shall be free for you, His city and His Kingdom shall cost you nothing,
   His heart shall be free for you and, by-and-by, His Heaven shall be
   free for you, for where He is, there shall you be also--and as He sits
   at His Father's right hand, so shall you sit down with Him upon His
   Throne!

   I have known the time when if I had heard such a sermon as this, I
   think I would have leaped for joy to think that there was such mercy to
   be had by me! I would not have needed any fine speaking, or any display
   of oratory. I would only have needed to be assured that Jesus would
   receive me and I would at once have come to Him! And this I know--every
   truly hungry soul here will come and feed on this Truth of God tonight,
   and every thirsty soul will come and drink! But if there are any here
   who think they are good enough--if there are any who fancy that they
   have not sinned against God and so do not feel that they are in any
   great danger, or have any great needs--well, it will be according to
   the old rule, the full will loathe the loaded table, but to the hungry
   man even bitter things will be sweet!

   I can only give you the Gospel invitation and leave it with the Lord to
   incline you to accept it. May you be led to come to Jesus by a
   spiritual act of faith this very hour!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Vision of the Field

   (No. 3001)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.

   "For behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be
   tilled and sown." Ezekiel 36:9.

   THESE words were addressed to the mountains of Palestine. Albeit that
   they are now waste and barren, they are yet to be as fruitful and
   luxuriant as in the days of Israel's grandeur. God will turn to
   them--the vines shall then crown the summits and there shall be
   harvests again upon the mountaintops.

   The mountains of Israel were a soil of glass in which you could see
   reflected, at a single glimpse, the condition and character of the
   people. While the Israelites were obedient to God, the mountains
   dripped with new wine and the little hills seemed to melt with
   fertility. Honey dripped from the rock and oil appeared to be distilled
   of the very flint. When the people sinned so that God gave them over to
   their enemies, irrigation being neglected and the culture of the soil
   no longer profitable, the mountains straightaway became as blank and
   barren as though they were a howling wilderness! And then, again, when
   the people repented and turned to God, the soil began to cover the
   mountains, carried up there by the industry of the people, the sides of
   the hills were terraced, the waste places began to blossom and the
   vines were once more filled with clusters. You could thus read the
   history of the people in the condition of their hills.

   I intend to take the hills of Israel as a representation of our own
   state--the state of our own heart. As they really did mirror forth the
   condition of the people of old, the metaphor becomes peculiarly
   attractive. I shall divide the subject thus--first, man's heart, by
   nature, is like a waste field. Secondly, there is no hope for that
   field unless Godshall turn to it in mercy. Thirdly, when Hie does turn
   to it, He will have to till it, for, lastly, not until after tillage
   can it be sown with any hope of success.

   I. MAN'S HEART, BY NATURE, IS LIKE A WASTE FIELD.

   A waste field produces no harvest. Reaper, you shall never fill your
   arms with sheaves, the axle of the wagon shall never creak beneath the
   load of harvest and the young men shall never dance with the maidens at
   the harvest home. Let the field lie waste and the fruit it will yield
   in a whole century will not be sufficient to feed a single individual!

   Such is man, we say, by nature. He brings forth no fruit unto God.
   Leave him alone and he will live unto himself. Perhaps he will be a
   respectable sinner and, if so, he will selfishly spend all his life in
   trying to provide for himself, alone, or for his family, which is but a
   part of himself. He will go through the world from his birth to his
   sepulcher without a thought of God. He will never do anything for God.
   His heart will never beat with love to Him. He may sometimes, out of
   sheer selfishness, go with others to worship, but he will not worship
   God, whatever difference he may show to the outward form. His heart
   will be in complete alienation from the God who made him. He will live
   and he will die a strange monstrosity in the world--a creature that has
   lived without love to his Creator!

   Perhaps, however, he will be a disreputable sinner. He will live in
   sin, find his comfort in drunkenness, perhaps in lust, possibly in
   dishonesty--but regardless, he will bring forth nothing that God can
   accept. I think I see the great God coming to look at the man, even as
   a farmer might come to look upon his fallow field. What can God see? Is
   there a prayer? Yes, he says a few forms of prayer, but they are dead,
   lifeless things, and God cannot accept them. Does He see any praise?
   Perhaps a shriveled hymn growing up in the corner of the field, but
   since there is no heart in it, it rots and dies, and God abhors it. He
   looks the whole field through. There is no thought for God, no
   consecration of time to God, no desire to honor God, no longing to
   produce in the world fresh glory to God, no effort to raise up to Him
   fresh voices that shall praise His name. He lives unto himself, or to
   his fellow men and having so lived, he so dies.

   Now you know that there are a great many people who say to themselves,
   "Well, if we do good to our neighbor, if we are kind to others, that is
   enough." And they expect to have some reward for this. But, mark you,
   every servant expects his master to pay his wages--surely then, if you
   serve your fellow men, they ought to reward you. Let them give you a
   statue, or let them emblazon your name on one of the rolls of fame. Let
   them sound down your exploits to future generations! Still, let your
   debtor and creditor account be fair. If you have not done anything
   distinctly and avowedly in the service of God, there is no remuneration
   that you can reasonably expect God to give you! What have you brought
   forth to Him? Nothing whatever! And we say it sincerely, for we know
   how sadly true it is--the natural heart of man never does and never can
   produce so much as one single grain that God can receive as being to
   His honor and glory. As for the natural children of men in all their
   generations--

   "Like brutes they live, like brutes they die. Like grass they flourish,
   till Your breath Blasts them into everlasting death." Alas for them!
   Unto You, great God, they render no prayer nor praise, no heart-felt
   love nor reverent adoration. They pass through this world as though
   there were no God!

   Worse than this, the field that has never been plowed or sown does
   produce something. There is an activity about human nature that will
   not let us live without doing. Unless you should shut yourselves up in
   a cell like a monk, or live on the top of a pillar, like Simeon
   Stylites, you cannot very well pass through life utterly inert--without
   any purpose of mind, without any movement of the limbs, without any
   stir of the passions! And I suppose that even Simeon Stylites did exert
   some influence, for he led other people to be as great fools as
   himself. And even monks do some mischief by losing the interest on
   talents for which they ought to have rendered a good account--and
   spending their time in laziness which they ought to have employed in
   useful service. "None of us lives to himself." Is there no wheat
   growing on that soil? No barley? No rye? Very well, then, there will be
   grass, and cockle, and stickers and all sorts of weeds. So it is with
   the unrenewed heart. It produces hard thoughts of God, enmity against
   the Most High. It is prolific of evil imaginations, wrong desires and
   bitter envying. As these ripen, they bring forth ill words--idle, or,
   it may be, lascivious words and perhaps atheistic, blasphemous words!
   And as these ripen, they come to actions--and the man becomes an
   offender in his deeds, perhaps against man, certainly against God. He
   lives to produce sour grapes. The apples of Gomorrah hang plentifully
   upon him.

   I know I am describing some here present. There are many such persons
   to be found in all our assemblies. They have done no good in their
   lives. Measuring their lives by the standard of God, they have done
   nothing. On the other hand, they have been guilty of much evil--they
   have brought forth fruit unto sin. Nor is this the worst of it. The bad
   farmer, who lets his fields run to weeds, does mischief to the
   neighboring farm. Here comes the wind, willing to waft seed--good seed
   if it can find it--into other soil. It will take the down of the flower
   seed and bear it into a garden where it will be needed. Or, if it must,
   it will carry the seeds of the thistle and so, when it comes sweeping
   by the farmer's neglected field, it does damage to all the fields in
   the neighborhood.

   It is so with the sinner. "One sinner destroys much good." Is he a
   father? His children grow up to be as ungodly as himself. Is he a
   master? Then his men, like him, break the Sabbath and neglect the ways
   of God. Is he a workman? Then his fellow workmen, who are younger than
   he, take encouragement from his evil example and they are led into sin
   while they blindly follow in his wake. Whatever station of life you put
   him into, he does mischief! The more eminent he is, the more eminently
   mischievous he is. I do not allude to those who are grave offenders
   against the laws of society. I mean those good, decent people who have
   no fear of God before their eyes. I think they do very much mischief,
   for the devil's cause gets respectable through having them on its side!
   Those who persistently live in violation of Divine Law and who do not
   bend their necks to the yoke of Christ, may be very amiable, very moral
   and very excellent. If so, in a certain sense, the more is the pity
   because they get an increase of power to do evil, for others say, "If
   such good men as these can live without religion and live despising it,
   why shouldn't we?" Thus a bad cause, which would be hissed off the
   stage if there were none but rascals to side with it, still walks
   respectably in the light of day because of these persons who back it
   up! God deliver you, my dear Hearers, from being like a field that does
   mischief unto others! Beware, you upas tree, lest your poisonous
   influence should receive the reward of Hell fire! Beware, you cumberer
   of the ground, standing there and

   sucking nutriment out of the soil, and cursing the other trees of the
   vineyard, lest the sharp ax should soon cut you to the core and lay you
   level with the ground!

   A barren field resembles the heart of man in that all the good
   influences that fall upon it are wasted. Comes there sunshine--it
   produces no harvest on the fallow land. Here are the precious drops of
   dew glistening in the morning, but they cannot produce an ear of corn.
   And here fall the sweet smiling showers of rain that make the new-mown
   fields all fragrant, but this field gets no good from it. It is even so
   with you who are still in a state of nature. You have the blessings of
   Providence, but they do not make you grateful. You even have the
   blessings of the outward means of Divine Grace, but they excite in you
   no longings towards God. Surely, my dear Friends, if this has been long
   the case with you, you must be near unto cursing!

   Yet the waste field does produce something pleasant to the eyes,
   something worth looking at, for have you not seen the gorgeous poppy
   and the finest specimens of the ranunculus growing in the field that
   was never plowed and sown? And there is the dog-rose yonder and the
   foxglove, and the forget-me-not, all springing up and flourishing where
   there should have been furrows for wheat! And so a man may have a
   comely appearance and make a fair show in the flesh, although he does
   not live near to God. In his character and reputation, there may be
   many a gaudy flower--yes, as red and as conspicuous as the poppy. He
   may shine among men and men may talk much about him. But, as the Lord
   lives, if the Lord's plow has never gone over him, the bright blushing
   weeds are still just weeds! A poison and a pest, not a blessing or a
   balm--as the farmer right well knows. Let those of you who are in such
   a state see an apt emblem of yourselves every time you pass a piece of
   waste ground, and say, "That is just what we are, and what we shall be
   to the end of our lives, unless the Grace of God shall interfere to
   retrieve us from endless ruin."

   II. THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THIS FIELD UNLESS GOD SHALL TURN TO IT IN
   MERCY.

   Even so, unless the Lord shall turn to men, no good will ever come of
   them. The text says, "I am for you, and I will turn to you." Man never
   does of himself turn to God, and that for obvious reasons. We are sure
   he never can, for he is "dead in trespasses and sins." We are certain
   he never will, for by nature he hates anything like a new birth. And if
   he could make himself a new creature, he would not, for Christ has
   expressly said, "You will not come unto Me that you might have life."
   Man is unwilling to give up sin--he loves it too much--he is unwilling
   to be made holy for he has no time for spiritual things. God, then,
   must come to man, for how can man, being naturally dead, and naturally
   unwilling, ever come to God? Experience tells us that he will not. When
   did you ever find a man who had come to God--who would say that he came
   of his own natural inclination? All the saints on earth will tell you
   that it was Almighty Grace that made them willing in the day of God's
   power. If there is any man who ever came to God of himself, I can only
   say that I know I am not that man--

   "Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God."

   If any unconverted person here will tell me that he can turn to God
   when he likes, I ask him why he does not turn now? What measure of
   damnation must be his due, when, according to his own confession, he
   has a power which he will not use! Sinner, talk not vainly of what you
   can do! Man, you can burn in Hell and you can fit yourself for the
   flames, but this is about all you can do for yourself! You have
   destroyed yourself! For that inglorious deed, your will was free and
   your agency free likewise. But only in God is your help found. For
   this, be sure--you have neither might nor skill. If ever you are saved,
   it must be by another power than your own and by another faculty than
   that which dwells in your puny, wicked heart. God must do it! If you
   wait till your waste field plows itself, or brings forth a harvest, you
   may wait till doomsday! And if I wait until my Hearers save their own
   souls, and turn to God with full purpose of heart, I may wait till
   these hairs are gray, or till these bones are carried to the tomb! And
   even then they will not have saved themselves! If you have turned to
   God, my dear Hearers, you know that the Lord has done it, so give Him
   the glory! If you have not been converted, God help you to cry to Him
   instantly and earnestly, "Turn us, and we shall be turned." Look to Him
   who is exalted on high to "give repentance and remission of sins." Seek
   Him and you shall live!

   Oh, that you could now see your wretched plight, that you could feel
   your imminent peril, that you could believe in the Sovereign operations
   of God's Grace! Then would I venture to prophesy that salvation had
   this day come to your house--yes, to your very heart!

   III. WHEN THE FIELD IS TO BE PUT UNDER CULTIVATION, IT MUST BE TILLED.

   So, when God turns to any man in His mercy, there has to be an
   operation, a tillage, performed upon his heart! The farmer, unless he
   is a fool, would never think of sowing his corn upon a field that
   remains just as it was when it lay fallow. He plows it first. Although
   we are to scatter the seed everywhere, upon the wayside as well as upon
   the good ground, God never does. Common calling is addressed to every
   man, but effectual callingcomes only to prepared men, to those whom God
   makes "willing in the day of His power."

   Now, what is the plow needed for? Why, it is needed, first of all, to
   break up the soil and make it crumble. It has gotten hard--perhaps it
   is a heavy clay and then it is all stuck together by the wet and all
   baked and caked together by the sun that shines on it. Or perhaps it is
   a light soil. Well, this may not need much plowing, but still, it will
   cake over, as we all see even in our little gardens. After the rain has
   gone, the sun comes, the ground cakes over and there will be no place
   for the seeds to thrust in their tender roots. The corn will not sink
   down into the earth unless the soil is broken up--and the more
   thoroughly pulverized it becomes, the more like dust you get it--the
   more hope there is that the seed will take good root.

   In such-like manner must human hearts be broken. "A broken and a
   contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." The more thoroughly
   pulverized the heart becomes, the better. Hence, there needs to be the
   sharp plow of the Law of God driven right through the heart to break up
   its crust and split the clods. And then must come that blessed plow of
   the Cross, which is the best plow that yet ever went across a
   field--that blessed plow of the Cross, which, as it goes over it, turns
   up the soil, even the very heart of it, and makes the sinner feel his
   sin and hate it, too, because of the love of God which is shed abroad
   by Christ Jesus the Lord. Thus you must be tilled, then, that the heart
   may be broken, for the Seed of God will never get into an unbroken
   heart!

   And the plow is also needed to destroy the weeds, for they must be
   killed. We cannot have them growing. To spare the weeds would be to
   kill the wheat. The plow comes and cuts some weeds in two. Others it
   turns over and throws the heavy clods on and leaves them to lie there
   and be buried. It turns the roots of others up to the sun, and the sun,
   by the brightness of its shining, scorches them and they die. Some
   soils need cross-plowing--they need to be plowed this way and the other
   way, and then they need someone to go through the furrows, afterwards,
   and pull up the weeds, or else they will not be all rooted out of the
   soil. And I am afraid that many of us who have been plowed still have
   divers weeds left in us! The field must not only be plowed, but the
   weeds must be killed! And so it must be with you, my dear Hearers. If
   the Lord really saves you, He must kill your drunkenness, He must kill
   your swearing, He must kill your whoredom, He must kill your lying, He
   must kill your dishonesty. These must all go! Every single weed must be
   torn up--there is no hope for you while there is a weed living!

   True, I mean not those weeds which still exist, even in the regenerate,
   but even they must be doomed. John Wellman, a member of the Society of
   Friends, tells a strange story on himself. One night, after he had been
   reading the Scripture, as he lay awake, he heard a voice saying, "John
   Wellman is dead." And, being a Quaker, he was greatly struck therewith
   and wondered how it was that he could be dead. He asked his wife what
   his name was and she said, "John Wellman." Whereupon he perceived that
   he must be alive. At last he understood it to mean that he was dead to
   the world--that he was henceforth no longer what he formerly had been,
   but a new creature in Christ Jesus. And it will be a blessed thing for
   you, my dear Hearers, when the same thing may be said of you in the
   same sense, "He is dead." There is a man I used to know--I wish I did
   not still know him so well. I used to meet him every day, some years
   ago, but we parted company. He would not go with me to Christ, so I
   went without him. I became a new man and he is dead. Oh, how often I
   wish he were buried, for I have to drag his dead body about with me
   and, as it putrefies in my nostrils, I have to cry, "O wretched man
   that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" That
   rascally old man bears my own name and once he was identical with
   myself. I could gladly wish he were buried! In like manner, may it come
   to pass with you that you may die to the flesh and that henceforth you
   may live in the spirit unto God! And though the old man is still prone
   to corruption, what a blessed stroke is that which takes the life out
   of him so that he can no longer rule over you, but the new man reigns
   supreme!

   Plowmen tell us that when they are plowing, if the plow jumps, the work
   is done badly. They must plow it all alike, from end to end, from
   headland to headland. If the plow jumps, it has gone over some weeds or
   knots and not torn them up. I would like always to preach so that my
   plow may never jump. I sometimes say a hard word because I do not want
   my plow to jump--I want to tear up all the knots and not leave one in
   the ground. If one sin is tolerated, or one malicious

   desire is spared, the life of God is not completely reigning in us! The
   Lord make a clean sweep of the weeds and burn them

   all!

   Well, now, mark you, in this tilling there are different soils. There
   is the light soil and the heavy soil--and so there are different sorts
   of constitutions. There are some men who are naturally tender and
   sensitive. Many, too, of our sisters are like Lydia--they soon receive
   the Word. There are others who are like the heavy clay soil and you
   know that the farmer doe not plow both soils alike, or else he would
   make a sad mess of it! And so, God does not deal with all men alike.
   Some have, as it were, first a little plowing and then the seed is put
   in and all is done. But some have to be plowed and cross-plowed, and
   then there is the scarifier and the clod-crusher and I know not what,
   which have to be rolled over them before they are good for anything.
   And perhaps, after all, they produce very little fruit. Different
   constitutions need different modes of action. Let this comfort some of
   you who have not been so much alarmed as others have been. Different
   soils must have different methods. Christ does not deal with all men
   precisely in the same way in His heavenly tillage.

   A farmer has a large variety of implements. Go into the shed of a man
   who is a high farmer and what a number of implements you may see! I
   mentioned some of them just now, but there are far more than I can talk
   about. So it is with our Heavenly Father--He has all kinds of
   implements. Sometimes it is a Providential trial. One man loses a
   child. Another has to bury his father. And yonder one has had to follow
   his wife to the grave. Some have temporal losses-- business becomes
   bad--perhaps they are out of work and half starving. Others are
   stretched upon a bed of sickness and others are brought near to the
   grave. These circumstances are all so many different sort of plows with
   which God plows the soil of our hearts!

   The laborers whom the Lord employs are dissimilar, likewise, by the
   diversity of their gifts. Ministers are some of one sort, and some of
   another. Even the same minister is not always engaged in the same sort
   of operation. There are some Sundays when I know some of you find me a
   terrible scarifier, for I have the terrors of the Lord on my conscience
   and there is very little comfort in the solemn warnings I am
   constrained to utter. But if, sometimes, I come down upon you like a
   clod-crusher, it is necessary that with true Grace and good hope, I may
   at other times drill in the seed and nourish your hearts with the very
   essence of the Gospel. The faithful evangelist has to become all things
   to all men to accomplish his Master's work. But you must be tilled, for
   there is no sowing the ground until it has been first stirred about.

   And, you know, the farmer has his proper time for plowing. Some soils
   will do better at one season and some at another. There are some soils
   that break up best after a shower of rain and some that do best when
   they are dry. There are some hearts, and I think almost all
   hearts--that are best plowed after a shower of heavenly love has fallen
   upon them. They are in a grateful frame of mind for mercies received
   and then the story of a dying Savior comes to them as just that which
   will touch the strings of their hearts. Anyway, dear Friends, I would
   like to pass the question around, Have you been tilled? Has your heart
   been tilled? Has the soil of your heart been turned up? Have the secret
   things of your heart been discovered and brought to light, just as the
   plow turns up the ants' nest? Have you been brought to know your own
   corruptions? Are there straight furrows right through you so that you
   can cry out, "O God, You have broken me in pieces, be pleased to come
   to my help"? Then I am glad of it. You are ready to despair of
   yourself, but I am not ready to despair for you. You tremble, but I am
   encouraged. I rejoice, not that you are made sorry, but that you sorrow
   to repentance after a godly manner! God has broken your heart and I
   know that He will bind it up. If He has plowed you, He will sow you, as
   He said to the mountains of Israel, "I will turn to you, and you shall
   be tilled and sown."

   IV. UNLESS GOD HAS TILLED THE HEART, IT CANNOT BE SOWN WITH ANY HOPE OF
   SUCCESS.

   After plowing, there comes the sowing. When the heart is ready, God
   sows it--sows it with the best of wheat. The wise farmer does not sow
   tail corn but, as Isaiah says, he casts in "the principal wheat." The
   seed which God sows is living seed. If a farmer were to sow boiled seed
   that has lost its vitality, what would be the good of it? But he sows
   living seed. And so the Truth of God which Jesus Christ preaches and
   bids us to scatter, is living wheat--living seed--and when that drops
   into the soil, God watches over it. The grub may come and the crow may
   come, but none of these shall get the seed--

   "For Grace insures the crop "--

   and up it shall spring--"first the blade, then the ear, after that the
   full corn in the ear." It shall grow, for God has prepared the soil for
   it!

   Now, I want to scatter a handful of the good Seed of the Kingdom.
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Trust
   Jesus, and you are saved. There--I saw a handful of that Seed go on the
   wayside and another handful went upon some of you who are choked with
   thorns. But if there is a broken heart here, the Seed has fallen upon
   good ground, for that broken heart says, "What? If I trust Christ,
   shall I be saved?" Yes, you will be saved in a moment! Every sin
   forgiven you in a moment, for Jesus Christ took your place and stood
   and suffered all the punishment of your sins! Therefore God having been
   just in punishing Christ instead of you, can let you go free, and yet
   be just as though He had sent you to Hell! If you trust Christ, the
   merit of His suffering and the virtue of His righteousness shall be
   yours. You shall go your way rejoicing because you have peace with God
   through Jesus Christ! Will you believe or not, Sinner? God give you the
   Grace to trust Christ! Trust Him now. And if you do, then I shall know
   that God has plowed you, that God has prepared you before He bade me
   drop in the Seed! Let those of us who know the power of prayer drag the
   harrow across the field, for when the Seed is once in, it needs
   harrowing. Thus let us preach the Word, and thus let us pray that the
   Seed may take root, spring up, grow and bring forth a hundredfold! So
   sinners shall be saved and so God shall be glorified!

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ECCLESIASTES 11:6-10; 12.

   Ecclesiastes 11:6. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening
   withhold not your hand: for you know not whether shall prosper, either
   this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. It is our
   business to sow the good Seed of the Kingdom, to sow it broadcast, to
   sow it at all times--"In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening
   withhold not your hand." The result of our sowing does not rest with
   us, but with the great Lord of the Harvest. Some of the Seed may fall
   by the wayside, some among thorns, some upon a rock, or upon rocky
   ground with only a thin layer of earth; but if God has called us to be
   sowers, and we really sow Gospel Seed, some of it will fall into good
   ground and bring forth fruit, thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or even a
   hundredfold!

   7. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to
   behold the sun. And as it is so pleasant for the natural eyes to behold
   the natural sun, how much more pleasant is it for the spiritual eyesto
   behold the Sun of Righteousness! Sweet as the light of the sun is, the
   light of the Sun of Righteousness is far sweeter.

   8, 9. But if a man lives many years, andrejoices in them all; yet let
   him remember the days ofdarkness; for they shall be many. All that
   comes is vanity. Rejoice, Oyoung man, in your youth; and let your heart
   cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your
   heart, and in the sight of your eyes: but know you that for all these
   things God will bring you into judgment. Nobody in his senses supposes
   that Solomon exhorted young men to walk according to their own heart
   and according to the sight of their eyes! This is a common way of
   speaking--as we may say to a man who is going to excess in drink,
   "Well, drink your full, and be drunk; but you will have to suffer for
   it. It will certainly exact a penalty at your hands by-and-by." Nobody
   would be so foolish as to say that we had exhorted the man to
   drunkenness! On the contrary, we did, as it were, warn him not to
   continue in his evil course by reminding him of the penalty which would
   assuredly follow. So here Solomon seems to say, "Do this if you will.
   Do it if you dare. But remember that there is a Judgment Day coming and
   God will judge you for all these things--and according to these things
   will He measure out your doom."

   10. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart and put away evil from your
   flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. There is no doubt that if we
   were holy, we would be happy. So, if we advise men to put away sorrow
   from their heart, we must remind them that they cannot do it except by
   putting away sin. The roots of evil must be cleared away, otherwise, in
   the long run, to cut down the shoots and leave the roots may be but to
   strengthen the evil. The removal of sorrow can only be effected by
   going deeper and clearing the heart of sin--and this can only be
   accomplished by God's Grace.

   Ecclesiastes 12:1. Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
   while the evil days come not, nor the years draw near, when you shall
   say, I have no pleasure in them. Do not give God the dregs of life. Do
   not offer in sacrifice to Him anything that is worn out. Remember that
   among the first fruits which the Jews were to bring to the

   priest to be offered on God's altar, there were to be "green ears of
   corn, dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears." The Lord
   delights to have the hearts of His people while they are yet children.
   The Lord said through Hosea the Prophet, "I taught Ephraim also to go,
   taking them by their arms," as if, while they were but little, God had
   taught them to take their first steps in walking. There is also that
   passage in the prophecy of Jeremiah, "I remember you, the kindness of
   your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went after Me in the
   wilderness." God delights in those early evidences of love in the
   morning of life, while the dew is upon everything and there is a
   sparkling freshness all around. I pray that you who are young will
   remember your Creator in the days of your youth!

   2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the star, be not
   darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain. As they do in old age,
   when troubles seem to multiply and the brightness of life seems to have
   gone.

   3, 4. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the
   strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they
   are few, and those that look out of the windows are darkened, and the
   doors shall be shut in the street, when the sound of the grinding is
   low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the birds, and all the
   daughters of music shall be brought low. This is a wonderfully vivid
   description of the failure of our natural powers. "The keepers of the
   house shall tremble"--these are our arms which are the guardians of the
   house of our body. We naturally thrust out our hands and arms to
   protect ourselves if we are likely to fall, so they are "the keepers of
   the house." "The strong men shall bow themselves," that is, our legs
   and knees begin to shake. "The grinders cease because they are few."
   Our teeth gradually decay and, at last, fall from their places. They
   are like the first falling stones of a decaying wall, tottering to show
   how the rest will soon follow. "Those that look out of the windows are
   darkened." The eyes begin to lose their quickness of sight and fresh
   windows--double windows--are sometimes needed to assist the failing
   sight. "The doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the
   grinding is low." The voice fails. Then there comes sleeplessness, so
   that the first little bird that chirps in the morning wakes up the aged
   man. And as for music, his ears sometimes fail to catch the sweetest
   melody and his own voice is unable to attune itself as once it
   did--"All the daughters of music shall be brought low."

   5. Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears
   shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish. This is one of
   the most beautiful pieces of poetic description that were ever penned!
   Here we have a true picture of the nervousness which creeps over men in
   the decline of life. Then there is the flourishing of the almond
   tree--there are many before me now whose white hair shows that the
   almond tree is flourishing!

   5. And the grasshopper shall be a burden.Those things that we treated
   lightly in our youth become a very heavy burden in our later years. A
   little work wearies, a little care fatigues and a little trouble frets
   us as it never used to do.

   5. And desire shall fail The whole nature becomes more calm and less
   ambitious--and less ardent than it used to be.

   5, 6. Because man goes to his long home, and the mourners go about the
   streets: before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is
   broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken
   at the cistern. "The silver cord" is the spinal marrow, which gradually
   relaxes, for the strength and power of it are gone. The whole frame
   begins to show symptoms of the paralysis which is creeping on. "The
   golden bowl" is the skull, which contains the brain, and whoever has
   seen a skull must see how appropriate the figure is. Then, in "the
   pitcher" and "the wheel" we have a reference to the circulation of the
   blood of which Solomon seems to have had at least some inklings. There
   have been writers who have affirmed that the entire system of anatomy
   might very well be gathered from these words. They are wonderful, not
   only because of the poetic imagery which is on the surface, but also
   because of the depth of meaning which lies beneath.

   7. Then shall the dust return to the Earth as it was: and the spirit
   shall return unto God who gave it Thus will it happen to us all unless
   Christ shall first come. The machinery of our being will stand still.
   The fountain of life will be dry; no longer will the living floods rush
   through their appointed courses as they used to do. Please remember
   that we are not merely talking about people in the street, of whom we
   know nothing, but about ourselves, also, for we are mortal--so we must
   die. Let us believe this and prepare for it.

   8. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity. This seems to
   be the conclusion to which Solomon came by the experiment of his own
   life, as well as by the teaching of God. This Book of Ecclesiastes
   begins thus--"The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in
   Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities;
   all is vanity."

   9. And moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the
   people knowledge; yes, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in
   order many proverbs. That man is not fit to teach who does not give
   good heed and set his words in order. He who says whatever comes first
   into his mind, only gives out chaff which the wind drives away. But he
   who would scatter his seed broadcast must take care that he has in his
   seed-basket good seed that is worth sowing in the broad furrows of the
   world-field.

   10. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words. The Hebrew
   expression means words of delight, for words that delight the ear may
   help to win the heart and so prove to be "acceptable words."

   10, 11. And that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
   The words of the wise are as goads, and the words of scholars are as
   well-driven nails, given by one Shepherd. The true preacher's words
   pierce us like the sharp ox-goads pierce the cattle, but they are also
   like nails that are driven into the wood, and clinched so that they
   cannot come out. There must be something to stir our emotions, and
   something to retain in our memory. We need the goads, for we are like
   the ox that is slow at the plow. And we need to have the nails well
   driven into us for our memory is often like a rotten piece of wood
   which lets the nail slip out as soon as it has to bear any weight. May
   the Holy Spirit make all of us, who are preachers, to be wise so as to
   know how to use the goad and how to drive the nail!

   12. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books
   there in no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh That is
   what Solomon said and he had never seen the British Museum, or the
   Bodleian and other noted libraries, for, if he had done so, he would
   have said with an emphasis, "There is no end," for the books of his day
   could scarcely have been one in a thousand, or one in a million,
   compared with those which are now produced! I should not wonder,
   however, if the one in a million was quite worth the million. There are
   many books made that may benefit the printer, the publisher, and the
   bookseller, but they are not likely to benefit anybody else!

   13. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep
   His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. Reverent walking
   before the Most High. Reconciliation to Him so that we can thus walk
   and thus live, and all this proved by a life of obedience to His
   commandments--"This is the whole duty of man."

   14. For Godshall bring every work into judgment, with every secret
   thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil Notice that
   expression, "every secret thing." It is not merely our public actions
   that God will judge, otherwise we might be more at our ease--but He
   takes account of our most private thoughts, words, deeds and intents.
   Who among us can endure that ordeal? Yet we must endure it if we are to
   stand before Him. O Lord, prepare us, by Your Infinite Grace, through
   faith in Your dear Son, and by the regenerating work of Your gracious
   Spirit, for this solemn testing time! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Best Thing in the Best Place

   (No. 3002)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   OCTOBER 31, 1875.

   "The Law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide."
   Psalm 37:31.

   THIS verse occurs in a Psalm in which the contrast between the
   righteous and the wicked is drawn in a very vivid fashion. The wicked
   are depicted as being very frequently rich and prosperous, yet no one
   who is truly wise would wish to change places with them. The Psalmist
   so plainly points out the brevity of their prosperity, the certainty of
   their ultimate fate if they continue unregenerate and the terror of
   their overthrow, that we are not tempted for a single minute to be
   envious of them. As for the righteous, David gives us abundant hints
   that they will be tried, persecuted, hated and so on, but he indulges
   us with such sweet promises from the mouth of the great Father,
   Himself, that we feel perfectly satisfied to share the lot of His
   children, however hard it may sometimes be. If we wish to share the lot
   of the righteous, we must be as they are and, among other things, this
   text must be realized in our experience as it is in theirs. The Law of
   our God must be in our heart that our steps may not slide.

   I remember, when I was a lad, hearing a sermon from a text which is
   almost a parallel to the one before us--"Your Word have I hid in my
   heart, that I might not sin against You." The divisions of that
   discourse were so excellent and they fixed themselves so firmly upon my
   memory, that I shall borrow them for my own use on this occasion, for I
   cannot make any better ones for myself. The preacher said, "Here we
   have the best thing--'Your Word.' In the best place--'have I hid in my
   heart.' For the best of purposes--'that I might not sin against You.'"
   Those are to be the divisions of my text, only altered thus--the best
   thing--"the Law of his God." In the best place--"is in his heart." With
   the best result-- "None of his steps shall slide."

   I. So I am first to speak, for a few minutes, about THE BEST
   THING--"The Law of his God."

   In these Gospel days we must use this expression in a wider sense than
   may have been originally intended by David and take it to mean a great
   deal more than the moral Law. If we are Christians, we delight in that
   Law, but we are not under it as a rule of condemnation and of judgment,
   but we rejoice to obey it. We could not suggest an alteration to it
   which would be an improvement. The Ten Commandments are very simple,
   but absolutely perfect for the purpose for which they were intended. To
   add another to them, or to take one away from them would be to spoil
   the whole. We "delight in the Law of God after the inward man." Whoever
   may be Antinomians, that is, those who are "against the Law," we are
   not to be numbered among them, for we can say with Paul, "The Law is
   holy and the Commandments holy and just and good." And though we are
   carnal, and often feel ourselves "sold under sin," yet we cannot find
   any fault with the Law of God. If eternal life could have come by any
   law, it would have come by that Law--and even though that Law can now
   do nothing for us but condemn us, yet, as we hear its terrible
   sentence, we feel that the Law "is holy, and just, and good." We
   desire, then, to have even the moral Law in our hearts, and to have it
   written there, that none of our steps may slide.

   But we cannot use David's expression in that limited sense only! It
   must nowinclude the whole Book of God, and all its teachings, for it is
   often used in that sense. "The Law of his God is in his heart." Take
   this expression as referring to the whole of Scripture, and I may truly
   say that it is the best thing. O my Brothers and Sisters, what can be
   better for informing the understanding than the Word of God? Would you
   know God? Would you know yourself? Then search this Book! Would you
   know time and how to spend it? Would you know eternity and how to be
   prepared for it? Then, search this Book! Would you know the evil of sin
   and how to be delivered from it? Would you know the plan of salvation
   and

   how you can have a share in it? This is the Book which will instruct
   you in all these matters! There is nothing which a man needs to know
   for the affairs of his soul, between here and Heaven, of which this
   Book will not tell him. Blessed are they that read it both day and
   night--and especially blessed are they who read it with their eyes
   opened and illuminated by the Divine Spirit! If you want to be wise
   unto salvation, select the Word of God, and especially the Spirit of
   God, as your Teacher. There is nothing else that is equal to the Bible
   for inflaming, sanctifying and turning in the right direction all the
   passions of the soul.

   Perhaps you are not satisfied with merely knowing. You want something
   or someone to love. You men and women with large hearts, whose one
   desire is to have a worthy object for your affections to fix upon, turn
   to this Word of God, this Law of God, this Gospel of His and you will
   see there how God Himself becomes the Object of His creatures' love,
   and how, in the Person of His Son, you have the loveliest Object upon
   which human eyes ever gazed! You have, in Him, One who is so lovely
   that a glance from His eyes is enough to set your soul on fire and to
   make your heart enamored of Him forever! You who have mighty founts of
   love welling up in your soul may come and let them flow most freely
   here, for here is One who is worthy of them all! And when you have
   loved Christ as much as you can, you have not loved Him half as much as
   He deserves to be loved! Here your passions may burn and blaze and glow
   with sacred ardor, without any fear of your being idolaters--and
   without any risk of your being deceived!

   And if you want something more than enlightenment for the understanding
   and fullness of love to satisfy the heart--if you need practical
   directions for your everyday life--this Book will supply you with them.
   In every part of the sea of life in which a man may be, if this is his
   chart, he will not miss his way or suffer spiritual shipwreck. If you
   were a king, you might learn your duty here--and if you are a beggar,
   or the poorest of the poor, you may find comfort and instruction here!
   Fathers, you may here learn how to manage your households. Children,
   you may learn here the duties of your position in your various
   relationships. Servants, masters, husbands, wives, sick folk, people in
   robust health, you who are poor and you who are rich--this Book is for
   you all and when you consult it in the right spirit, it will talk with
   you all! Into whatever condition you may happen to be cast, this Book
   will follow you. It is such a wonderful Book that it adapts itself to
   all sorts and conditions of men and women! It whispers softly by the
   sick man's bedside and it has often called aloud, as with a trumpet
   voice, amidst the fury of the storm. It has a message for you while you
   are yet in the heyday of your youth and a promise for you when you lean
   upon your staff and totter to your grave! It is Biblos, The Book, the
   everyday book, full of wisdom for every day in the week all year round.
   And when the circle of life is complete, you will see how the Book was
   equally adapted to the children and to the aged man whose life is just
   closing.

   Perhaps, dear Friend, you say, "I know the path that I ought to take. I
   know whom I ought to love and I trust I am instructed as to what I
   ought to believe--for all this I prize the Bible very highly! But what
   I really need is the courage of my convictions, the force of character
   which shall enable me to tread in those ways which I know to be right."
   Yes, I know what you mean. But where else will you find Truths that
   have such power as those which glisten in the pages of this blessed
   Book? Where will you read any records so calculated to fire men with
   dauntless bravery as those that are contained in this Book? Above all,
   in Him who is the sum and substance of this Book, to whom all its pages
   point, you can see an example of disinterested love and perfect
   consecration to God and man which will suffice if the Holy Spirit shall
   bless it to you, to give you all the force of character and
   courageousness of spirit that you can possibly need. If young men would
   read their Bibles more, they would not be so easily turned aside as
   they now are. When a young man puts his foot down for the right and
   says, "I cannot and I will not tell a lie, or commit an act of
   dishonesty in business, or frequent places of amusement where I cannot
   go with a clear conscience," I believe that he has cleansed his way by
   taking heed thereto according to God's Word. I see here the treasure
   house of holy courage! Commune with God, commune with Christ Jesus,
   commune with saints, martyrs and Apostles as you read these pages, and
   you yourself will imbibe something of their determination and
   resolution, something of their zeal and energy for the right and the
   true!

   It is here that true men are made! As they peruse these pages, the weak
   grow strong and dwarfs develop into giants. Yes, and if you say, "I
   often feel unhappy--there is an aching void within my spirit, a
   something which prevents me from being perfectly satisfied. I have a
   kind of horse-leech somewhere within me which cries, 'Give, give,' and
   I have not yet found the food with which to stop its clamor." It is in
   this Book that you will find the comfort which your spirit craves! Here
   every grief may be allayed, every right desire satisfied and all wrong
   desires and evil lusting be ejected from the spirit. When the Holy
   Spirit applies this Book to the soul, it is food for man's hunger and
   medicine for man's disease! It

   lays its hand upon his fevered brow and cools him down to health. Or,
   if he is too cold, it warms him into holy energy. In fact, there is no
   end to the blessings which this Book bestows--

   "This is the field where hidden lies The pearl of price unknown! That
   merchant is divinely wise Who makes the pearl his own." This is the
   best of books, as Christopher Harvey says--

   "It is the Book of God. What if I should Say, God of Books? Let him
   that looks

   Angry at that expression, as too bold-- His thoughts in silence smother
   Till he find such another."

   Its every page is a sheet of gold! No, rather let me say that Heaven's
   banknotes are here, to be cashed by them who have faith enough to bring
   them to the God that issued them, that He may make their souls rich to
   all the intents of bliss! This, then, is the best thing--"The Law of
   his God."

   II. Now, secondly, we have the best thing IN THE BEST PLACE--"The Law
   of his God is in his heart." What does this mean?

   It means, first, that he loves it. That which we love is always said to
   be in our hearts, and the reason why he loves it is given in the
   text--"The law of his God"--not merely the Law of God, mark you--but,
   "The law of his God." Men do not love the Law of God until they know
   that He is their God. Blessed, indeed, is this precious possession
   which God gives us first, in Himself, and then in His Word! Do you not
   all like to read a book which has been written by a near and dear
   friend? It must have greater interest for you than the works of
   strangers ever can say. You may pass over a hundred books on a stall,
   or in a shop, but if you notice a volume which was written by one who
   was your play fellow, or perhaps by one who is still nearer and dearer,
   you take an interest in that book at once! So is it with this blessed
   Book which was written by our Heavenly Father--this Book which tells us
   of our elder Brother--this Book into which the Divine Spirit has
   breathed the breath of Life and upon which He always shines as the
   great Illuminator--this Book must always be indescribably dear to us!
   How dear has the Bible been to God's saints in past ages! They have
   even run the risk of losing their lives rather than part with it--and
   many of them have actually died as martyrs because they would translate
   it and pass its messages on to others! And this Book is equally dear to
   us. Sooner than give up the smallest jot or tittle of its Inspired
   teaching, I trust that we would be prepared to go to the stake as our
   brave forefathers did in cruel Queen Mary's day. Precious Bible, you
   are in our hearts because we love you!

   But David meant more than that. The Law of his God was in his heart to
   be remembered as well as to be loved. We soon forget what we only learn
   in our head, so we tell our children to learn things "by heart." What
   is written in the head may be erased, but what is written in the heart
   abides there. Neither sickness, nor death, nor the devil, himself, can
   ever take from us what is in our hearts. We have known people in sore
   sickness suffer from loss of memory, and that is a very serious loss.
   But we have known them retain their recollections of spiritual things
   unimpaired when they have forgotten their own wives or husbands, so
   strangely does the mind or heart hold most firmly to that which is most
   deeply engraved upon it. If you have the Word of God in your hearts, it
   will not matter who may try to tear it from you. All the Jesuits in or
   out of Hell could not wrest from a man the Gospel that is written in
   his heart! They could easily turn some people from their creed because
   it is only a creed, lying loosely in their brain. But the Truth which
   has really entered the heart of a man, neither Satan nor all his hosts
   could ever take from him! See to it, then, that the Law of your God is
   in your heart so deeply affecting you and so powerfully moving you,
   that it abides so tenaciously in your memory that you can never give it
   up!

   "The Law of his God is in his heart," has a third meaning, namely, that
   he obeys it, for the heart is the most influential organ of the body.
   What is done in the heart affects every part of the man. Disease there
   means that the man, as a whole, cannot be well. If the heart's
   affections are set on God, all is right, for the intent, the motive,
   sways the man. "As he thinks in his heart, so is he." If your heart's
   eyes are single, your whole body shall be full of light! But if your
   heart's eyes are evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If
   the Law of God is in the heart, then every pulsing of that cerebral
   organ will affect the entire man. If the man has led an evil life, he
   will be altogether changed by it. And if, through the restraining Grace
   of God, he has been somewhat better than others, the Law of his God
   will operate in his heart and life and do for him all that he could
   well desire to have done as he yields obedience to it.

   To have the Law of God in your heart means, in fact, that you live by
   it--that you have the Gospel as the food of your soul and that you have
   the Christ of the Gospel as your hope for eternity. The heart is that
   by which we live, so, if the Law of God is in our heart, we shall live
   by it and draw our comfort, as well as our sustenance from it. Let each
   one judge how far this is true concerning himself. We are not perfect,
   but we wish we were--and this proves that the Law of our God is in our
   heart. We sin, but we grieve that we sin--and this proves that there is
   within us a longing for perfect holiness. We say, with the Apostle
   Paul, "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is
   good I find not... When I would do good, evil is present with me." Yet
   that willng and wouldng prove that our heart has the Law of God within
   it! God looks upon you, dear Friends, very much according to what you
   desire to be. And if there is, in your soul, strong pangs of desire
   after that which is perfect, He accepts those desires and blesses you
   through Christ Jesus, His Son. John Bunyan used to put it in one of his
   simple allegories something like this. He says, "you want a man to
   fetch a doctor, and you tell him to be quick. So he mounts his horse,
   but it is a sorry jade, and very lame, and cannot go fast, yet you see
   that your man would fly if he could, for he is whipping and spurring
   the creature with all his might to try to make it go. So," says Bunyan,
   "the Lord often sees that the spirit is willing--whipping and spurring,
   but the flesh is weak--like the lame horse. He sees what His servants
   would gladly be and accepts them as if they were really so." It is well
   for us that we have so gracious a Master who looks so favorably upon
   our imperfect service! Have the Law of God in your hearts, my Brothers
   and Sisters, and albeit that you are foolish today, you will conquer
   some of those follies tomorrow. And you will, by God's Grace, go on to
   conquer more and more, until the Law, written on your heart, shall also
   be written on all your members and you shall be presented spotless and
   faultless before the Throne of God!

   III. Now I must pass on to the last point, namely, THE BEST
   RESULT--"None of his steps shall slide."

   Here is a man who has God's Word in his heart and you notice that he
   takes pains about his steps. A step is a very little thing. We must
   take a good many hundreds of steps to walk a mile, but good men take
   notice of little things. The man who has the Law of God in his heart is
   scrupulous and conscientious about thoughts and imaginations, as well
   as about words and actions. Hence, the promise in the text is suited to
   him, for it is a promise about little things--"None of his steps shall
   slide." I recollect--no, I hope it is so with me still--but I recollect
   that just after my conversion, I used to be almost afraid to put one
   foot before the other lest I should put it down in the wrong place. And
   often have I paused, when I was speaking, for fear I would not say the
   right word. That holy caution is most commendable in all who have it. I
   wish that many more had it. What a hop, skip and jump some men's lives
   are! Not only do they not look before they leap, but they do not even
   seem to look afterthey have leaped! They rush on blindly and
   heedlessly, presuming where they ought to be praying and self-confident
   where they ought, with deep repentance, to be humbling themselves
   before God! Our old proverb says, "Take care of the pence, and the
   pounds will take care of themselves." And the same rule applies to our
   actions. If we are careful about our little actions, the great ones
   will be pretty sure to be right. Oh, that we were all very guarded
   about how we act at home! Oh, that we were careful about our speech as
   we sit around the tea table! Such a little thing as that may do almost
   infinite mischief. I believe the worst evils in the world arise out of
   little things. It is said that the seed of mischief is as small as a
   gnat's egg, and so it is. Then, look well to those gnat's eggs, lest
   they hatch out far greater evils.

   I think, too, that whenever Christians go wrong, it is concerning
   something about which they thought they were quite safe, like the
   children of Israel with the Gibeonites. These people came to Gilgal
   wearing old garments, old shoes and clouted, and carrying bread that
   was dry and moldy. What need was there to ask counsel of God? It was as
   clear as the sun at noonday that they had come from a long distance,
   wishing to make a league with the Israelites because of the wonders
   that God had worked for His people! So even Joshua did not pray about
   the matter--and he was deceived, for these Gibeonites were near
   neighbors and had thus tricked the Israelites into a league which was
   always an impediment to them in their campaign. Always suspect where
   you have no suspicion and be afraid where you are not afraid--be
   especially afraid of a man who tells you that you have no need to be
   afraid of him. There was a man who said to a friend of mine, "I need a
   loan of so much from you. You know that I am all right. I have been a
   member of a Christian Church for so many years. I am not like
   So-and-So, and So-and-So who lately failed. You can trust me, you know
   you can."

   "No," said my friend, "you are the sort of man I would not trust with a
   bad half-crown." And he was right, for those who did trust him lost
   everything! Be very cautious in such cases as that. If you are dealing
   with those who are known to be rogues, you hardly need to be put on
   your guard, but if you are dealing with rogues who pretend to be honest
   men, you must have all your wits about you or they will certainly take
   you in. They have covered up their wolf nature with sheepskin, so you
   had better see what is underneath the skin!

   When David says, "The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps
   shall slide," what does he mean by that last clause? He means that God
   will guide him. As he has God's Law in his heart, he will have God's
   guidance for his steps! In the 23rd verse, David says, "The steps of a
   good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in His way." When a
   man really carries God's Law in his heart, God will take care that he
   does not carry that Law into any evil place, for, as David goes on to
   say, "the Lord upholds him with His hand." There will come to every
   man, whoever or whatever he may be, sudden assaults of temptation--but
   if the Law of his God is in his heart, he will be forewarned and
   forearmed against them! There will also come the long sieges of
   temptation and many a man has fallen by little and little. But if the
   Law of his God is in his heart, he will be safe against even them.
   There will come, sometimes, the temptation which results from
   loneliness, when he will be urged by Satan to do evil. As no human eye
   is upon him, may he not do wrong? But, with the Law of his God in his
   heart, he will not do any wrong even though he might never be found
   out--that Law within his heart is a sufficient check to keep him from
   evil! Sometimes he will be perplexed. I wonder whether every
   businessman here is not, at some time or other, puzzled to know what he
   ought to do? He is most anxious to do the right thing, but he does not
   know which of two courses is right. Well, that is the time to let the
   Law of your God, which is in your heart, be like a compass to you--and
   to plead this promise and say, "O Lord, You have said that as Your Law
   is within my heart, none of my steps shall slide! Fulfill Your Word
   unto Your servant, whereon You have caused me to hope."

   For your steps to slide would be for you to bring dishonor upon your
   character. How many men who have stood firm for a while, either in the
   Christian Church or in business life, have thus slid! I recollect
   reading, some years ago, when there were some sad failures of this
   sort, that "neither the white cravats of Exeter Hall, nor the drab
   coats of Lombard Street could prevent some men from being great
   rascals." And there has, sometimes, been only too much reason to say
   that. But the Law of God in the heart is better than a white cravat at
   the throat or a drab coat on the back, for it does keep men's steps so
   that they do not dishonor their God. Trials may come to those who live
   nearest to God-- possibly they will come all the more because these
   people have lived near to God--but there will not be the stain upon the
   character, or the casting down from integrity which causes so much
   sorrow. A true Christian would sooner die than that this should happen!
   And he may comfort himself with the assurance that if the Law of his
   God is in his heart, "none of his steps shall slide."

   Nor shall he slide into despair. He may tremble, he may totter, he may
   be almost down, but as he has the Law of his God in his heart, he shall
   scramble to his feet again and shall still hold on his way! I hope all
   of you who have to fight the good fight of faith and to journey as
   pilgrims to Heaven, will take to yourselves all the comfort you can
   possibly get out of this text. You have asked to have the Law of your
   God in your heart and it is there. Well then, you shall be upheld! You
   are going to live, young man, where there are no other Christians, but
   your steps shall not slide, for the Law of your God is in your heart.
   You are going, my Brother, to occupy a position where a large number of
   people will be under your charge and you hardly know how you will
   manage them. But with the Law of your God in your heart, none of your
   steps shall slide. You are going, my young Sister, to live with ungodly
   relatives where you will scarcely get an opportunity for private
   prayer, yet, with the Law of your God in your heart, none of your steps
   shall slide! My young Brother, you are about to become the pastor of a
   large church and you tremble lest you should make some great mistake
   and bring dishonor upon God. But if His Law is in your heart, none of
   your steps shall slide. You need not mind about the slipperiness of the
   way if the Law of your God is in your heart! Many slip when the road is
   not slippery, and many a man, by God's Grace, stands fast where it
   seems a miracle that he stands at all. Men are not in danger in
   proportion to their position--they are in danger or in safety according
   to the measure of their Grace! If the Law of your God is in your heart,
   you might face a world in arms and not be afraid! If God should make
   you the leader of a thousand squadrons of the armies of Heaven on their
   white horses, you would be able to command them all if you had His Law
   in your heart and yielded yourself wholly to Him!

   Note also that if you have the Law of your God in your hearts, this
   implies that you also have the Lawgiver there, for you cannot separate
   the Divine Lawgiver from His Law. Do you love Him? Do you trust Him? Is
   His name melodious to your ears? Is it like ointment poured forth, for
   sweetness, to your spirit? If you love Him who gives you the Law, you
   must love the Law that He gives. We are under Law--the Law of Grace--to
   Jesus Christ. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light to those who
   trust and love Him. If you trust and love Him, that proves that you
   have His Law in your hearts.

   Again, if you have the Law of your God in your heart, you also have
   there the great Teacher of the Law, namely, the Holy Spirit. You are
   conscious of His comforts, sometimes of His rebukes and often of His
   encouragements. How is it with you in this respect? Do you know
   anything about the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart? Alas, there
   are many who do not know that there is a Holy Spirit, for they have
   never felt His power. But the Law of God is never in the heart until
   the Holy Spirit puts it there--and where He puts that Law, He abides
   with it, to open our understanding that we may receive the Scriptures
   and to open the Scriptures that our understanding may receive them.
   What do you know about God the Son? Is He your Savior?

   What do you know about the Holy Spirit? Is He your Quickener and
   Comforter? If He is, be of good cheer, for none of your steps shall
   slide. But if He is not, and if you reject this Law of God, remember
   that solemn text, "Their feet shall slide in due time." They stand up
   in their prosperity. They are great, famous, happy, full of mirth--and
   we are apt to envy them as we see them upon their high places. But
   watch! They are standing upon an Alp of ice! The pathway which they
   tread is very narrow and, in a moment, when they do not expect it,
   their feet shall slide and they shall descend into the abyss which has
   no bottom! Down they go, lost, lost, LOST! The high places they once
   occupied only increase the depth of their fall. They go from their full
   wine cups to craving a drop of water to cool their parched tongues.
   They go from the dainties of Dives' table to the uttermost woes of
   Hell! Lazarus once begged for their crumbs and now they would gladly
   turn beggars and ask a blessing of Lazarus, himself! Their day is
   changed into night, their glory into shame, their banquets into
   miseries, their honors into everlasting shame and contempt! Be wise,
   men and women, and seek your Savior now, lest, as a dream when one
   awakes, the beauty of your present mortal life should all pass away and
   there should remain nothing but the ghastly form of a wasted existence
   to be visited forever with the strokes of Jehovah's awful wrath--

   "You sinners seek His Grace, Whose wrath you cannot bear! Fly to the
   shelter of His Cross, And find salvation there! So shall that curse
   remove By which the Savior bled And the last awful day shall pour His
   blessings on your head." God bless you all, for Jesus Christ's sake!
   Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   PSALM 37.

   This is one of the Psalms of David which have often cheered the saints
   of God when they have been perplexed because of the prosperity of the
   wicked and their own troubles.

   Verses 1, 2. Fret not yourself because of evildoers, neither be you
   envious against the workers ofiniquity. For they shall soon be cut down
   like the grass and wither as the green herb. What if their lot is
   sweet? Yet consider how short it is. No wise man envies the bull which
   is being fattened, for he knows that it is being fattened for the
   slaughter. None will envy the ungodly their pleasures when they
   remember how transient they must be. Let them have them and I would
   urge all Christians to do their best to make the ungodly happy. This is
   the only happy time they can ever have unless they repent and turn to
   the Lord. So do not make them unhappy, but contribute all you can to
   the little bliss they will ever know, for it will soon be over.
   Certainly, if you are a child of God, you have no cause to envy them.

   3, 4. Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land,
   and verily you shall be fed. Delight yourself also in the LORD; and He
   shall give you the desires of your heart. Here is a duty which is as
   much a pleasure as it is a duty--no, it is even more a pleasure than a
   duty--"Delight yourself also in the Lord." Here is a commandment to be
   happy in the safest conceivable way. Of all delights, the most
   delicious is delight in God, and to this we are commanded. But what a
   privilege is that which is annexed to it-- "He shall give you the
   desires of your heart." Why is this? Because, when you delight in God,
   your desires will be such as He can safely grant. Delighting in Him,
   you will only desire that which is for His Glory and then, without any
   restrictions, He may promise to you and give to you the desires of your
   heart.

   5. Commit your way unto the LORD.Blindly, yet believingly, put your
   hand into His hand and follow wherever He may lead you.

   5-7. Trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall
   bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the
   noonday. Rest in the LORD. Oh, what sweet precepts these are!--easier
   to read and to hear than they are to practice, yet, if Grace is given
   to us, we shall find them blessedly easy to practice. Surely, if it is
   easy to rest anywhere, it must be easy to "rest in the Lord." There is
   no such resting place anywhere else like that where Omnipotence and
   eternal love are sweetly joined together--"Rest in the Lord."

   7-9. And wait patiently for Him: fret not yourself because of him who
   prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to
   pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not yourself in any
   wise to do evil For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait
   upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. I believe that in a right
   sense, the child of God does get the best of both worlds. He may not
   get, in this world, what ungodly men think the best. And as far as
   worldly good is concerned, he often gets the worst, but God makes his
   dinner of herbs to be sweeter to him than the stalled ox is to the
   wicked. If I knew that I should die like a dog, I would still wish to
   be a Christian. If there were no hereafter, no world to come and even
   if my lot, judged after the manner of men, should be of all men's most
   miserable, yet to have had God to be my Friend, here, would have turned
   even that misery into happiness--

   "O God of Love, how blest are they Who in Your ways delight! Your
   Presence guides them all the day And cheers them all the night!"

   10. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yes, you shall
   diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. How often even the
   place where he lived--his house--becomes a ruin. The very palace where
   the tyrant dwelt is burnt down, or destroyed in some other way! Decay
   seems to delight to work with the teeth of time upon the palaces of
   despots!

   11. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves
   in the abundance of peace. There is a great fulfillment of that
   prophecy yet to come in the latter days, but it is fulfilled even now.
   Who does not see that the man who really enjoys life and enjoys the
   world, is, after all, the meek, humble-minded Christian? That shepherd
   of Salisbury Plain, of whom we used to read in our childhood, when he
   was asked what he thought of the weather, said it was good weather, for
   God sent it--and any sort of weather pleased him if it pleased God.
   Anybody can see that a man of that kind is in a healthy state and that
   he inherits the earth and possesses far more of what is worth
   having--namely, ease and peace of mind--than the owner of broad acres
   who has no true rest of heart in the Lord.

   12-19. The wicked plot against the just, and gnashes upon him with his
   teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for He sees that his day is coming.
   The wickedhave drawn out the sword, andhave bent their bow, to cast
   down the poor and needy, and to slay such as are of upright
   conversation. Their swordshall enter into their own heart, and their
   bows shall be broken. A little that a righteous man has is better than
   the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken:
   but the LORD upholds the righteous. The LORD knows the days of the
   upright and their inheritance shall be forever They shall not be
   ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be
   satisfied. Let me read that 19th verse again, so that any child of God
   here, who is in great straits, may be able to lay hold upon it--"They
   shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they
   shall be satisfied."

   20-25. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall
   be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they
   consume away. The wicked borrows, and pays not again: but the righteous
   shows mercy, and gives. For such as are blessed of Him shall inherit
   the earth, and they that are cursed of Him shall be cut off The steps
   of a good

   man are ordered by the LORD: and He delights in his way. Though he
   fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholds him with
   His hand. Ihave been young, andnow am old; yet have Inot seen the
   righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. We have often remarked
   here that we, also, though we are not old, have never seen the
   righteous forsaken and we do not think that the oldest man or woman
   here has ever seen the righteous forsaken. David says that he had not
   seen the seed of the righteous begging bread. Well, he was a king, so
   he was not likely to see very many poor people, but we have several
   times seen the seed of the righteous begging bread. It is not a common
   thing, but we have seen it--and when the seed of the righteous
   misbehave themselves--when they disgrace their father's name--they will
   have to beg bread the same as other people's children do. They will
   come to poverty through idleness and drink just as other people do. And
   it has been my unhappy lot, within these very walls, to have to
   minister relief to the unworthy and reprobate sons of Christian
   ministers about whose piety I could entertain no doubt, and some of
   whom are now in Heaven. These good men's children have walked contrary
   to God, so God has walked contrary to them! I have often hoped that the
   poverty I saw might be the means of bringing them to seek the God of
   their fathers!

   You who fear the Lord may depend upon this--if the Lord helps you to
   train up your children rightly, He will take care of them. If they are
   truly the seed of the righteous by being themselves righteous, your
   children shall not beg bread, for the Lord will provide for them and
   you will find that God always takes care of the children of those who
   faithfully serve Him. He seems to say to them, "You mind My business,
   and I will mind your business. If you look after My children, I will
   look after yours." If we serve the Lord with all our hearts, we may
   fairly reckon that the God of the fathers will be the God of the
   children.

   26-40. He is ever merciful, andlends andhis seedis blessed. Depart from
   evil, and do good; and dwell forevermore. For the Lord loves judgment,
   and forsakes not His saints; they are preserved forever: but the seed
   of the wicked shall be cut off The righteous shall inherit the land,
   and dwell therein forever. The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom,
   and his tongue talks of judgment The Law of his God is in his heart;
   none of his steps shall slide. The wicked watches the righteous,
   andseeks to slay him. The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor
   condemn him when he is judged. Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and
   He shall exalt you to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off you
   shall see it I have seen the wickedin greatpower, andspreading himself
   like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yes, I
   sought him, but he could not be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold
   the upright: for the end of that man is peace. But the transgressors
   shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.
   But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: He is their strength
   in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them:
   He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they
   trust in Him.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Vivid Contrast

   (No. 3003)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   NOVEMBER 17, 1864.

   "And every man went unto his own house." John 7:53.

   "Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives." John 8:1.

   THESE verses furnish a striking illustration of the unwise way in
   which, in certain cases, the Bible has been divided into chapters. The
   meaning of many portions of Scripture would be much more manifest if
   Gospels, Epistles and even Prophecies were left in their undivided
   state. The two sentences which I have selected for my text ought never
   to have been separated--and we may rightly say of them, "What God has
   joined together, let no man put asunder." So we will consider them
   together as they should be considered--"Every man went unto his own
   house. Jesus went unto the Mount ofOlives."

   I. Here we have, in the first place, A FACT FOR OUR EARNEST
   CONSIDERATION. Let us turn it over in our mind under the Holy Spirit's
   gracious guidance. While Christ's friends and enemies had, everyone of
   them, a house to go to, He must go spend the night in the open air
   watching and praying on the Mount of Olives.

   Observe, first, His extreme poverty. Among them all--friends or
   foes--there was not one without a house excepting Himself. No, more,
   among some of the meanest of His creatures, there was not one without a
   shelter. Foxes, though they were but worthy to be exterminated, had
   holes in which they could hide. And the birds of the air, though many
   ruthlessly sought to destroy them, had nests wherein they could
   rest--but the Son of Man had not where to lay His head. Possibly, in
   all Judaea, there was only that one houseless man! Certainly there was
   no other who was so voluntarily houseless as Himself. He had brought
   Himself down from the glories of His Father's court, from the majesty
   of reigning with His Father in Heaven to become dependent upon the
   bounty of His own disciples for His daily bread--and He had no house
   that He could call His own, no home to which He could retire when His
   day's work was done. Believers, admire His amazing condescension in
   that, "though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you,
   through His poverty, might be rich." If any of you are poor in this
   world, be comforted, for you are not poorer than your Master was!
   Remember that every true Christian is the image of Christ but the godly
   poor man is the expressimage of Christ! He has one quality beyond those
   which other Christians have, that is, his poverty, which makes him even
   more like his Master than they are. He who was born in a stable and
   cradled in a manger. He who wore the homely garb of the peasantry of
   Palestine, the garment which was without seam, woven from the top
   throughout. He who made fishermen His chosen companions, was the poor
   man's Christ, poorer than the poorest of you and able, therefore, to
   sympathize with you in all the pangs and griefs which penury may bring
   upon you! And you great ones of the earth, despise not the unlettered
   and the poor, for "has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in
   faith," to be "heirs of the Kingdom which He has promised to them that
   love Him"? And has He not "exalted One chosen out of the people," even
   His only-begotten and well-beloved Son, to sit with Him on the Throne
   of His Glory?

   Further, when "every man went unto his own house," Christ had no house
   to go to! And this denotes not only His extreme poverty, but the
   forgetfulness and unkindness of His friends. Each of us is apt to say,
   "Had I been there, He would not have spent that night amid the cold
   dews of the Mount of Olives. He would have had the best accommodation
   my house could have afforded. I would always have had a chamber
   prepared for the Lord's Prophet, like that of the

   Shunammite woman, with 'a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a
   candlestick,' and I would have entertained this Prince of Prophets with
   the greatest joy!" So you think, but had you lived in Christ's day,
   John might still have written, "He came unto His own, and His own
   received Him not." And the Prophet's lamentation might again have
   become true, "He was despised, and we esteemed Him not"--even we, His
   own people, His blood-bought people, His beloved--"esteemed Him

   not."

   Surely, never was such a friend used so terribly as the Lord Jesus
   Christ was used even by His friends and followers! His head must have
   been wet with the dew of Heaven and His locks with the drops of the
   night, yet no one gave Him shelter. Yet we must not blame His disciples
   for their neglect of their Master unless we are also willing to blame
   ourselves. He has often stood at our door and knocked! Perhaps He is
   knocking now, but we, in some form or other, refuse to give Him a
   lodging in our hearts and willingly keep in His place some darling sin.
   And so the Savior still has to stand outside, for He will not come into
   our hearts to dwell in peace with sin. He must remain outside until we
   expel the intruder, or call upon Him to do so.

   Observe, too, in the fact of Christ having no home to go to, the
   loneliness of His spirit If He had asked one of His friends to
   entertain Him, probably none would have refused His request. Had not
   His mother Mary still a home? What had become of His reputed father,
   Joseph the carpenter? Were not His brothers with Him? Would not one of
   them entertain Him? There was James, who is called the Lord's
   brother--could not he find Him a shelter? Peter had a wife, for we read
   of his wife's mother lying sick of a fever and being cured by
   Christ--had he no place to which he could invite his Lord? The loving
   John had a home, for he took the mother of Jesus, after the
   Crucifixion, to his own home. Then there were the women who followed
   Jesus and ministered to Him of their substance. And Martha, and Mary,
   and Lazarus--would not they give Christ a shelter? Oh, yes, they would
   gladly have done so, but He was, just then, in the midst of trials--He
   was beset by the Pharisees. They were tempting Him on all sides and He
   needed something better than the companionship of men! He needed a
   place where He could rest, but there is not one disciple upon whose
   bosom He could lean His head. John may lean his head upon Christ's
   bosom, but Christ cannot lean His head upon John's bosom, so the Savior
   must go away by Himself to the Mount of Olives for He has a lonely
   spirit and no human being can fully enter into His grief and woes.

   We sometime see a Christian minister of high spirit living in a country
   village. He is the only educated man in the place. There is no one to
   whom he can talk upon many themes that are interesting to him and his
   spirit often feels very lonely. His people seem to have nothing to
   think of but their farm, their milking, their plowing and their
   sowings. He cannot get them above all these things and there he stands
   with, perhaps, not a single companion with whom he can discuss his
   doubts and questions--and thoughts about Divine things. It is lonely to
   be a missionary engaged in Christian work in a heathen land--his
   loneliness may be even greater than that of such a man as I have been
   describing. But the Savior's loneliness was still greater! There was
   not one man upon the earth with whom He could talk at all times. Even
   in His hours of keenest conflict, Christ knew that His chosen followers
   would leave Him alone--all would forsake Him and flee. It is true that
   even then, He could say, "Yet I am not alone, because the Father is
   with Me," but apart from His Father's Presence, His whole life may be
   compressed into those two sentences--"I have trodden the winepress
   alone. And of the people there was none with Me." So, that night they
   could all go to their own houses, but God must go to the Mount of
   Olives, for He must be a lonely Man.

   Thus, there are three things which are brought out by the
   text--Christ's extreme poverty, the unkindness of His friends and the
   loneliness of His spirit.

   But there is another reason for His action--the fond resolution of His
   heart. Why does He go to the Mount of Olives and not somewhere else? He
   knew that it was near that saved retreat that He was to sweat, as it
   were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground, so He resolved
   to familiarize Himself with the neighborhood which was to be the scene
   of His terrible conflict with Satan. Do you not think that if
   Wellington had known beforehand that the fate of nations would be
   decided on the field of Waterloo, he would have gone to see it, if it
   had been possible? I believe the great warrior would have gone to look
   at it and study it to observe the best positions for attack and
   defense. And the Savior went, with solemn interest, to look at the
   place where He was to stand foot to foot with the great enemy of souls!
   If you and I had to bear some terrible suffering, it is very likely,
   (for the flesh is so weak), that we would try to forget all about
   it--but it was not so with the Savior! He kept the fact of His atoning
   Sacrifice constantly before His own mind and spoke

   of it to others again and again. So intense was His love to His people
   that He seemed eagerly to anticipate the time when He would suffer even
   unto death for their sakes. Remember His remarkable saying, "I have a
   baptism to be baptized with: and how am I straitened till it be
   accomplished!" What? Was His death upon the Cross to be, in any sense,
   a relief to Him? Yes, it was even so. And He was "straitened" till it
   was accomplished. Oh, what wondrous love was that which impelled the
   Savior onward to Gethsemane--the olive press where He was to be pressed
   and crushed between the millstones of Jehovah's wrath in order that He
   might suffer the penalty due to our transgressions!

   I am not going to thresh these thoughts out for you--I merely suggest
   them as themes for your devout meditation-- and I think that there is
   abundant reason for such meditation in those seven words, "Jesus went
   unto the Mount of

   Olives."

   II. Now I want to take the text in another way. The second thing which
   it presents to us is A VIVID CONTRAST FOR SELF-EXAMINATION.

   What a true description this first verse is of our own usual conduct!
   "Every man went unto his own house." We go, each one of us, to our own
   house for ease. That is right enough up to a certain point, but do we
   not often seek our own ease when we should be engaged in the service of
   our Lord? Christ goes to the mountain to pray, but we go to our beds to
   sleep, or to our tables to feast, to our friends to while away an hour
   in empty talk, or to our amusements to kill the time which hangs so
   heavily upon our hands. I doubt not that the greatest saint among us
   has some cause to reproach himself for having wasted time and disobeyed
   that solemn Apostolic injunction, "See, then, that you walk
   circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because
   the days are evil." I can, in imagination, see the Savior lifting up
   His hands in an agony of spirit on the mountain at midnight, while His
   disciples are all sleeping comfortably in their beds. As we think of
   our Savior thus agonizing in prayer for His people, can we not find
   more time for prayer than the most of us usually do? Might it not be
   profitable to ourselves to mortify the body a little more that we might
   have a greater advantage in spirit? I am afraid we would have to
   present a very poor record if we gave a true account of the time we
   spend in prayer--yet we have no excuse to offer for being slow in this
   holy duty. It is not a bondage, a slavery--it is the highest privilege
   of the Believer's soul to be engaged in prayer to our Heavenly
   Father--yet we often prefer the disastrous ease of wasting our time
   instead of drawing near to God in prayer!

   I heard someone say to a woman who had been converted, but whose
   husband kept a public house, "There is one room in your house which
   will keep all the other rooms there from injuring your spiritual
   life--that is the room where you retire for private prayer. If that
   room is kept right, the rest will do you little harm." Christian,
   imitate your Lord who often retired for prayer to the Mount of Olives,
   and it shall be well with your soul. At a certain missionary station in
   Africa, one of the Brothers was accustomed to go for private prayer to
   a little clump of trees and, to get there, he had to cross some long
   grass. He had gone so often that he had made a clear trail to the spot
   where he went to pray. Others had done the same and there were several
   trails across the grass. After a while, this professor began to grow
   lax in many ways. He could not enjoy the ministry as he used to do. His
   dealings in trade were not so exact as once they were. An elder Brother
   pointed out to him the cause of the change that had come over him. He
   took him aside to his trail and showed him that the grass was growing
   up--that it was not trodden down as it formerly had been--and then he
   said, "Brother, thereis the cause of all the mischief--the grass is
   growing on the trail where you used to go for private prayer." If you
   and I, dear Friends, had to go to some place like that for prayer, I
   fear that the grass would not always be well trodden down and that we
   should often have cause to cry, "O Lord, give us the true spirit of
   prayer!" Like the people of whom the text speaks, we go to our houses
   for ease, but Christ goes to the mountain to pray in lonely solitude.
   We still have need to say to Him--

   "Coldmountains, and the midnight air Witnessed the fervor of Your
   prayer! The desert Your temptation knew Your conflict and Your victory,
   too. Be You my Pattern--make me bear More of Your gracious Image here
   Then God the Judge shall own my name Among the followers of the Lamb."

   For what else do we go to our houses? We go there, very often, to take
   counsel. On the occasion mentioned here, Christ's enemies went home to
   talk together about how they might try to entrap Him. And we sometimes
   go to our homes to consult with flesh and blood about matters that
   concern us. We say to one friend, "What do you think I had better do?"
   And to another, "This is my condition--what do you advise in such a
   case as mine?" In this way, poor, erring, human judgments are made to
   be our chart and our companions, our captain and our pilot! "Jesus went
   unto the Mount of Olives" and took His case to His Father in prayer. He
   consulted not with flesh and blood, but with the Eternal, whose wisdom
   can make no mistake and whose love can never err. Beloved, may we not
   be blameworthy in having gone here and there, wasting our breath on our
   friends and fellow sinners, instead of going to the great High Priest,
   who wears the Urim and Thummim, and who would have told us what we
   ought to do? The lines of Cowper are still true--

   "Have you no words? Ah to think again! Words flow apace when you
   complain. And fill your fellow creature's ears With the sad tale of all
   your cares. Were half the breath thus vainly spent, To Heaven in
   supplication sent, Your cheerful song would oftener be, 'Hear what the
   Lord has done for me!'"

   Again, we go to our houses, very properly, for the enjoyment of
   sympathy. We feel that if it is to be found anywhere, we shall find
   tender sympathy there and that if the whole outside world should
   misunderstand and misrepresent us, we shall be understood and not
   misrepresented at home. Whoever may slander us away from our home, no
   one will falsely accuse us there--all hearts there will beat in
   sympathy with us--so we go to our own homes. But Jesus went to the
   Mount of Olives. I say this not to blame you or myself for seeking
   sympathy here, for Christ, Himself, did the same. On that memorable
   night in Gethsemane when He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood, He
   said to His disciples, "Could you not watch with Me one hour?" He
   seemed to feel the need of sympathy in that dread hour, but He had to
   learn, as we also must learn, that there is a point where human
   sympathy cannot avail us. We must say, as Jesus did, "O My Father," for
   only in Hisheart can true sympathy be found. Yet this I may say,
   without any harshness, that while we prize the sympathy of beloved
   friends, let us not forget to go to God in prayer. Let us tell the sad
   tale of all our griefs into His ear and pour out the story of all our
   sorrows into His heart. He has a bottle for our tears and a book for
   our complaints. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the grief (as well
   as the death) of all His people. He counts the number of their wounds
   as well as the number of the stars. So, while we may seek sympathy from
   our friends at home, let us not forget to go to the Mercy Seat, that we
   may also secure the sympathy and help of the best Friend we have!

   We go home, also, forrest and refreshment. We are toil-worn--it is not
   more ease that we need, but real repose. We go to our beds, not because
   of idleness, but that we may be ready for tomorrow's labor. There are
   times when the strongest men must turn aside from their toil and rest
   for a little while--and it is right for us to go to our homes for this
   purpose. Yet Jesus went to the Mount of Olives when every man went to
   his own home--and this suggests to us that we are not to be so
   concerned for the health of the body as to neglect the requirements of
   the soul. We must cry with David, "Renew a right spirit within me," and
   go to our God in prayer in the hope that we may be quickened in His
   way. Prayer to God is a even better refreshment than sleep, just as the
   soul is better than the body. A certain amount of sleep is necessary
   for the body, but prayer is just as necessary for the soul. The bed
   will give rest to the tired limbs, but the Mercy Seat will give
   refreshment to the powers and passions of the spirit. Let us get
   strength for service, power for endurance and might for conflict by
   going to the Mount of Olives with the Savior and watching and praying
   with Him.

   I think that I have said enough upon this point of contrast. To my mind
   there is a very suggestive line of thought in these two
   sentences--"Every man went unto his own house. Jesus went unto the
   Mount of Olives."

   III. Just for a minute or so, dear Friends, I want to remind you that
   we also have here A COMPARISON FOR OUR

   INSTRUCTION.

   Perhaps I shall startle and surprise you when I say that Jesus Christ
   did exactly what His disciples and the other people did. They went to
   their own houses and He went to His own house. They went home and He
   went home. They sought ease, and He sought ease. They sought counsel
   and He sought counsel. They sought sympathy and He sought sympathy.
   They sought refreshment and He sought refreshment. The Mount of Olives
   was, to all intents and purposes,

   Christ's home. It was there that He met with His Father. It was there
   that the Man, Christ Jesus, met with kindred spirits in the Father and
   the Holy Spirit. It was there that He cast off the cares of the day and
   unburdened Himself as a weary son does in his parent's presence. It was
   there that He told the tale of all the traps which had been laid to
   trap Him in speech, of all the ways that His enemies had tried to catch
   Him. It was there that He cried to Heaven for wisdom and it was there
   that, made strong by fresh contact with His Father, He girt on His
   golden armor to go forth once more fully protected from all the arrows
   of the Evil One. Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, that season of
   prayer upon the Mount of Olives was to Jesus what our going to our
   houses and to our loved ones is to us. We grieve that His body was wet
   with the dews of the night, yet we would gladly have some of those same
   drops upon our body if we could have communion with Him in spirit. We
   have sympathy with the members of His physical frame because they were
   tried by the cold of the mountains, and the loneliness of His night
   vigil, but we wish that our souls could be braced with something like
   the same vigor which He received upon the Mount of Olives, or in the
   Garden of Gethsemane. Yes, the cold mountain was His home. There He
   hada place where He could lay His head, and rest, though only in a
   spiritual sense.

   IV. There is just one other point for me to mention and then I will
   close. We have here A TYPE FOR OUR

   EDIFICATION.

   We hope to go to our houses after this service, but Jesus is still, in
   a certain sense, on the Mount of Olives interceding for us. I suppose
   there are some people in their houses who are plotting and scheming
   against the cause of God. The Jesuit is seeking to spread his nets so
   that he may, with his many allurements, entice the unwary and extend
   the evil influence of the harlot of Babylon. The persecutor is planning
   with the view of tripping up a saint here and overthrowing another
   yonder. The devil is suggesting, in the minds of atheists and infidels,
   crafty arguments against the Inspiration of the Scriptures, new
   difficulties to startle youthful Believers, fresh blasphemies
   concerning the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we could
   have the roofs taken off the houses in London, tonight, or if we could
   look into the many evil hearts in this modern Babylon, how many might
   we see taking counsel together against the Lord and against His
   Anointed! Very many will be going to their houses tonight to plot, plan
   and imagine all sorts of evil! But, supposing they do, shall we sit
   down and be afraid? Shall we give way to despair? No! Verily there is
   still hope and more than hope for the true Church of Christ, for Jesus
   has gone to the Mount of Olives on high! There He stands, at the right
   hand of the Father, pleading the cause of His Church. Knowing her
   difficulties, foreseeing her perils, reading all that is in the hearts
   of her enemies and her own, He stretches out His hands, points to His
   wounds and, for Zion's sake, He will not hold His peace! For
   Jerusalem's sake He will not rest until her righteousness shall go
   forth as brightness and the salvation of His people shall be as a lamp
   that burns! There, Church of God, is your star of hope! The interceding
   Savior is our unfailing protection, our strong bulwarks and our
   munitions of war! Fear not, O Zion, for, while the Savior pleads, He
   that sits in the heavens does laugh at His enemies--the Lord has them
   in derision--

   "Before the Throne of God above

   I have a strong, a perfect plea,

   A great High Priest, whose name is Love,

   Who always lives and pleads for me!

   My name is engraved on His hands,

   My name is written on His heart--

   I know that, while in Heaven He stands

   No tongue can bid me thence depart

   One with Himself I cannot die,

   My soul is purchased by His blood.

   My life is hid with Christ on high

   With Christ, my Savior and my God!" But some will, I hope, go home in
   quite another mood. I trust that some will go home to mourn over sin. I
   hope that out of this company which I am now addressing, there are some
   who are going home to pray. As you, by your bedside, pour out your
   supplications to "Our Father who are in Heaven," do not forget that
   Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray--and remember that He is
   still praying for His people before His Father's face. Sinner, there
   will be two pleading for you while you are praying for yourself! As you
   plead with Christ, Christ pleads for you. When you put your case into
   His hands, every groan of yours is sprinkled with His precious blood
   and every penitent tear of yours is made acceptable to God through the
   merit of Christ's Sacrifice. Be not discouraged if your words will not
   come, if there are within you groans which cannot be uttered, or if you
   are half choked with emotion, so that you cannot speak out what you
   really feel within, for there is One who can speak for you as never man
   spoke! And if you cannot plead for yourself, He can plead for you
   according to that gracious assurance, "If any man sins, we have an
   Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." Just as Jesus
   went to the Mount of Olives to pray for His people, He has now gone up
   to Heaven to continue pleading for them and also to make intercession
   for the transgressors.

   It is very likely that many will go to their houses simply to sleep, as
   most of those probably did in our Savior's day. Many professing
   Christians come to God's House to sleep and then go home to sleep. They
   walk about sleeping, sleeping with their eyes open, spiritually
   sleeping while they are wide awake about mere secular matters. But it
   is a comfort to know that while professors sleep and lambs sleep, Jesus
   still goes, spiritually, to the Mount of Olives. The only hope for the
   slumbering Church is the wakeful Savior! Even if the earthly watchmen
   sleep, the best of all Watchmen keeps guard over the vineyard which He
   has planted. He says, "I the Lord do keep it. I will water it every
   moment. Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." "The eyes of
   the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself
   strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him."

   It may be that some of you will go home to be tempted. It is a sad
   thing to go from the House of God to meet with temptation, yet that
   happens to many of you. You come in here on Sabbath days or weeknights
   and try to get spiritual food for your soul and then, perhaps, the
   first word that you hear as you cross the threshold of your home is an
   oath. What a comfort it is that Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives to
   plead for you and that He knows, beforehand, the exact temptation which
   you will have to meet, even as He said to Simon Peter, "Simon, Simon,
   behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat;
   but I have prayed for you, that your faith fails not." Be satisfied, O
   Believer, that Christ will never put His gold into the furnace without
   Himself sitting at the mouth of it to watch the whole purifying
   process! He never takes His eyes off the precious ingot as long as it
   is in the furnace--and only when He sees His own image reflected in the
   pure metal does He take it out of the fire! You can be sure of this,
   though the devil may come out against you and assail you in fashion
   which shall utterly stagger you, God has not forgotten you! Jesus has
   gone up on high and He is pleading for you that in this, your time of
   utmost weakness and need, the Grace of God shall be sufficient for you
   and make a way of escape for you out of all your troubles and
   temptations!

   I might enlarge upon this fruitful theme, but I will not do so. And so
   I close by expressing the hope that some of us intend, from this day
   forth, to serve God better than we have ever done. I know that there
   are some members of this Church who feel stirred up to do more than
   they have ever yet done for Christ and, after all, the most of our
   members do not do much for Him. There are some in the Church who have
   no share in all that is done for Christ. It is not the many, but the
   few, who really do the work. If all the members of this Church felt
   such love for Christ as some do, and were all as ardently devoted to
   His cause as some are, I know not what we might not do for Christ, nor
   how rapidly His Kingdom might be extended by us! If any of us go to our
   homes solemnly praying that we may, from this day forth, be completely
   consecrated to the Lord, to serve Him with a perfect heart, we may rest
   assured that Jesus is praying a similar petition before His Father's
   face! He is praying that His people may be holy! That they may be
   happy! That they may love Him with their whole heart and bring forth
   much fruit to the praise and glory of His holy name! So, when you truly
   desire to serve God, Christ hears you and His prayer and your prayer
   agree well together!

   Let us, therefore, go to our houses remembering that thought of Jesus
   retiring in secret to pray for His people--and before we close our
   eyes, let us go again to the Mercy Seat where Christ has often met with
   us. And as we close this service, let us for a few moments go in spirit
   to the Mount of Olives in prayer.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 7:30-63; 8:1.

   John 7:30, 31. Then they sought to take Him: but no man laid hands on
   Him, because His hour was not yet come. And many of the people believed
   on Him, and said, When Christ comes, will He do more miracles than
   these which this Man has done? Well might they ask that question, for
   Jesus had worked such marvelous miracles that they could not

   imagine anything greater! Surely this must be the Christ or if He were
   not, when the Christ did come, could He and would He do any greater
   miracles than this Man had done?

   32. The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning
   Him. Whispered these things, afraid to speak out boldly because of the
   Pharisees and, therefore, they quietly said it among themselves and,
   after all, there is no fire more to be dreaded than a smoldering fire.

   32, 33. And the Pharisees and the chiefpriests sent officers to take
   Him. Then saidJesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and
   then I go unto Him that sent Me. That was a blessed way for Christ to
   describe His return to the heavenly world--"I go unto Him that sent
   Me." Possibly He said this to the very men who were sent to take Him.

   34. You shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, there you
   cannot come. No officers can arrest Him now that He has gone up into
   His Father's Glory. There is no fear of any of them being there to
   catch Him in His speech, or to drag Him before the ecclesiastical and
   secular judges, as they did when He was here.

   35, 36. Then said the Jews among themselves, "Where will He go, that we
   shall not find Him? Will He go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles
   and teach the Gentiles? What manner of saying is this that He said, You
   shall seek Me and shall not find Me: and where I am, there you cannot
   come They appear to have had some intimation of that glorious love of
   Christ which was not to be confined within the bounds of the Jewish
   nation, yet they could not or would not understand His words.

   37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
   cried. Shouted, spoke with all His might! And He stood, although He
   usually sat to deliver His messages. But now, as if His whole being was
   awakened to its utmost energy, on account of the last day of the
   gathering having come, when perhaps the people would go home and He
   would be unable thus to speak with them again, "Jesus stood and cried."

   37. Saying, "If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me, and drink. O
   blessed invitation! How sweet it should be to every thirsty soul! "If
   any man"--prince or pauper! "Any man"--moral or utterly debauched! "If
   any man thirsts, let him come unto Me"--not to ordinances, nor to human
   priests, "let Him come unto Me, and drink," as much as He will "without
   money, and without price."

   38. He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of His belly
   shall flow rivers of living water He will not only drink enough to
   satisfy his own thirst, but he will, himself, become a
   fountain--streams of Grace shall be communicated to his fellow men
   through him.

   39. (But this spoke He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him
   should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that
   Jesus was not yet glorified). He was not given then, but later. On the
   day of Pentecost He was given--and He has never been withdrawn!

   40-43. Many of the people, therefore, when they heard this saying,
   said, Of a truth this is the Prophet. Others said, This is the Christ.
   But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the Scripture
   said that Christ comes of the seed of David, and out of the town of
   Bethlehem, where David was? So there was a division among the people
   because of Him. It is still true that Christ is a cause of division, as
   He, Himself, foretold that He would be.

   44. And some of them would have taken Him but no man laid hands on Him.
   In the 30th verse of this chapter, and in the 20th verse of the next
   Chapter, we are told why they did not take Him--"His hour was not yet
   come." And, like their Lord, saints are immortal till their work is
   done!

   45-48. Then came the officers to the chief priest and Pharisees; and
   they said unto them, Why have you not brought Him? The officers
   answered, Never man spoke like this Man. Then answered them the
   Pharisees, Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the
   Pharisees believed on Him? They professed to be the spiritual leaders
   of the nation and expected all to follow them.

   49-51. But the people who know not the Law are cursed. Nicodemus said
   unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them), Does
   our Law judge any man before it hears him and knows what he does
   Nicodemus asked a simple question, but they could not answer it without
   convicting themselves of disobeying that very Law of God of which they
   pretended to be the exponents.

   52, 53. They answered and said unto him, Are you also of Galilee?
   Search, and look: for out of Galilee arises no Prophet. And every man
   went unto his own house.

   John 8:1. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Christian's Manifestation

   (No. 3004)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   AUGUST 5, 1866.

   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what
   we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like
   Him; for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2.

   THE text mentions, "now," and then passes on to the future and speaks
   of, "yet." It does, however, speak of, "now" and, after all, despite
   our trials, there is much to make us happy in our present condition.
   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Our manifold temptations and
   infirmities cannot make us lose the blessings that come to us through
   our adoption into the family of God! "Happy are you, O Israel: who is
   like unto you, O people saved by the Lord?" Today, even today, we are
   the blessed of the Lord and we find in godliness the blessing of "the
   life that now is."

   Yet, Beloved, for all that, we are still forced to cry--

   "Alas for us if you were all, And nothing beyond, O earth!" If this
   were all our life, it would have been better for us not to have lived.
   Woe unto us if we had to live here always! Young says--

   "Were there no death, even fools might wish to die"--

   and, certainly, wise men would do so, for, Brothers and Sisters, this
   is a life of distractions, cares, anxieties, disappointments and, what
   is worse, it is a life of sins, sorrows and bitter repentances for
   wrong-doing! This life is to us a traveler's life with all the
   inconveniences that we meet with in travelling. We are here today and
   we are gone tomorrow! Sometimes the heat consumes us and at other times
   the cold bites us. We are like men at sea--we have not yet cast our
   anchor, nor furled our sails, nor reached the port where we are
   bound--and the sea in which we are sailing is rough, tempest-tossed and
   beset with rocks, shoals and quicksands. Our soul is often half a wreck
   and longs for the desired haven where, "the wicked cease from
   troubling" and, "the weary are at rest." Ours is a soldier's life--we
   have to be constantly fighting, or else continually upon our guard.
   Think not, you who have just buckled on your harness, that you have won
   the victory, for the good soldiers of Jesus Christ must fight from morn
   till evening, from youth's happy morning till the eve of gray old age!

   I would not paint life in sadder colors than it needs, but I dare not
   shut my eyes to the fact that this is a sad world and that our path is
   one of sorrow, for it is "through much tribulation" that we "enter into
   the Kingdom of God."--

   "The path of sorrow and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow
   is unknown."

   It is to that other and better land that I would, for a little while,
   bear away your thoughts. We shall borrow the wings of our text and,
   like the eagle, soar towards Heaven!

   I. We will begin with this sentence--IT DOES NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE
   SHALL BE.

   What we are to be, we can scarcely guess. Indeed, we cannot guess at
   all by the use of our senses. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither
   have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared
   for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His
   Spirit." But only to our spirits! Flesh and blood, as they are, cannot
   inherit the Kingdom of God and cannot even guess what that Kingdom is
   like. This is not the place where the Christian is to be seen. This is
   the place of his veiling--Heaven is the place of his manifestation.
   This is the place of his night. Yonder is the place of his day. Our
   portion is on the other side of the river--our days of feasting are not
   yet!

   Some of the reasons why "it does not yet appear what we shall be" may
   be as follows. First, our Master was, to a great extent, concealed and
   hidden, and we must expect to be as He was. Is it not written, in this
   very Epistle, "as He is, as are we in this world?" Jesus said to His
   followers when He was here upon earth, "The disciple is not above his
   master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple
   that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord." My Brothers and
   Sisters, see that Man wearing a coat "without seam, woven from the top
   throughout"--the carpenter's son, the heir of poverty, the Companion of
   the humblest classes of mankind? Can you see in Him God over all,
   blessed forever? If you can, you are not looking with the eyes of your
   flesh, I am sure, for in that manner, you cannot detect the Glory of
   the Lord Jesus Christ beneath so humble a garb. The veil which the
   Savior cast about Himself was not so thick but that some rays of His
   Glory burst through when He trod the waves, rebuked the winds and
   raised the dead, but still, it was sufficiently dense, for He cried,
   "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son
   of Man has not where to lay His head." You will see that Christ was
   concealed as you remember that.

   But, as Dr. Watts says--

   "All riches are His native right"--

   yet, when He had to pay the Temple tax, He had to work a miracle that
   Peter might be able to catch the fish which had the exact amount
   required in its mouth. He was so poor that He had to live upon the
   charity of His followers. Would you have believed that He was the Lord
   of all creation if you had seen Him up on yonder lonely mountain's side
   without a bed to rest upon, or sitting wearily upon Jacob's well at
   Sychar and asking a sinful woman to give Him a little water to drink?
   The Savior was, indeed, masked and hidden so that the vulgar eye could
   not detect His Glory. Only such eagle-eyed men as John were able to
   say, "We beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the
   Father, full of Grace and truth." Our Lord's wisdom, Grace, power and
   all His other illustrious attributes were concealed beneath the veil of
   our inferior clay. Dr. Watts was right, as I reminded you just now,
   when he wrote--

   "Worthy is He that once was slain

   The Prince of Peace that groaned and died--

   Worthy to rise, and live, and reign

   At His almighty Father's side!

   Power and dominion are His due

   Who stood condemned at Pilate's bar.

   Wisdom belongs to Jesus, too,

   Though He was charged with madness here.

   All riches are His native right,

   Yet He sustained amazing loss!

   To Him ascribe eternal might

   Who left His weakness on the Cross." So fully did He veil His Glory
   that some even ventured to call Him Beelzebub and to say that He was a
   gluttonous man and a winebibber!

   Now, Christian, as you think of all this, do you wonder if worldlings
   do not know you and only speak of you to slander you? Do you wonder if
   your integrity is questioned and your most manifest virtue is
   misrepresented? And if the Grace which really is within you is laughed
   at and despised? How could the world know you when the Savior, Himself,
   was not discovered? As the bright gleams of His Divine Glory were
   almost wholly concealed, surely the weaker gleams of your earthly and
   human glory must be altogether hidden! That, perhaps, is the first
   reason why "it does not yet appear what we shall be."

   I think I may also remark, Brothers and Sisters, that we are not yet
   fit to let it appear what we shall be. "The son in the house," says
   one, "is treated as if he were a servant--and even worse than if he
   were a servant. A servant is not chastised--he may do many wrong things
   and yet escape without a stripe--yet it is not as with the son. Why
   does not his father give him the honor and dignity which belong to his
   sonship?" Simply because he is at present only a child and he must be
   treated as a child for a time, in order that he may be fitted to adorn
   his sonship. It would spoil him to receive at once all that is to be
   his when he enters upon his inheritance. He is the heir to all his
   father's estates, yet he has to be thankful to his father for even a
   penny--and he receives his pittance week by week, as though he were a
   poor pensioner upon his father's bounty or a beggar at his door. Why
   does not the father give this heir to large estates a thousand

   pounds? Why does he not entrust him with a great store of wealth?
   Because he is in his nonage and if he were trusted with a large sum of
   money at so early an age, he might grow profligate and so be unfit to
   use his wealth rightly if he should reach riper years.

   Brothers and Sisters, you and I, if we are Believers in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, are kings--not only sons of God, but kings who are to reign
   with Him forever! Then why are we not treated like kings? You know that
   in some earthly royal families, it is thought best for the prince, the
   heir-apparent to the throne, that he should be a soldier or a sailor
   and serve his country in that capacity, so that, when he comes to the
   throne, he may understand how to wield his scepter for the good of all
   classes of his subjects. So, Christian, is it with you. You are so
   childish at present--you have just lately begun to learn the nature of
   Divine things. You are uninstructed--you know but in part and you know
   that part so badly that it would not be fitting that your greatness
   should be revealed to you at present! You must be held back for a while
   till you have been better trained in the Holy Spirit's school--and
   thenit shall appear what you shall be!

   A third reason why it does not yet appear what we shall be is, I think,
   because this is not the world in which the Christian is to appear in
   his glory, for, if he did, his glory would be lost in this world. The
   multitude climbed to the tops of the trees, or the roofs of the houses,
   from where they might see Caesar or Pompey returning with the spoils of
   war. And the multitudes still clap their hands when a warrior has
   overcome his country's enemies and so become a great man. But the world
   cares little or nothing about self-denial, about Christian love, about
   consecration and devotion to Christ and His cause--yet these things are
   the glory of a Christian! That morel excellence, that spiritual worth
   which flashes from the eyes of the holy angels and the saints in Glory
   is almost unappreciated here. Your Master has had this Glory, though it
   was usually veiled while He was here below, yet the people cried out,
   "away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" And if you had here, to
   its full extent, the glory which will be revealed in you in Heaven,
   people would say the same concerning you! This is not the world in
   which you are to display your full honors. When a king is journeying
   through a foreign country, he does not wear his crown, nor the rest of
   his regal clothes--he often travels incognito and even when he reaches
   his own country, he does not put on his royal robe for fools to admire
   at every village wake and fair! He is not a puppet-king, strutting upon
   the stage to show himself to the common people--he reserves his
   grandeur for great public occasions and grand court ceremonies. In this
   poor sinful world, you Christians would be out of place if you could be
   what you shall yet be! You, also, must go incognito through this world
   to a large extent. But, by-and-by, you shall take off the travel-worn
   garments that you have worn during your earthly pilgrimage and put on
   your beautiful array and be manifested to the whole universe as a son
   or a daughter of "the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible!"

   And to close this part of the subject, "It does not yet appear what we
   shall be," because this is not the time for the display of the
   Christian's glory. If I may use such an expression, time is not the
   time for the manifestation of a Christian's glory. Eternity is to be
   the period for the Christian's full development and for the sinless
   display of his God-given glory. Here he must expect to be unknown--it
   is in the hereafter that he is to be discovered as a son of the great
   King. At present it is with us as it is with the world during winter.
   If you had not seen the miracle worked again and again, you would not
   guess, when you look upon those black beds in the garden, or when you
   walk over that snowy and frosty covering, crisp and hard beneath your
   feet, that the earth will yet be sown with all the colors of the
   rainbow and that it will be gemmed with flowers of unspeakable beauty!
   No, the winter is not the time when the beauty of the earth is to be
   best seen. And, Christian, you, also, must pass through your winter
   season. Yes, but let that wintry weather once be over, let the bleak
   December winds howl into your ears, let the cold and cheerless January
   come and go, let February also pass and, behold, the springtime comes!
   I might also say that gray hairs come upon your head like the
   snowflakes appear upon the earth--as the forerunner of spring and of
   summer--and your soul shall yet blossom "with unspeakable joy and full
   of glory," and all the graces and excellence of the Christian shall be
   revealed in you! It is winter with you now, but the summer comes!

   If you stand, as many of you have often done, at the seaside, you have
   noticed that at certain hours of the day there is a long expanse of
   mud, or of dry sand, and it may not seem to one who sees it for the
   first time as though the sea had ever rolled over it, or that it ever
   would. Ah, but "it does not yet appear" what it will be! It is ebb-tide
   now, but wait till the flood comes and then you will see the whole of
   that black mire or that yellow sand glistening in the sunshine! So, the
   flood of glory is rising, Christian! Can you not see the breakers in
   the distance, the white crests of the incoming waves?

   God's great sea of eternity draws nearer and nearer! Can you not hear
   the booming of that mighty flood? Soon shall your ransomed spirit float
   and bathe in that sea of Glory where not a single wave shall cause you
   a moment's grief or pain! This is not the time, Christian, in which you
   are to be fully revealed. You are, today, like that ugly shriveled
   seed--there is no beauty in it that you should desire it. Yes, but wait
   a little while and the sweetly-perfumed flower shall shed its fragrance
   in the air and make the gazer pause to admire the matchless colors with
   which God has been pleased to paint it! Then shall its full glory be
   known and seen! At present you are in your seed stage and your sowing
   time is coming. Tremble not that it is so. There will be a time for
   your poor flesh to sleep in the silent grave, but, at the voice of the
   archangel and the blast of the trumpet of the Resurrection, you shall
   arise! Just as the flower rises in spring, the dead body, which was put
   into the tomb, shall rise incorruptible in the image of the Savior!

   So, you see, "it does not yet appear what we shall be," because the
   Lord Jesus Christ was not fully revealed here, because we are not fit
   to appear in Glory, because we are not here in the midst of the men and
   women who should see us in our gloryand because it is not yet the right
   time for us thus to appear. "To everything there is a season, and a
   time to every purpose under the heavens," but this is not the time for
   the full manifestation of Christians and, therefore, "it does not yet
   appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we
   shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

   II. Having spent so much time over the previous clause, we will merely
   hint at the teaching of the next words of the text--"BUT WE KNOW THAT
   WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR."

   So, then, it is quite certain that Christ will appear. John does not
   stop to prove it. He speaks of it as though it were perfectly
   understood that Christ would again appear and he mentions what is to be
   the nature of that appearing.

   Christ will appear in Person. This is what the two angels declared to
   the disciples after His Ascension, "This same Jesus, which is taken up
   from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him
   go into Heaven." That is, as the Incarnate God He will come back from
   Heaven.

   When He comes, He will appear full of happiness. There will be no more
   sorrow to winkle His brow, no more furrows to be plowed on His back, no
   fresh wounds to be made in His hands or his feet, no more offering of a
   Sacrifice for sin--He will come to forever rejoice with His people!

   Further, when He comes, He will appear in His Glory--not as the Man of
   Nazareth to be despised and spit upon-- but as "The Mighty God, The
   Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." If any of you are tempted to
   ask, "When will He come?" I give you His own assurance, "Surely I come
   quickly." So go your way and pray, as John did, "Even so, come, Lord
   Jesus," yet do not forget Paul's Inspired sentence, "But of the times
   and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. For
   yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief
   in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden
   destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and
   they shall not escape." Christ is coming, Beloved, literally
   coming--not figuratively and by His Spirit, but literally, actually,
   really--

   "Lo! He comes with clouds descending Once for favored sinners slain."

   He is coming in Glory to dwell in the midst of His saints forever. This
   is our blessed hope, "the glorious appearing of the great God and our
   Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us
   from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
   good works."

   III. Now, passing on, "We know that when He shall appear, WE SHALL BE
   LIKE HIM; FOR WE SHALL SEE

   HIM AS HE IS.

   There are other passages in His Word where we are distinctly told that
   His manifestation will be coincident with our manifestation. Here we
   are told that "when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." And the
   reason given for this is, "for we shall see Him as He is."

   Let us, while pondering the text, then, meditate upon this great Truth
   of God--"We shall be like Him." This afternoon, meditating upon this
   glorious assurance that I shall be like Christ--and I fully believe
   that I shall be like Him--it did seem to me as if it were almost too
   good to be true!

   Yet it is true that we are to be like Christ, first, as to our body.
   Here we are like the first Adam of the earth, earthy. But we shall, one
   day, have a body like that of the second Adam, a heavenly body! Like
   the first Adam, we are now

   mortal. Like the second Adam, we shall, by-and-by, be immortal!
   Christ's body is not now subject to any pains, or to any decay or
   disease--neither shall our body be. It is quite true that "flesh and
   blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God," yet it will be this very body
   of ours that willinherit the Kingdom of God, only that which is
   corruptible in it, that which is mere flesh and blood, will then have
   been removed! As the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians in that
   wonderful chapter about the Resurrection, "It is sown a natural body;
   it is raised a spiritual body." It is "a spiritual body" which the Lord
   Jesus Christ has today. I cannot imagine how glorious the Savior is in
   Heaven, but I always think of Him, even when He was upon this earth, as
   being far fairer than any artist ever depicted Him. I have gazed a long
   while upon many paintings of Christ, both in England and abroad, but I
   have never yet seen one which appeared to me to be equal even to my
   ideal of the Savior! I have looked and I have said, "Oh, no! He was far
   fairer than that! There must have been more beauty in His face than
   even that great master has portrayed." Well, Brothers and Sisters, if
   that is true concerning Him as He was when among the sons of men, how
   true it must be concerning Him as He is now! He is fairer than all the
   fair spirits that surround the heavenly Throne! He is "the Rose of
   Sharon and the Lily of the Valleys." Among the shining seraphim and
   cherubim, none can be compared with Him and, Christian, you are to be
   like Him! Whatever are the Characteristics of the Savior's glorified
   body, they are to be the characteristics of your body, also! You are to
   have an immortal body, a spiritual body, a body incapable of pain,
   suffering, decay--a body which shall be suited to your emancipated
   spirit, a body having a wider range than this limited earthly sphere,
   having greater powers at locomotion, perhaps flying, swiftly as light,
   from world to world, or possibly having the power even to outrun the
   lightning's flash! I do not know how wondrous Christ's glorified body
   is, but I do know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him (even
   in body); for we shall see Him as He is."

   But, far more important than that, we shall also be like Christ in
   soul. Have the eyes of your spiritual understanding or sanctified
   imagination ever looked upon Christ's spotless, perfectly-developed
   soul--that equably-adjusted spirit, in which no one power or passion
   was too prominent or predominant--but in which His whole Being was
   beautifully molded and rounded according to the perfect pattern of
   moral excellence and beauty? Now, Beloved, you are to be just like
   that--not quick in temper, as perhaps you now are, but meek and lowly
   as He was--not haughty and prone to pride, but humble and gentle as He
   was--not selfish and self-seeking, but as disinterested and as tender
   to others as He was--in fact, perfection's own self! It was said of
   Harry the Eighth that if all the histories of all the tyrants who ever
   lived had been lost, you might have composed them all with the material
   from the life of that execrable monster! And I will venture to say that
   if all the biographies of all the good men and holy angels that have
   ever existed could be blotted out of existence or memory, they might
   all be written again with the material from the life of our Lord Jesus
   Christ, for in Him dwells all excellence and all goodness! What a joy
   it is to us to know that we shall be like Him! Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, this blessed Truth of God is enough to make you stand up or
   even leap in the exuberance of your joy! I have heard of our
   enthusiastic Welsh friends dancing during some of their preachers'
   sermons--and if it is this or a similar Truth which makes them dance,
   who can wonder at it? "We shall be like Him"--like Him in soul, with no
   more infirmities of temper, or sloth, or undue haste. Our human nature
   shall be rid of all its rags and we shall be perfect, even as our
   Father in Heaven is perfect! Oh, that the blessed day had already come
   and that we were like our Lord! But "we shall be like Him; for we shall
   see Him as He is."--

   "Nor does it yet appear-How great we must be made! But when we see our
   Savior here, We shall be like our Head."

   Time fails me to say what I should have liked to have said, yet I ought
   to add that we shall be like Christnot only in body and in soul, but
   also in condition. We shall be with Him where He is and we shall be as
   happy as He is, as far as our capacity for happiness goes. We shall be
   crowned even as He is crowned and we will sit upon thrones even as He
   sits upon His Father's Throne. He shall lead us to living fountains of
   water and be our constant Companion, never going away from us again. He
   shall call us His brethren and we shall share in His honor and Glory.
   The joy of which we shall partake shall be His joy, and it will be in
   us that our joy may be full. O Christian, think lofty thoughts
   concerning the Lord in Glory and remember that you shall be like Him! I
   cannot help repeating that quaint little ditty which Rowland Hill was
   so fond of humming in his old age--

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

   IV. So, "we shall be like Him." And the reason why we shall be like Him
   is thus given by John, "FOR WE SHALL SEE HIM AS HE IS."

   How is it that we shall be like Him because of that? Partly, by
   reflection. Perhaps you are aware that in the olden time,
   looking-glasses (if I may use an Irishism), were not looking-glasses at
   all, for they were made of polished brass. If a person looked into such
   a mirror when the sun was shining upon that mirror, not only would the
   mirror itself be bright, but it would also throw a reflection on the
   face of the person who was looking into it. This is only according to
   the laws of light. When a man looks into a bright mirror, it makes him,
   also, bright, for it throws its own light upon his face and, in a much
   more wonderful fashion, when we look at Christ, who is all brightness,
   He throws some of His brightness upon us! When Moses went up into the
   mountain to commune with God, his face shone because he had received a
   reflection of God's Glory upon his face. He had looked into the blazing
   light of Deity, as far as a created eye could look there and,
   therefore, that light was so brilliantly reflected in his own face that
   Aaron and the people were afraid to draw near him--and he had to cover
   his face with a veil while he spoke to them.

   Further, Beloved, we get to be like Christ by seeing Him in type and
   symbol, as through a glass darkly. The Lord's Supper is one of the
   glasses. Believer's Baptism is another. The preaching of the Word is
   another. The Bible, itself, is another of these glasses. It is only a
   partial reflection of Christ that we get from all these glasses yet, as
   we look at it, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, "We all, with open
   face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into
   the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,"
   or, "by the Lord, the Spirit."

   But, Brothers and Sisters, if there is such a sanctifying influence
   about the very reflection of Jesus Christ, what a wondrous power it
   must have upon us when we see Him as He is When we shall gaze upon Him
   with unveiled vision and see Him as He is, do you wonder that John says
   that then, "we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is"? Oh,
   that amazing sight, that unique sight of Jesus as He is! It would be
   worthwhile to die a thousand painful deaths in order to get one brief
   glimpse of Him as He is! I do not think that Rutherford exaggerated
   when he talked of swimming through seven Hells to get at Christ if he
   could not get at Him any other way. A distant view of Him, as we have
   seen Him "leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills," has so
   ravished our souls that we have scarcely known whether we have been in
   the body or out of our body. When we have heard His voice, we have
   longed to be with Him. The very thought of Him has made us like the
   dove separated for a while from her mate, long to cleave the air with
   rapid wing and fly home to our dovecote and to our blessed Noah. What
   must it be to be there? What must it be to see our Savior as He is?

   In some of the houses not far from here, I noticed some finches in
   cages in which there were tufts of grass, or small branches of trees as
   perches for the poor prisoners--yet they were singing away right
   merrily. I suppose that grass and those fragments of trees were meant
   to remind them, in this great, dirty, smoky Babylon, that there are
   green fields and wide forests somewhere. I thought, as I looked upon
   them, "Ah, you poor birds are like what I myself am! My Master has put
   me in a little cage and bid me bide here for a while--and He has given
   me my little tuft of grass as an earnest of my inheritance in the--

   "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood."

   He graciously sends me a few comforts on the way. Ah, but that poor
   little tuft of grass, what is it in comparison with the fields and the
   hedges which are the proper home of the singing birds which have their
   liberty? And, Christian, you do not know what it will be for you to
   have your cage door opened that you may fly away to that blessed land
   where the true birds of Paradise forever warble, from their joyful
   throats, the loudest praises to the great King who has set them free
   forever! Let us begin the music here! Let us try, even now, to
   anticipate that happy day as we sing of--

   "Jerusalem the golden,

   With milk and honey blest--

   where--

   "The daylight is serene."--

   And where--

   "The pastures of the blessed

   Are decked in glorious sheen."

   I leave my text with you who love the Lord. As for you who do not love
   Him, I dare not give it to you. Oh, that you did love Him and that you
   did trust Him! He waits to be gracious. Seek His face and He will be
   found of you. Fly to Him and He will not reject you. Trust in Him and
   He will wash you from all your sins and bring you to His Presence in
   eternal Glory, to go no more out forever! May He give you this
   unspeakable blessing, for His love's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 JOHN 2; 3:1, 2.

   1 John 2:1. My little children, these things I write unto you, that you
   sin not This is one of the great objectives of all that is written by
   Inspiration--that we may be kept from sin. O child of God, as you would
   fear to drink poison, as you would flee from a serpent, dread sin!

   1. And if any man sins. Is it a hopeless case then? Far from it! "If
   any man sins."

   1-3. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous,
   and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but
   also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we
   know Him, if we keep His commandments. Holiness of life is the best
   proof that we know God. It matters not how readily we can speak about
   God, nor how much we suppose that we love Him--the great test is, do we
   keep His commandments? What a heart-searching test this is! How it
   should humble us before the Mercy Seat!

   4-6. He that says, I know 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. When we try to be, in every respect, what God's Word tells us
   we ought to be, then may we know that we are in God. But if we walk
   carelessly, if we take no account of our actions, but do, after a
   random fashion, whatever comes into our foolish hearts, then have we no
   evidence at all that we are in God!

   7. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old
   commandment which we had from the beginning. The old commandment is the
   word which you have heard from the beginning. "From the time when
   Christ first began to preach, or when the Gospel was first preached in
   your ears."

   8. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in
   Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now
   shines. That which is new in the Gospel, in one sense, is not new in
   another, for, though John was about to write what he called a new
   commandment, yet, at the same time, he was writing something which was
   not novel, something which was not grafted upon the Gospel, but which
   grows naturally out of it, namely, the Law of Love.

   9. He that says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in
   darkness, even until now. God is Love and God is Light. Therefore, love
   is light, and the Light of God is Love. Where enmity and hatred are
   still in the heart, it is proof positive that the Grace of God is not
   there.

   10-15. He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no
   occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hates his brother is in
   darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes, because
   that darkness has blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children,
   because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write unto
   you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from the beginning. I
   write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the Wicked One. I
   write unto you, little children, because you have known the Father I
   have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from
   the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you are
   strong, and the Word ofGodabides in you, andyou have overcome the
   Wicked One. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
   world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
   him. For this sinful world is directly opposed to the Father. You
   cannot send your heart at the same time in two opposite ways--towards
   evil and towards good. You must make a choice between the two.

   16, 17. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the
   lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is
   of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he
   that does the will of God abides forever. It ought not, then, to be
   difficult to make a choice between these fleeting shadows and the
   everlasting substance.

   18. Little children, it is the last time. You may read the passage, "It
   is the last hour," as if John wanted to show how late it was and how
   soon Christ would come. "It is the last hour."

   18. And as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are
   there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. How
   much more emphatically John might write this verse if he were writing
   today!

   19. They went out from us. For, alas, many of the antichrists came out
   of the Church. They sprang up from among the followers of Christ. "They
   went out from us."

   19, 20. But they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would
   no doubt have continued with us but they went out, that they might be
   made manifest that they were not all of us. But you have an unction
   from the Holy One, and you know all things. "You who know God--and even
   the little children, the babes in Christ, know the Father--know all
   things. And you will not be led astray and deceived by these
   antichrists who have gone out into the world."

   21. I have not written unto you because you know not the truth, but
   because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. The truth is all
   of a piece, and a lie cannot be a part of the truth. Christ does not
   teach us a Jesuitical system in which error and falsehood are mixed up
   with truth--the Gospel is all truth--and to those who believe it we may
   say, "You know the truth, and you also know that no lie is of the
   truth."

   22, 23. Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ?He is
   antichrist that denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son,
   the same has not the Father. They who deny the Deity of Christ
   practically deny the Divine Fatherhood of God. It is not possible for
   us to understand the rest of the Truth of God if we do not believe in
   Christ, who is the Truth. As the poet says--

   "You cannot be right in the rest Unless you think rightly of Him."

   23-28. [But]he that acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Let that
   therefore abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning. If
   that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you
   also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And that is the
   promise that He has promised us, even eternal life. These things have I
   written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing
   which you have received of Him abides in you, and you need not that any
   man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and
   in truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, we shall abide
   in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him. That which is the
   subject of promise is also the subject of precept. And the precepts of
   the Gospel are given to Christians because, in this way, God keeps His
   own promise and so leads me to obey His precepts.

   28, 29. That, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be
   ashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you
   know that everyone that does righteousness is born of Him.

   1 John 3:1, 2. Behold, what manner oflove the Father has bestowed upon
   us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows
   us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God
   and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He
   shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.
     __________________________________________________________________

Silken Cords

   (No. 3005)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.

   "Idrew them with cords of a man, with bands of love." Hosea 11:4.

   No man ever comes to God unless he is drawn. There is no better proof
   that man is totally depraved than that he needs to be effectually
   called. Man is so utterly "dead in trespasses and sins" that the same
   Divine Power which provided a Savior must make him willing to accept a
   Savior, or else he will never be saved. You see a ship upon the stocks.
   She is finished and complete. She cannot, however, move herself into
   the water. You see a tree. It is growing--it brings forth branches,
   leaves and fruit, but it cannot fashion itself into a ship. Now, if the
   finished ship can do nothing, much less the untouched log! And if the
   tree, which has life, can do nothing, much less that piece of timber
   out of which the sap has long since gone! Christ's declaration,
   "Without Me you can do nothing," is true of Believers, but it is just
   as true, and with a more profound emphasis, of those who have not
   believed in Jesus. They must be drawn, or else to God they never will
   come.

   But many make a mistake about Divine drawings. They seem to fancy that
   God takes men by the hair of their heads and drags them to Heaven,
   whether they will or not and that when the time comes, they will, by
   some irresistible power, without any exercise of thought or reasoning,
   be compelled to be saved. Such people understand neither man nor God,
   for man is not to be compelled in this way. He is not a being so
   controlled--

   "Convince a man against his will. He's of the same opinion still"

   As the old proverb says, "One man may bring a horse to water, but 20
   men cannot make him drink." So, a man may be brought to know what
   repentance is and to understand what Christ is, but no man can make
   another man lay hold upon Christ. No, God Himself does not do it by
   compulsion. He has respect unto man as a reasoning creature. God never
   acts with men as though they were blocks of wood, or senseless stones.
   Having made them men, He does not violate their manhood. Having
   determined by man to glorify Himself, He uses means to show forth His
   Glory--not such as are fit for beasts, or for inanimate nature, but
   such as are adapted to the constitution of man. My text says as much as
   this, "I drew them with cords"--not the cords that are fit for bulls,
   but, "with cords of a man"--not the cart ropes with which men would
   draw a cart, but the cords with which a man would draw a man and, as if
   to explain Himself, the Lord puts it, "I drew them with bands of love."
   Love is that mighty Power which acts upon man! There must be loving
   appeals to the different parts of his nature, and so he shall be
   constrained by Sovereign Grace.

   Understand, then, it is true that no man comes to God except he is
   drawn--but it is equally true that God draws no man contrary to the
   constitution of man. His methods of drawing are in strict accordance
   with ordinary mental operations. He finds the human mind what it is and
   He acts upon it, not as upon matter, but as upon mind. The compulsions,
   the constraints, the cords that He uses, are "cords of a man." The
   bands He employs are "bands of love."

   This is clear enough. Now I am about to try--and may the Lord enable
   me--to show you some of these cords, these bands, which the Lord
   fastens around the hearts of sinners. I may be the means in His hands
   of putting these cords around you, but I cannot pull them after they
   are on. It is one thing to put the rope on, but another thing to draw
   with all one's might at that rope. So it may be that I shall introduce
   the arguments and, by the prayers of the faithful now present, God will
   be pleased, in His Infinite Mercy, to pull these cords and that your
   soul will be sweetly drawn, with full consent, with the blessed
   yielding of your will to come and lay hold upon eternal life!

   I. First, some are drawn to Christ by seeing the happiness of true
   Believers.

   A true Believer is the happiest being out of Heaven. In some respects,
   he is superior to an angel, for he has a brighter hope and a grander
   destiny than even cherubim and seraphim can know. He is one with
   Christ, which an angel never was. He is a son of God and has the Spirit
   of Adoption within him, which a cherub never had. There are some
   Christians who show this happiness in their lives. Watch them and you
   will always find them cheerful. If, for a moment, a cloud should pass
   over their brow, it is but for a moment--and soon they rejoice again. I
   know such people, and glad am I to think that I ever came across their
   path. Wherever they go, they make sunshine. Into whatever company they
   come, it is as if an angel shook his wings. Let them talk when they
   may, it is always for the comfort of others--with kindness upon their
   lips and the law of love within their hearts! Many a young person,
   watching such Christians as these, is led to say, "I wish I were as
   happy, I wish I were as joyful as they are. They always have a smile
   upon their face." And I do not doubt that many have been brought to lay
   hold on Jesus through being drawn by that band of love!

   And let me say to you, dear Friend, that this is a most fitting cord
   with which to draw you, for if you would know the sweets of life, if
   you would have peace like a river, if you would have a peace that shall
   be with you in the morning and go with you into your business--that
   shall be with you at night and close your eyes in tranquil slumber--a
   peace that shall enable you to live and shall strengthen you in the
   prospect of death--no, that shall make you sing in the midst of the
   black and chill stream--be a Christian! My testimony is that if I had
   to die like a dog. If this life were all and there were no hereafter, I
   would prefer to be a Christian for the joy and peace which, in this
   present life, godliness will afford. "Godliness with contentment is
   great gain." It has the promise of the life that now is and of that
   which is to come. You would be happy, young man? Then do not kill your
   happiness. You would have a bright eye? Then do not put it out. You
   would rejoice with unspeakable joy? Then do not go into those places
   where sorrow is sure to follow your every act. Would you be happy? Come
   to Jesus! Let this band of love sweetly draw you.

   Another band of love--it was the one which brought me to the Savior--is
   the sense of the security of God's people, as a desire to be as secure
   as they are. I do not know what may be the peculiarity of my
   constitution, but I have always loved safe things. I have not, that I
   know of, one grain of speculation in my nature. Safe things--things
   that I can see to be made of rock and that will bear the test of
   time--I lay hold on with eagerness. I was reasoning thus in my boyish
   spirit--Scripture tells me that he that believes in Christ shall never
   perish. Then, if I believe in Jesus, I shall be safe for time and for
   eternity, too! There will be no fear of my ever being in Hell. I shall
   run no risk as to my eternal state--that will be secure forever. I
   shall have the certainty that when my eyes are closed in death, I shall
   see the face of Christ and behold Him in Glory. Whenever I heard the
   Doctrine of the Final Preservation of the Saints preached, my mouth
   used to water and I used to long to be a child of God! When I heard the
   old saints sing that hymn--

   "My name from the palms of His hands

   Eternity will not erase!

   Impressed on His heart it remains

   In marks of indelible Grace.

   Yes, I to the end shall endure

   As sure as the earnest is given!

   Are happy, but not more secure,

   The glorified spirits in Heaven"-- my heart was as if it would leap out
   of this body, and I would cry to God, "Oh, that I had a part and lot in
   such a salvation as that!" Now, young man, what do you think of this
   band of love? Do you not think there is something reasonable and
   something powerful in it--to secure yourself against all risk of
   eternal ruin and that, by the Grace of God, in a moment? "He that
   believes on Him is not condemned." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
   and you shall be saved." "He that believes and is baptized shall be
   saved." "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me:
   and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither
   shall any pluck them out of My hand." What do you say to this? Does not
   this Truth of God attract you? Does not this band draw you? Lord, draw
   the sinner by the sweet allurement of security, and let him say, "I
   will lay hold on Christ tonight."

   Certain Christians will tell you that they were first drawn to Christ
   by the holiness of godly relatives--not so much by their happiness as
   by their holiness. There is an Eastern fable that a man, wishing to
   attract all the doves from the neighboring dovecotes into his own, took
   a dove and smeared her wings with sweet perfume. Away she flew and all
   her

   fellow doves observed her and, attracted by the sweet incense, flew
   after her and the dovecote was soon full. There are some Christians of
   that sort. They have had their wings smeared with the precious ointment
   of likeness to Jesus--and wherever they go, such is their kindness and
   their consistency, their gentleness and yet their honesty, their lovely
   spirit and yet their boldness for Jesus--that others take knowledge of
   them that they have been with Jesus! And they say, "Where does He
   dwell, for I would gladly see Him and love Him, too? I am afraid I
   cannot attract you, Sinner, in such a charming way as that, but I would
   have you read the lives of godly men. Study the actions, perhaps, of
   your own mother. Is she dead? Then remember what she used to be. What
   her life of devotedness to God was. And I charge you, by the love of
   God, by her many prayers and tears, by the pity of her soul and the
   yearning of her heart towards you, let your mother's example be one of
   the bands of love to draw you towards God! Lord, pull at that cord!
   Lord, pull at that cord! If the cord is around you and the Lord will
   pull at it, I shall have good hope that you will close with Christ
   tonight!

   You see, I only show you the cord and then leave it, hoping that
   perhaps one or another may be taken by its power. Now for another. I
   believe that not a few are brought to Christ by gratitude for mercies
   received. The sailor has escaped from shipwreck, or, perhaps, even in
   the River Thames he has had many a narrow escape for his life. The
   sportsman has had his gun burst in his hand and yet he has been
   unharmed. The traveler has escaped from a terrific railway crash--
   himself picked out of the debris of the broken carriages unhurt. The
   parent has seen his children, one after another, laid upon a bed of
   sickness with fever, but yet they have all been spared. Or he, himself,
   has had loss upon loss in business, till at last it seemed as if a
   crash must come--but just then God interposed in a gracious Providence
   and a strong tide of prosperity set in! Some have thought over these
   things and said, "Is God so good to us, and shall we not love Him?
   Shall we live every day despising Him who thus tenderly watches over us
   and graciously provides for our needs?" O Sirs, I think this band of
   love ought to fall about some of you! How good God has been to you,
   dear Hearer! I will not tell your case out in public, but when you have
   sometimes talked with a friend, you have said, "How graciously has
   Providence dealt with me!" Give the Lord your heart, young man! Surely
   you can do no less for such favor as He has shown you! Mother, give
   Jesus your heart! He well deserves it, for He has spared it from being
   broken. Woman, consecrate--may the Lord help you to do it!--consecrate
   your heart's warmest affections to Him who has thus generously dealt
   with you in Providence. He deserves it, does He not? Will you be guilty
   of ingratitude? Is there not something within you that says, "Stay no
   longer an enemy to so kind a Friend, but be reconciled to Him. Be
   reconciled to God by the death of His Son." May that cord lay hold of
   some of you--and may God draw it and so attract you to Himself!

   Persons whose characteristic is thinking rather than loving are often
   caught by another cord. I do not know what may be your mode of thinking
   of things, but it strikes me that if I had not laid hold of Christ, if
   anybody should meet me and say, "The religion of Christ is the most
   reasonable religion in the world," I should lend him my ear for a
   little time and ask him to prove it to me. I have frequently caught the
   ears of travelers and held them fast bound when I have tried to show
   the entire reasonableness of the plan of salvation. God is just, that
   is taken for granted. If God is just, sin must be punished--that is
   clear. Then, how can God be just and yet not punish the sinner? That is
   the question and the Gospel answers that question! It declares that
   Christ, the Son of God, became a Man. That He stood in the place of
   such men as were chosen of God to be saved. These men may be known by
   their believing in Christ. Christ stood, then, in the place and of
   those whom I will now call Believers. He suffered at God's hand
   everything that was due to God from them. No, He did more. Inasmuch as
   they were bound to keep God's Law, but could not do it, Christ kept it
   for them and now, what Christ did becomes theirs by an act of faith.
   They trust Christ to save them. Christ's sufferings are put in the
   place of their being sent to Hell and they are justly delivered from
   their sins. Christ's righteousness is put in the place of their keeping
   the Law of God, and they are justly rewarded with a place in Paradise,
   as if they had themselves been perfectly

   holy!

   Now, it strikes me that this looks reasonable enough. In everyday life
   we see the same thing done. A man is drawn for the militia--he pays for
   a substitute and he goes free. A man owes a debt. Some friend comes in
   and discharges the bill for him--and he is clear. The ends of justice
   are answered through substitution. There seems to me to be something so
   unique about the whole affair of God taking the place of man, and God's
   suffering in man's form for man, that Justice may by no means be
   marred, that my reason falls down at the feet of this great mystery,
   and cries, "I would have an interest in it! Lord, let me be one of
   those for whom Jesus died! Let me have the peace which springs from a
   complete Atonement worked out by Jesus Christ!" My Brothers and
   Sisters, I wish I could draw you with this cord, but I cannot. I can
   only show you this cord and tell you how well it would draw you. If you
   reject it, your blood shall be upon your own head. I know too well you
   willreject it unless the mighty hand of God shall begin to tug at that
   band of love and draw you to Jesus!

   Far larger numbers, however, are doubtless attracted to Jesus by a
   sense of His exceeding great love. It is not so much the reasonableness
   of the Atonement, as the love of God which shines in it which seems to
   attract many souls. There once lived, in the city of London, a rich
   merchant, a man of generous spirit, a Lollard, one of those who were
   subjected to fines, imprisonment and even death for the Truth's sake.
   Near him there lived a miserable cobbler--a poor, mean, despicable
   creature. The merchant, for some reason unknown, had taken a very great
   liking to the poor cobbler and was in the habit of giving him all his
   work to do and recommending him to many friends. And as this man would
   not always work as he should, when the merchant saw his family in any
   need, he would send them meat from his own table and frequently he
   clothed his children. Well, notwithstanding that he had acted thus--had
   often advanced him sums of money and had acted with great kindness--a
   reward was offered to anyone who would betray a Lollard, or would point
   out such person or persons as read the Bible, to the magistrates. The
   cobbler, to obtain this reward, went to the magistrates and betrayed
   the merchant. As God would have it, however, through some skillful
   advocate, the merchant escaped. He forgave--freely forgave the cobbler
   and never said a word to him about it. But in the streets the cobbler
   would always turn his head the other way and try to get out of the way
   of the man whom he felt he had so grievously ill-treated. Still, the
   merchant never altered his treatment of him, but sent him meat as usual
   and attended to his wife and children if they were sick, the same as
   before, but he never could get the cobbler to give him a good word. If
   he did speak, it was to abuse him.

   One day, in a very narrow lane in the city--for the streets were narrow
   and still narrower were the lanes--the merchant saw the cobbler coming.
   And he thought, "Now is my time. He cannot pass me, now, without facing
   me." Of course, the cobbler grew very red in the face and made up his
   mind that if the merchant should begin to upbraid him, he would answer
   him in as saucy a manner as possible. But when the merchant came close
   to him, he said, "I am very sorry that you shun me. I have no ill-will
   towards you. I would do anything for you or for your family, and
   nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be friends with you."
   The cobbler stopped and presently a moisture suffused his eyes and,
   soon a flood of tears poured down his cheeks, and he said, "I have been
   such a base wretch to you that I hated you, for I thought that you
   would never forgive me. I have always shunned you, but when you talk to
   me like this, I cannot be your enemy any longer. Pray, Sir, assure me
   of your forgiveness." Forthwith, he began to fall upon his knees.

   That was the way to draw him with the cords of a man, and with the
   bands of love! And, in a nobler sense, this is just what Jesus Christ
   has done for sinners. He has offered you mercy. He has proclaimed to
   you eternal life and you reject it. Every day He gives you of His
   bounties, makes you to feed at the table of His Providence and clothes
   you with the livery of His generosity. And yet, after all this, some of
   you curse Him! You break His Sabbaths. You despise His name. You are
   His enemies. Yet, what does He say to you? He loves you still--He
   follows you, not to rebuke you, but to woo you and to entreat you to
   come to Him and have Him for your Friend. Can you hold out against my
   Master's wounds? Can you stand out against His bloody sweat? Can you
   resist His passion? Oh, by the name of Him who bowed His head upon the
   tree, who cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" can you
   hold out against Him? If He had not died for me, I think I must love
   Him for dying for other people. But He has died for you--you may know
   this if so you trust Him, now, with your soul, just as you are. This is
   the evidence that He died for you! Oh, may God enable you to trust
   Jesus now, drawing you with this band of love, this cord of a man!

   II. There are many more cords, but my strength fails me and, therefore,
   I will mention but one more. The privileges which a Christian enjoys
   ought to draw some of you to Christ. Do you know what will take place
   in these aisles tonight if the Holy Spirit should lead a sinner to
   Christ? I will tell you. There he stands, he is as vile a sinner as
   walks this earth. He knows it. He is wretched. He has a burden on his
   back. If that man is led to look to Christ tonight, his sins will roll
   off from him at once! They will roll into the sepulcher of Jesus and be
   buried and never have a resurrection. In a moment, he will be clothed
   from head to foot with white raiment! The kiss of a Father's love shall
   be upon his cheek and the seal of the Spirit's witness shall be fixed
   upon his brow. He shall be made, tonight, a child of God, a joint-heir
   with Jesus Christ. His feet shall be shod with the preparation of the
   Gospel of Peace. He shall be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus.
   He shall go to his house, not wretched, but as though he could dance
   for joy the whole way home! And when he gets home, it

   may be never so poor a cottage, but it will look brighter than it ever
   did before. His children he will look upon as jewels entrusted to his
   care, instead of being burdens, as he once said they were. His very
   trials he will come to thank God for, while his ordinary mercies will
   be sweetened and made very dear to him. The man, instead of leading a
   life like a Hell upon earth, will live a life like Heaven begun
   below--and all this shall take place in an instant!

   No, that is not all! The effect of this night's work shall tell
   throughout his entire life. He shall be a new creature in Christ Jesus
   so that, when the time shall come that his hair is gray and he lies
   stretched upon his bed and breathes out his life, he shall, in his last
   moments, look back upon a path that has been lit with the Grace of
   God--and look forward across the black river to an eternity in which
   the Glory of God shall shine forth with as great a fullness as a
   creature can endure! This is enough, surely, to tempt a sinner to come
   to Jesus! This must be a strong cord to draw him! O Man, Jesus will
   accept you! He will accept you now, just as you are! He has received
   millions like you already! Let Heaven's music witness to the fact.
   Millions more like you He is still willing to receive--some of us can
   bear our testimony to them. Come and welcome, then, come and welcome!
   Never mind your rags, prodigal, a Father's hand will take them off!
   Never mind your filth! Never mind having fed the swine. Come as you
   are! Just come now!

   I hear somebody saying, "Well, I am inclined to come, but I do not know
   what it means to come to Christ." To come to Christ is to trust Him.
   You have been trying to save yourself--do not try any more. You have
   been going to church, or going to chapel, and you have been trying to
   keep the Commandments, but you cannot keep them. No man ever did keep
   them and no man ever will keep them! You have been, in fact, like a
   prisoner who has been sentenced to hard labor--you have been walking
   upon the treadmill in order to get to the stars and you are not an inch
   higher! After all you have done, you are just where you were. Now,
   leave this off--have done with it. Christ kept the Law! Let His keeping
   it stand in the place of your keeping it. Christ suffered the anger of
   God--let His sufferings stand to you in the place of your sufferings.
   Take Him now, just as you are, and believe that He can save you--no,
   that He WILL save you and trust Him to do it! This is all the Gospel I
   have to preach. Very seldom do I finish a sermon without going over
   this simple matter of trusting Christ. There are some, perhaps, who
   enquire for something new. I cannot give it to you--I have not got
   anything new, but only the same old story over and over again! Trust
   Christ, and you are saved!

   We have heard, in our church meetings, that on several occasions when,
   at the close of the sermon, I have merely said as much as that, it has
   been enough to lead sinners into life and peace and, therefore, I will
   keep on at it. My heart yearns to bring some of you to Christ tonight,
   but I know not what arguments to use with you. You surely do not wish
   to be damned. Surely you cannot make the calculation that the short
   pleasures of this world are worth an eternity of torment! But damned
   you must be unless you lay hold on Christ. Does not this cord draw you?
   Surely you want to be in Heaven. You have some desire toward that
   better land in the realms of the hereafter, but you cannot be there
   except you lay hold on Christ! Will not this cord of love draw you?
   Surely it would be a good thing to get rid of fear, suspense, doubt and
   anxiety. It would be a good thing to be able to lay your head on your
   pillow and say, "I do not care whether I wake or not." To go to sea and
   reckon it a matter of perfect indifference whenever you reach land or
   not. No, sometimes the wish with us to depart preponderates over that
   of remaining here! Do you not wish for that? But you can never have it
   except by laying hold on Christ. Will not this draw you?

   My dear Hearers, you whose face I look upon every Sabbath, and into
   whose ears this poor, dry voice has spoken so many hundreds of times,
   we do not wish to be parted. I know that to some of you, this is the
   very happiest, as well as the holiest spot you ever occupied. You love
   to be here. I am glad you do and I am glad to see you. I do not like to
   be separated from you. When any of you move to other towns, it gives me
   pain to miss your faces. I hope we shall not be separated in the world
   to come. My beloved Friends around me, who have been in Christ these
   many years, you also love them. We do not wish to be divided. I would
   like that all this ship's company should meet on the other side of the
   sea. I do not know one among you that I could spare. I would not like
   to miss any of you who sit yonder, nor any of you who sit near--neither
   the youngest nor the oldest of you. Well, but we cannot meet in Heaven
   unless we meet in Jesus Christ! We cannot meet father, mother, pastor
   and friends unless we have a good hope through Jesus Christ our Lord!
   Will not that band of love draw you? Mother, from the railings of
   Heaven, a little angel-child is looking down tonight, beckoning with
   his finger. He is looking out for you and he is saying, "Mother, follow
   your baby to Heaven." Father, your daughter charged you, as she died,
   to give your heart to Christ--and from her seat in Heaven her charge
   comes down to you with as great force as it came from her sick-bed, I
   trust, "Follow me, follow me to Heaven!" Friends who have gone
   before--godly ones who have fallen asleep in Jesus--in one chorus, say
   to you, "Come up here! Come up here for we, without you, cannot be made
   perfect." Will not this band of love draw you? Oh, will not this cord
   of a man lay hold upon you and bring you to the Savior's feet? The Lord
   grant that it may, but, as I have said, I can only show you the cords.
   It is God's work to pull them--and they will be pulled if the saints
   will join in earnest prayer, invoking a blessing upon sinners. The Lord
   grant it, for His love's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   HOSEA 11; 14.

   Hosea 11:1. When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My
   son out of Egypt. God's love was very early love. He began with the
   nation of Israel when it was a mere handful of men in Egypt. There He
   multiplied them and, in due time, He called them out from among the
   heathen. God's love to some of us manifested itself at a very early
   period of our lives when we were yet children. It is among our most
   joyous memories that we have known the Lord from our youth up. Happy
   man, happy woman, of whom God can say, as He said concerning His
   ancient people, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called
   My son out of Egypt."

   2. As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto
   Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. The nation of Israel did
   not fulfill the promise of its youth. It was not faithful to God. The
   people heard from the lips of Moses the command, "Hear, O Israel: The
   Lord our God is one Lord," yet they continually turned aside to the
   idols of the nations. Have not some of us, also, although we have been
   loved by God, been faithless to Him? Can we not look back, with great
   regret and sorrow, upon our many stumbling and backslidings? If it is
   so, let us repent of our sin and never repeat it.

   3. I taught Ephraim also to go. Just as nurses teach children to
   walk--"I taught Ephraim also to go."

   3. Taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. God
   has done great things for many of us who, possibly, have never noticed
   His hand at work on our behalf. Lives which were in great peril have
   been saved, yet the goodness of God has never been acknowledged by
   those whom He has delivered. Men have been raised up from beds of
   sickness, yet the great and good Healer has never been thanked for what
   He has done for them. Oh, how sad it is that God should do so much for
   us, and yet that we should not even thank Him for doing it!

   4. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to
   them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto
   them. As men do with the bulls that have been plowing, lifting the yoke
   from them, and giving them rest and food before they have to begin
   plowing again. So did God to Israel, and so has He done to us. He
   lifted from us the heavy burden of our sin and He gave us rest and
   heavenly food. But oh, what a poor return we have made for all the
   thoughtful kindness of our God! If any man here imagines that he can
   boast of his conduct towards his God, he does not feel as I do. Rather
   dear Friends, I think that we all ought to humble ourselves in the
   Lord's Presence when we remember what ill returns we have made for all
   that He has done for us.

   5. 6. He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian
   shall be his king, because they refused to return. All the sword shall
   abide on his cities, andshall consume his branches, and devour them,
   because oftheir own counsels. If men will sin, they shall suffer. And
   God's people will be the first to suffer for their sins against the
   Lord, as He said by the mouth of the Prophet Amos, "You only have I
   known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for
   all your iniquities." If a man lets other men's children go
   unchastened, he will chastise his own children, if he is worthy of the
   name of a father. And God will do the same. He will not destroy us, but
   He will chasten us if we backslide from Him.

   7, 8. And My people are bent to backsliding from Me: though they called
   them to the Most High, none at all would exalt Him. How shall I give
   you up, Ephraim, how shall I deliver you, Israel There seems to be a
   contest in the heart of God. At least that is how He describes it
   Himself, as though Mercy pleaded with Justice, and Love contended with
   Wrath--"How shall I give you up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver you,
   Israel?

   8. How shall I make you as Admah? How shall I set you as ZeboimP. "I
   cannot destroy you, as I destroyed the guilty cities of the plain in
   the days of old."

   8. My heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together. O
   Backsliders, if God's repentings are kindled, will not yours also be
   kindled? If you have left Him and yet He will not give you up, will you
   give Him up? Will you not return to Him? Listen to His own words.

   9. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger, I will not return to
   destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man. What a mercy this is for
   us! If the Lord had been man, He would have cast us off long ago. But,
   as He is God, He is infinitely patient and He loves to forgive. "I am
   God, and not man."

   9, 10. The Holy One in the midst ofyou: andl willnot enter into the
   city. They shall walk after the LORD.See what His almighty Grace will
   do to make these wanderers come back to Him.

   10, He shall roar like a lion: when He shall roar, then the children
   shall tremble from the west. Even His roaring like a lion will only
   make them tremblingly come back to Him.

   11, 12. They shall tremble as a bird out ofEgypt, and as a dove out of
   the land of Assyria: andl willplace them in their houses, says the
   LORD. Ephraim compasses Me about with lies, and the house of Israel
   with deceit: but Judah yet rules with God, and is faithful with the
   saints.

   Hosea 14:1. O Israel, return unto the LORD your God; for you have
   fallen by your iniquity. Let anyone here who has turned aside from the
   Lord, hear these tender pleading words and then yield to Him who utters
   them! God speaks, not to condemn, but to comfort. He would gladly
   allure you back to Him with His gracious words of love! "O Israel,
   return unto the Lord your God; for you have fallen by your iniquity."

   2. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord. But the poor penitent
   cries, "Alas, Lord, I do not know what to say. So God puts in the
   sinner's mouth the very words he is to utter.

   2. Say unto Him. Take away all iniquity. That is where the mischief
   lies, in your inequity, your turning aside from the path of truth and
   equity. Say to the Lord, "I do not want to keep any of my iniquity. I
   desire to be delivered from it altogether." "Take away all iniquity."

   2. And receive us graciously. ' 'Lord, take us back again! According to
   the greatness of Your Grace, restore us to Your heart of love and let
   us dwell where Your children dwell. 'Receive us graciously.'"

   2. So will we render the calves of our lips. That is to say, "We will
   give You the sacrifice of our praises. We will speak well of Your name.
   If we have the calves of the stall, we will give them to You, but, in
   any case, we will give you the calves of our lips."

   3. Asshur shall not save us. They had been accustomed to rely either
   upon Assyria or upon Egypt. And one of the first signs of their real
   repentance was that they had given up their false dependences. So,
   Sinner, you must give up your self-righteousness, your
   ceremonialism--anything and everything in which you have trusted in
   place of trusting in the Lord! "Asshur shall not save us."

   3. We willnot ride upon horses. In the day of battle, they had trusted
   in their cavalry. But now, in the time of their repentance, they cry,
   "We will not ride upon horses."

   3. Neither wiil we say anymore to the work of our hands, you are our
   gods: for in You the fatherless finds mercy. What a beautiful ending
   there is to this verse! If any of you are full of sin and full of
   needs, and have become like orphans who have lost everything and are
   utterly destitute--if you have none to provide for you, and none to
   care for you-- come to the God of the fatherless and put your trust in
   Him! "For in You the fatherless finds mercy." Then follows this
   gracious promise.

   4. I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely. Listen to
   the heavenly music! "I will." "I will." When God says, "I will," you
   may depend upon it that He will do what He says He will. If you or I
   say, "I will," it must be with the proviso, "If it is God's will, I
   will do so-and-so." But God is the almighty King whose least word is a
   sovereign mandate--"I will heal their backsliding: I will love them
   freely."

   4. For My anger is turned away from him. If you have come back to the
   Lord with true penance of heart, He is no longer angry with you, but He
   is ready to welcome you again.

   5. I will be as the dew unto Israel. "Not as fire, not as tempest, but
   in gentle, yet effectual Grace, I will visit them. I will be as the dew
   unto Israel."

   5. He shall grow as the lily. "He shall be as beautiful and fair as the
   lily, though just now he was black as night."

   5. And cast forth his roots as Lebanon. "He shall be as stable as he is
   beautiful. Like old Lebanon, the mighty mountain which none can shake,
   so shall this poor sinner be when I have visited him with My love."

   6. His branches shall spread. "I will endow him with usefulness and
   influence.

   6. And his beauty shall be as the olive tree. "I will load him with
   fruit. He shall have the beauty that belongs to that fat and oily tree,
   the olive."

   6. And his smell as Lebanon. God can make the foul, polluted sinner to
   become fragrant to Him. "His smell shall be as Lebanon"

   7. They that dwell under his shadow shall return. His family, his
   workers, his neighbors who wandered from the Lord because he wandered,
   shall get good from his holy influence. His restoration shall be a
   benediction to them! "They that dwell under his shadow shall return."

   7. They shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent
   thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. All good things come to a man
   when God comes to him and he comes to God. Get right with God and you
   shall get right with all things around you--and you shall be the means
   of helping to put other people right.

   8. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols "He will
   spontaneously purge himself from the evil things which he once loved. I
   shall not need to send the hammer to break his idols, but he shall say,
   out of the fullness of his own heart, 'What have I to do any more with
   idols?'"

   8, 9. Ihave heardhim, and observedhim: Iam like a green fir tree. From
   Me isyour fruit found. Who is wise, andhe should understand these
   things? Prudent, andhe shall know them? For the ways of the LORD are
   right and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressor shall fall
   therein. Yes, they shall fall even when they are in the right ways--and
   I know of no falling that is worse than for men to be in the ways of
   religion and yet to stumble and fall even there! For, if they fall
   there, where will they notfall?
     __________________________________________________________________

"The Lord Is My Shepherd"

   (No. 3006)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE BAPTIST CHAPEL, BROMLEY, KENT, ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON, OCTOBER 16,
   1866.

   "The LORD is my shepherd."

   Psalm 23:1.

   I CANNOT say anything that is new upon this text. I have not even the
   desire to do so, but if I can remind you of old and precious Truths of
   God and also put you in remembrance of sweet experiences which are
   past, this will not be an unprofitable topic for our meditation.

   I like to recall the fact that this Psalm was probably written by David
   when he was a king. He had been a shepherd and he was not ashamed of
   his former occupation. When he had to wear a crown, he remembered the
   time when he had handled the shepherd's crook and, as a lad, with his
   sling and stone, had kept watch over his father's sheep in the
   wilderness. Some persons are too proud to remember their early
   employments, though such pride is both their folly and their shame.
   Many persons would not like, in their public devotions, to make use of
   expressions which would have any reference to their secular calling,
   but it seems to be perfectly natural, in David's case, to hear him say,
   "The Lord is my Shepherd," for he had, himself, been a shepherd and
   knew just what the word implied.

   By the gracious help of the Holy Spirit, let us see what we can get out
   of the metaphor used in our text. We must, of course, remind ourselves
   that we are not in the country where these words were written. We must,
   in thought, go to the East in order to get the full meaning of them. It
   is a great mercy that the Bible was not written according to the
   fashion of the West, for everything has changed in our part of the
   world. If this Book had been written, for instance, in the style of the
   earliest literature known in England, probably we would not have fully
   understood it, and other nations would have been altogether puzzled by
   it. But, in the East there has been little or no change for centuries.
   Oriental manners and customs are almost the same today as they were in
   the days of David, so that if we could go to Palestine at the present
   moment, we might find just such a shepherd as David was and, in
   examining his habits and actions, we would learn the meaning of the
   metaphor that David used when he said, "The Lord is my Shepherd."

   We shall notice three things about the text. First, this sentence, if
   it is true to us, guarantees us certain privileges. Secondly, it
   involves us in duties. And thirdly, it suggests to us enquiries.

   First, if this sentence is, indeed, true of each one of us, "The Lord
   is my Shepherd," then THIS GUARANTEES US CERTAIN PRIVILEGES.

   And first, the Eastern shepherd was the guide of his flock. The sheep
   never thought of going before him--it would have been an anomaly in
   nature for the sheep to go first and for the shepherd to follow. They
   had no need whatever to know the way across the trackless dessert--it
   was enough for them that the shepherd knew it. They need not know where
   the green pastures still remained throughout the droughts of summer, or
   where there were quiet resting places where they might lie down at
   noon. It was sufficient for the sheep that the shepherd knew--all that
   they had to do was patiently to follow where he led the way. David had,
   no doubt, often gone on in front of his flock, thinking with an anxious
   heart of the place where he would lead them. And as he looked back at
   them, he could see that they were patiently following him, with no
   distraction to trouble their poor brains and no vexations to worry
   their quiet minds. Happy that they were provided for, they grazed as
   they went along the way, not knowing and not needing to know where they
   were going, but quite content because their shepherd led the way.

   Transfer this thought, Christian Brother or Sister, to yourself, and
   see how the Lord is your Guide. Look at the past and note how He has
   guided you. How very little you and I have had to do with it, after
   all! We have struggled. We have

   fretted. We have repined and we have fumed against the working of
   Providence, but, after all, I do not know that we have had much more to
   do with it than the sheep in the stream has had to do with the way in
   which it has floated to the other side! There is far more of the hand
   of God in our life than there is of our own hand--if our life is what
   it ought to be. Think of our childhood, of the home where our lot was
   cast, of our youth, of the place where we were bound as apprentices, or
   where we first learned the rudiments of our various callings. And since
   then, what strange paths some of us have trod! If we had been told,
   years ago, that we should be found here today, in the circumstances in
   which we are now found, we could not have believed it. There have been
   times, in our past history, when it has seemed as if a single straw
   might decide our destiny. We were at the crossroads and the left road
   might have led us into endless sins and sorrows, but we were guided in
   the opposite direction, and so we were made to walk beside the still
   waters and to lie down in green pastures. There have been many times
   when only a word was needed--no, when a weight no heavier than a
   feather from the wing of a butterfly was all that was needed to turn
   the scale against us and to send us into quite a different orbit from
   that in which we now move! We can truly say that we have been Divinely
   led until now and, although the journey has been like that of the
   children of Israel in the wilderness--in and out, backwards and
   forwards, progressing and then retrograding and often standing
   still--yet the Lord has led us by a right way up to this present moment
   and we can truthfully say--

   "Stillhave we found that promise good Which Jesus ratified with blood!
   Still is He faithful, wise, and just, And still in Him let Israel
   trust."

   It is easy to say that the Lord has been our Shepherd in the past. It
   may not be so easy to say that He is our Shepherd in the present and
   will be our Shepherd in the future. Yet we have nothing to do with the
   future except to follow in the path of humble trust in the Lord and of
   obedience to His Word. It is not for me to sit down and make a plan of
   all I mean to do next week, or next month and so on through all my
   life. I have no right to forestall my troubles, or to begin to
   calculate my future needs. I am bound to live in simple dependence upon
   God, who sends just enough manna for each day, but no more. If I am in
   any dilemma, if I am in any difficulty, if I do not know which way I
   should take, had I not better go and tell my Heavenly Father and ask
   Him to direct me? I must remember that I am not my own shepherd and
   that I am not to guide myself any more than the sheep is to guide
   itself--but that I am to look to my great Shepherd, to watch for
   indications of His will and to receive those indications either from
   His Word, or from His Providential dealings with me, or from the
   operations of His gracious Spirit within my heart. And then I am to
   follow where God leads me, having nothing to do with the making of the
   road, but only following the Lord, my Shepherd, wherever He leads me.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I wish we remembered this Truth
   more than we do. I mean, in all things. For instance, in the matter of
   doctrinal opinions, some people have a certain minister as their
   shepherd. You know that there

   are certain people who will not go an inch beyond the point to which
   Mr. A_leads them. Then Mr. B_is the

   Prophet of somebody else. Mr. C_is the very pope of another and Mr.
   D_is the perfection of doctrine to a

   fourth! And beyond these earthly leaders none of them will go. Let us,
   however, all follow the Lord as our Shepherd! I am to make my appeal to
   this blessed Book and to ask His gracious Spirit to teach me what is
   here revealed--and when His Spirit has taught it to me, I am to let
   that be sufficient and to believe it. Even if I am the only person who
   so believes it, that shall make no difference to me. If God has guided
   me, I must follow!

   So is it with regard to all the various stages of our life. The young
   Christian ought to seek God's guidance in the important matter of
   marriage. And the young tradesman should seek Divine guidance as to
   where he shall set up his business, or commence his daily labor. In
   emigrating to another land, in moving from one house to another, in
   every step of life, we act wisely when we say, "O Lord, let everything
   be as You will. We bring here the ephod that we may enquire what is
   Your will even as they did of old." There ought to be a distinct
   recognition on our part that we desire that God should guide us--and we
   should constantly come to Him to consult with Him, for, if we do not,
   we shall be constantly making mistakes and getting into confusion. And,
   then, who but ourselves shall bear the blame in that we went before the
   fiery-cloudy pillar, chose our own path and so fell into the ditch? One
   of the Puritans said, "He who carves for himself will cut his fingers
   and get an empty plate." And it is so, in the order of God's
   Providence. And another said, "He who runs before the cloud goes on a
   fool's errand and will have to come back again." And so it shall be.
   The sheep before the Shepherd is out of place and out of order--but the
   sheep behindthe Shepherd--quietly, patiently and humbly

   following him, is both according to the order of Nature and the order
   of Grace. Let us, then, as the Lord's sheep, learn to take that
   position and not attempt to usurp the prerogative of our great
   Shepherd!

   Another great privilege which naturally comes to us through this
   relationship is that we have provisions for our needs. An Eastern
   shepherd, of course, provides for his flock as far as he can. This may
   not be a very difficult matter in England, but it is exceedingly
   difficult in countries where fodder is not so readily obtainable as it
   is here. In the summer droughts, the shepherd will have to go on
   foraging afar. And when those droughts have continued a long while,
   there will be only a few places, by the banks of the deep rivers, where
   grass can still be found. Then the prudent shepherd, as soon as he
   finds that the winter is coming on, will seek to shelter his flock in
   those secluded pastures which still remain green. And then, as spring
   returns, he conducts them to the spot where the young grass is waiting
   for them. He has to be always thoughtful and they have to be never
   thoughtful, at least with regard to their daily provender. He thinks of
   autumn while it is still springtime and he has his eyes upon the winter
   even in the midst of the summer. As for the sheep, it is enough for
   them if they lie down in the grass that is nearest to them, or walk
   gently by the still waters just where they are.

   Now certainly, beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, as the Eastern
   shepherd thus provides for his sheep, so will God provide for us! We
   have a double set of needs, yet we shall find that God is as
   all-sufficient for us as He would be if we had a sevenfold set of
   needs! I say that we have a double set of needs. There are, first, our
   bodily needs, and these are many and they are constantly recurring. I
   am not quite certain that to have a sure provision for this life is the
   most excellent thing for our spirituality. It is, of course, the most
   comfortable thing and, in many respects, the most desirable and gives
   the most opportunities for usefulness. But I am not sure whether
   fullness of bread is not always a very great temptation. Certainly, if
   I have need to find deep, robust, vigorous piety, I must
   confess--though I have no preference for one class over another--that I
   have usually found it among those who have had to live from hand to
   mouth and to struggle hard for their daily bread--for this experience
   brings men and women into real and palpable contact with the God of
   Providence and, as I appeal to these children of poverty and ask them
   whether God supplies their needs, they take out their little diaries
   or, if they do not carry them in their pockets, they carry them in
   their hearts--and they begin to tell of instance after instance in
   which the God of Abraham has revealed Himself to them as Jehovah-Jireh
   and, as they look forward to the future, they confidently cry, "The
   Lord will provide!" Sometimes, such a promise as this, "Bread shall be
   given him, his waters shall be sure," is very sweet to me, but when I
   have heard it from the lips of some poor bedridden old woman who has
   long been depending upon the charity of others--and she has told me of
   remarkable interpositions of the Lord's hand in her times of need--then
   the promise has seemed to glisten and glitter with unusual and
   extraordinary radiance! Are not some of you, dear Friends, sometimes in
   such a plight that you have to say, in the morning, "Where shall I get
   bread for this evening's meal?" This must be a choice text for you,
   "The Lord is my Shepherd." Remember that ancient promise, "Trust in the
   Lord, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall
   be fed."

   Our greater need, however, is our spiritualneed--and there are often
   moans among God's people because they are not spiritually fed as they
   ought to be. It is the crying sin of some ministries that they are not
   eedigministries. If I am to believe what I am told by many of God's
   people, they do not find the service of the sanctuary to be
   satisfactory to their souls. Brothers, if we profess to preach the
   Gospel and this is the case with us, it is a grievous fault on our part
   and we must mend our manners in this respect! But far oftener, I think,
   the Lord's people are not fed because of their own folly. They look up
   to the pulpit, but they do not see much there--if they looked up to the
   hills, from where comes their help, they would never be disappointed!
   When we look to the pastor, but not to the Master, the Master says,
   "They are looking to the wrong person, so they shall get nothing." But
   when we look to the Master, He often supplies our needs throughthe
   pastor! Let us esteem the Divinely-chosen channel as far as we should,
   but let us never forget that it is the Fountain that yields the supply!
   Though you may be tempted to say, when such-and-such a man is taken
   Home, "I shall never be able to enjoy any other ministry as I have
   enjoyed that man's," you must check yourself and say, "It is the same
   living Truth of God that survives, it is the same God who still lives,
   whoever else may die." "The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls
   away: but the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word
   which by the Gospel is preached unto you" and, therefore, you shall
   still be fed, for the Lord is your Shepherd!

   He, who can truly say, "The Lord is my Shepherd," may make sure of a
   third blessing, namely, that of constant keeping and safe protection.
   How many are our enemies! Brethren and Sisters, we are exposed to
   attack on all sides. "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he
   fall." A cold shiver has often gone through me when I have witnessed or
   heard of the fall of some whom I have honored and respected--and of
   whom I would have said that it was more likely that the stars would
   fall from their orbits than that these people should fall from their
   integrity! But, alas, the best of men are but men at the best and some
   brightly shining objects in the Church's sky have proved to be only
   meteors--"wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of
   darkness forever." It is pitiable and it is also humbling--and it
   should lead to great heart-searching and make each one of us ask,
   "Shall I forsake Him too?" And why should you not do so? What is there
   in you, dear Friend, more than there is in any other professor? Why
   should you not prove to be an apostate after all? What is there about
   me that I should stand where so many others have fallen? There is
   nothing to hold me up if I am left to myself--but if, confessing my
   liability to fall, confessing my liability to be seized by the lion,
   the bear and the wolf, I can still say, "The Lord is my Shepherd," I am
   safe! The sheep is not safe because it says, "I am stronger than the
   lion," or, "I am able to escape from the bear," or, "I shall always be
   able to avoid the wolf." Silly sheep, what can you do to protect
   yourself from your foes? Yet the sheep might feel safe enough if it
   knew that David was near, to snatch it out of the jaws of the lion, or
   to rescue it from the paws of the bear and, Beloved, we know that our
   Shepherd will never let any of His sheep perish! He has owned us too
   long and bought us too dearly--and loved us too well to ever let us go.
   You remember that He said to His disciples, even concerning the
   children who believed in Him, "It is not the will of your Father which
   is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish." He also
   said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and
   I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither
   shall any (man or devil) pluck them out of My hand."

   So, if you are the Lord's sheep, you shall be protected, provided for
   and guided till you reach the upper fold on the

   hilltop of Glory!

   You all know that the meaning of the text has not been even half
   brought out by these three thoughts, for, to shepherdize, to pastorize,
   to exercise the pastoral office is a very great and important work. The
   work of a true shepherd is not restricted to guiding, supplying and
   protecting the sheep--there are a thousand other things that he has to
   do. I think I have heard that there is no animal (except a man) that
   has so many forms of sickness as a sheep has. It may be afflicted in
   any part of its body, from its feet up to its head. There is not a
   single portion of a sheep but seems to be subject either to internal or
   to external ailments--it almost always seems to need doctoring. A
   shepherd requires to be to his flock all that a father is to his
   family, only that he has 50 families instead of one! At certain
   seasons, he must be up all night looking after the lambs and yet be all
   day watching over the sheep. Then, in addition to their sicknesses,
   sheep have a great number of follies. If there is a hole in the hedge,
   they are sure to find it out and press through it. If there is the
   richest clover in the field and nothing but dry sand outside, they will
   get through the hedge! And if but one leads the way, all the rest will
   follow it in its folly! If one should leap over the railing of a bridge
   into a river, they would all follow, even though they should all be
   drowned. They are prone to wander and ready for all sorts of
   mischief--but they never assist the shepherd in the slightest degree.
   In this respect, we are just like the silly sheep, yet, our good
   Shepherd supplies all the needs, pities all the infirmities and pardons
   all the wanderings of His poor wayward flock. We may indeed say that
   like as a shepherd pities his flock, and cares for them, so our
   Heavenly Father pities them that fear Him, and lovingly tends them day
   and night with constant care. Just as Jacob told Laban that in the day
   the drought consumed him and the frost by night, so that his sleep
   departed from his eyes, Christ can say that He watches over His
   blood-bought flock and keeps everyone of the sheep with meticulous
   care!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, I feel as if I could not say any more about
   these privileges of the Lord's sheep, but as if I needed to stop and
   sing about them. What music there is here--"The Lord is my Shepherd."
   That little word, "is," puts the whole matter beyond all question. "The
   Lord is my Shepherd." Then I shall be safely guided right up to the
   hilltop of Heaven! I shall always be amply provided for! My fortune is
   made and I shall be no loser, come what may. My bank is good and its
   wealth can never be diminished. While as to all other
   matters--protection from my foes, or whatever else I shall need between
   here and Heaven--all is secured to me because Jehovah is my Shepherd!

   II. Now, in the second place, I must speak more briefly upon THE DUTIES
   WHICH ARE INVOLVED IN THIS RELATIONSHIP.

   As a shepherd has duties appertaining to his office, so also have the
   sheep. The first duty of a sheep--that which naturally comes to a
   sheep--is confidence in the shepherd. When I have heard people talk of
   silly sheep, I have often wondered whether, if the sheep could speak,
   they might not talk of more silly men, for, of all the foolish things
   that a sheep never did, surely this is one--as it was in the meadow,
   eating the grass, it never did stop all of a sudden and say to itself,
   "I do not know what will become of me in the winter! There will be deep
   snow on the ground and I shall not be able to get at the grass. I
   cannot really see how I shall be provided for!" I never heard, even in
   a fable, of a sheep's woolly head being disturbed in that fashion--it
   has a shepherd to provide for it and it relies upon him to provide for
   all its needs! Yet you and I dear Friends, sometimes do this silly
   thing which a sheep would not do! We say, "we cannot imagine what we
   shall do if we are ever in such-and-such circumstances!" We probably
   shall never be in such circumstances, yet we keep on supposing what we
   would do if that were our lot! Some persons have a little factory in
   their house for making trouble. When God does not send them any, they
   make some for themselves! And I have heard that homemade troubles are
   just like homemade clothes--they never fit properly and they always
   last longer than any others! The trouble that I make for myself is sure
   to be a far greater trouble than any that God sends me!

   You smiled at what I said just now, but it is a fact that many
   Christians who might be happy and who ought to sing all day long, begin
   foretelling tomorrow's sorrow and, as God will not give them tomorrow's
   strength until tomorrow comes, they find their imaginary burden too
   heavy for their backs to bear! You know how the brave little band of
   warriors fought at Thermopylae. Bravery alone would have been of small
   service to them, so they took their stand in a narrow pass, where their
   foes could only advance one at a time and, consequently, Leonidas and
   his brave followers, though very weary, could hold the pass against the
   Persian host! Now, Beloved, you are at the narrow pass of "today."
   Therefore, meet your troubles one by one and, as they come, God's Grace
   will make you more than equal to them and enable you to overcome them!
   But when you get into the broad field of months and years and begin to
   think of a month's troubles, and a year's trials, you will fear that
   you will never be able to conquer them! Get into your proper place and
   stand there like a sentinel who is willing, if necessary, to die at his
   post.

   Our first duty, then, as the Lord's sheep, is confidence in our
   Shepherd. And, next, we must love our Shepherd. Dr. Thomson, in his
   admirable work, The Land and the Book, tells us that in the East, there
   often springs up an intimate affection between the shepherd and his
   sheep. There are some sheep which will keep at a distance from the
   shepherd. If he sits down at one end of a field, they are pretty sure
   to be at the other end! But there are others which keep closer to him
   and there are some which are so fond of the shepherd that you never see
   him without also seeing them close by his side. If he stops, they stop.
   If he moves, they move. They love the pasture, but they love the
   shepherd still better. Dr. Thomson tells us that these sheep are
   generally the fattest of the flock because the shepherd is sure to give
   them the best of the food. They love him and he loves them. He loves
   all the sheep, but he loves these with a very special kind of love and,
   Beloved, if we loved Christ more, we would have more true happiness,
   more real spiritual enjoyment. I am afraid that some of us who love our
   Lord are like Peter when he followed Christ afar off. We would be far
   happier if we could take John's position and lean our heads upon
   Christ's bosom.

   There is an election inside the Election of Grace. You know that Christ
   had many disciples, but that out of them He chose 12 to be His
   Apostles. Out of those 12 Apostles, He chose three favorites, Peter,
   James and John--and out of that select band of three--He chose one who
   was called "that disciple whom Jesus loved." They were all the sheep of
   the Good Shepherd and all of us who believe in Jesus are God's
   children, but there are some who seem to be more dutiful and more
   obedient children than others are--and who walk in closer communion
   with their Lord. And these have the best of the Christian life and the
   highest degree of spiritual enjoyment. I hope that you and I, who call
   Christ our Shepherd, love Him much and feel that the love of Christ
   constrains us to yield to Him our heart's deepest affection.

   Another duty of the sheep is that of following the shepherd. It is a
   fractious, wandering, troublesome sheep that is always wanting to have
   its own way and to go where it pleases. It is true that the shepherd
   still loves the wandering sheep and that he seeks it until he finds it.
   But there is another thing that he does which the parables do not tell
   us, and that is he punishes the wandering sheep. When the shepherd
   finds his wandering sheep, he rejoices over it, but he takes care that
   the sheep shall not rejoice, and he makes it sorrow for having wandered
   from him. We are told, by those who have watched Syrian sheep, that
   they are often lame. A shepherd who was asked by a gentleman what made
   a certain sheep lame, replied, "I lamed that sheep. I did it on
   purpose." "Why did you do that?" asked the gentleman, and the shepherd
   answered, "It was always wandering and I could not afford the time to
   go after it, so I lamed it, and it cannot wander away now." Sometimes
   when the sheep have been wandering, they get such a stroke from the
   shepherd's crook that you would think it would break their backs.
   Certainly, this is what you and I will get if we are Christ's sheep and
   yet persist in wandering. Like the Eastern shepherd does, He will lame
   us because He will not lose us. He will even beat us because He loves
   us. Whether obedient children will escape the rod, or not, it is
   certain that those who are disobedient shall be made to smart for it as
   surely as their father loves them!

   There is one other thing that ought to be true of me if the Lord is my
   Shepherd, and that is, I ought to recognize His rights over me and His
   property in me. The Eastern shepherd is usually the owner of his sheep.
   He may sell it, or kill it, or do what he likes with it--and no one can
   dispute his right to do so. And a genuine Christian feels that Christ
   has an absolute right in him. Whether he is to live or to die, to
   sorrow or to rejoice, should be no matter of choice to a Christian. He
   should feel that whatever is his Master's will is also his will. The
   seal of an American Missionary Society is an ax standing between an
   altar and a plow, with the motto, "Ready for either"--ready to work in
   God's field yoked to the plow, or ready to fall beneath God's
   sacrificial axe and to smoke upon God's altar--ready, with Paul, to be
   offered up when the time of our departure is at hand! We have not a
   true idea of the rights of God over us, or even of our own condition
   before Him unless we feel that we are the sheep of His pasture and that
   He may do with us exactly as He wills.

   III. Now I want, just for a few minutes, to speak upon the third point,
   which is this--THE TEXT SUGGESTS A GREAT MANY ENQUIRIES.

   We must not flippantly talk as if all the promises in Scripture
   belonged to all of us! For, my dear Friend, it may be that the Lord is
   notyour Shepherd--and if that is the case, the sheep's portion is not
   yours. We ought to be very careful not to put God's promises into the
   hands of those to whom they do not belong. The other day I saw a little
   tract bearing this title, "It is certain that God loves you." And I
   burned it, for I was afraid that somebody who had no right to it, might
   see it and believe that it was true. I do not believe that God loves
   every individual who might pick that tract up in the sense in which
   such an individual would understand the expression. I know that God
   loves, in a certain sense, all the creatures that He has made. But such
   love as that gives me no comfort as long as I am an unreconciled sinner
   under condemnation because I have not believed in God's dear Son! I
   dare not say to everyone of you, "The Lord is your Shepherd," for I do
   not think that all of you are His sheep. I cannot help fearing that
   there are some here who have no part nor lot in this matter, for they
   are still "in the gall ofbitterness and in the bonds of iniquity."

   I am going to put a few questions to you, or to point out some of the
   characteristics of one who can say, "The Lord is my Shepherd." If I am
   the Lord's sheep, I shall have something of the sheep's disposition. I
   shall perceive that His Spirit has worked in me, at any rate, some
   Divine gentleness. I know some professors who seem to me to be more
   like wolves than sheep. They snap their jaws like wolves do and their
   very speech seems to be like a wolf's howl. They dislike this and they
   hate that, and they cannot endure the other--in fact, nothing pleases
   them. A sheep has its likes and its dislikes, but it does not snarl,
   snap, howl, or growl--it is the wolf that does that--the sheep is of a
   gentler disposition. A man who cannot bear an insult is surely not a
   Christian. A man who always revenges an injury done to him is surely
   not a Christian--that is, one who is like Christ--"who, when He was
   reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not." He
   could truly say, "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."
   The giving up of what is our right--the giving up of what we may fairly
   claim as our own--is the very mark of Christ's sheep!

   Again, sheep are known by being gregarious in their habits. They always
   like to be in flocks and "we know that we have passed from death unto
   life, because we love the brethren." Many a time have I blessed the
   Holy Spirit for having inspired John to write that verse! And it is
   quite possible that some of you, dear Friends, when you could not find
   any other evidence of Grace, have been glad of such a mouse-hole as
   this into which your poor, tried, timid soul might creep and hide--"We
   know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
   brethren." A genuine love to the true children of God is a sure sign
   that we are Christ's sheep, just as the fact that the sheep flock
   together helps to prove that they are sheep! May we have more of this
   love to all our Brothers and Sisters in Christ--not merely a love to
   some saints because they happen to be our own relations, or because
   they belong to our denomination, or because they agree precisely with
   us in sentiments!--but a love to all the saints, as saints, for
   Christ's sake--yes, a love even to the bad-tempered ones, the
   irritating ones, the unsaint-like "saints." It is very hard work to
   love some of these "saints." I have

   often said that I know same good people with whom I would sooner live
   in Heaven forever than live for half an hour on earth, for they always
   seem to look at things at so curious an angle that I cannot possibly
   agree with them. Yet I must love them for Christ's sake, for, if I do
   not love them, I must question whether I really am myself one of
   Christ's sheep.

   Another evidence of being a sheep is that they are very particular in
   their feeding. A wolf can eat what the sheep would not touch, for the
   sheep must have nothing but that which is sweet and clean to feed upon.
   We have heard of some professors who can enjoy very questionable food.
   Mr. Rowland Hill had a man in his church who used to go to theatres and
   when Mr. Hill questioned him as to how he could make a Christian
   profession and yet frequent such places, he said, "Well, you see, Mr.
   Hill, I do not often go there. I only go occasionally just for a
   treat." "Ah," said the good minister, "then you are worse than I
   thought you were." And then he used this illustration. "Suppose
   somebody should spread a report that Mr. Hill was accustomed to eat
   carrion? Well, it would be a horrible story, but suppose I should say,
   'Oh, no! I do not eat carrion every day as a common article of diet--I
   only have a little now and then for a treat'? People would say, and say
   truly, 'What a filthy taste he must have! What a horrible appetite to
   call that a treat which is so foul!' So, my Friend, when you say that
   you do not go into evil company except sometimes for a treat, that
   proves which way the wind blows in your soul--and proves the direction
   in which your heart is set. It proves that you really love sin, or you
   would not roll it as a choice morsel under your tongue."

   Oh, that God would teach us, by His Grace, to estimate the true value
   of our actions, not by their outward appearance, but by the desire of
   our heart that prompts us to them. For, if we are kept back from sin
   merely by motives of respectability, or because our fellows are looking
   upon us, we are as guilty before God as if we had actually committed
   the sin because our heart still goes after its filthy idols!

   We may also judge whether we are Christ's sheep by one or two texts
   which Christ Himself has given us. I quoted to you, just now, our
   Lord's own words, "My sheep hear My voice." Did you ever hear
   Christ'svoice? I did not ask whether you ever heard your minister's
   voice, but whether you ever heard Christ's voice. Did He, Himself, ever
   speak to you so that you recognized that it was Christ's voice that you
   heard? Besides that hearing of their Savior's voice, Christ's sheep
   have a wonderful discriminating power by which they recognize Him. I
   heard a gentleman who had traveled in the East say that he thought the
   sheep must know their shepherd because of the clothes which he wore, so
   he put on a shepherd's garments and went up to some sheep, but not one
   of the sheep mistook him for their shepherd. Then he called one of the
   sheep by its proper name, but it took no notice of him--and that
   reminded him of our Savior's declaration, "A stranger will they not
   follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of
   strangers." The sheep have such a keen ear that they can detect the
   tones of their own shepherd's voice and can distinguish it from all
   others.

   So is it with Christ's sheep--they are not deceived by the voice of
   strangers, though others are deceived. I venture to prophesy that
   within 10 years from this date, the whole of this country will be
   permeated by Popery. The advance that Romanism has made during the last
   10 years is so terrible that if it continues to increase at only half
   that rate, my prophecy will prove to be a true one. The very name of
   Protestantism will die out unless God sends us a revival of Evangelical
   religion, for the fashion of the age is so set towards that which is
   gaudy, sensuous and sensational--and the whole trend of ecclesiasticism
   is so directly towards ceremonialism, that if we who love the old
   faith, do not bestir ourselves, we and our fellow countrymen will
   plunge into the Stygian bog of Popish superstition! Some of you will
   hardly believe what I am saying, but if you will only turn your mind's
   eye in the direction to which I am pointing, you will see that the
   advance of Romanism and Ritualism in this land is quite extraordinary.
   The only people who will not be swept away by this tidal wave of
   ceremonialism, are those who have heard the voice of Christ and so have
   the first mark of His sheep! If you have ever been justified by faith
   in Jesus, you will not be cajoled by a so-called "priest." If you have
   ever spiritually eaten the flesh of Christ, you will never degrade your
   Christian manhood by munching the man-made wafer-god! If you have ever
   really known Jesus Christ as your Savior, what will you care for the
   so-called "sacrifice of the mass"? You will know that it is only a
   Satanic invention to delude souls! If you have ever been regenerated by
   the Holy Spirit, the fiction of "baptismal regeneration" will be an
   abomination to you! If you have ever been vitally united to Christ, the
   living Vine, all the false and foolish talk about being saved by the
   power of sacramental efficacy will be as a stench in your nostrils
   which you cannot endure!

   So I come back to the question I asked just now--Have you heard the
   voice of Christ? Do you know the meaning of the whispering of His
   Spirit? Have you passed from death unto life? Have you been transformed
   from a wolf into a sheep?

   Have you been translated out of the Kingdom of Darkness into the
   Kingdom of God's dear Son? If so, relying upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
   whose precious blood has redeemed every one of His chosen flock, you
   can say, "The Lord is my Shepherd." But if not, and you continue to
   follow your own devices, they will lead you to destruction! God grant
   that this may not be the lot of any one of us, but may we all come,
   with childlike confidence, and put our trust in Jesus Christ, the Son
   of God, the one and only Savior of sinners. And then shall each one of
   us be able to say, with David, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not
   want."

   May God bless each one of you, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Gadding About

   (No. 3007)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Why do you gad about so much to change your way?

   Jeremiah 2:36.

   GOD'S ancient people were very prone to forget Him and to worship the
   false deities of the neighboring heathen. Other nations were faithful
   to their blocks of wood and stone, and adhered as closely to their
   graven images as though they really had helped them, or could in future
   deliver them. Only the nation which avowed its belief in the true God
   forsook its God and left the fountain of Living Water, to hew out for
   itself broken cisterns which could hold no water!

   There seems to have been speaking after the manner of men, astonishment
   in the Divine Mind concerning this, for the Lord says, in verses 10 and
   11 of this Chapter, "Pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send
   unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there is such a thing.
   Has a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? But My people
   have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be astonished,
   O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be you very desolate."
   In the 32nd verse of this same Chapter, the Lord addresses His people
   thus, "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My
   people have forgotten Me days without number." And here, in our text,
   the same astonishment appears, "Why do you gad about so much to change
   your way?" It certainly was a most unreasonable thing that a people
   with such a God, who had dealt out to them so graciously the riches of
   His love and had worked such wonders on their behalf, should turn from
   Him to the worship of Baal or Ashtaroth--mimic gods which had ears but
   heard not, eyes but saw not--and did but mock the worshippers who were
   deluded by them!

   As in a mirror, I see myself in these people. The spiritual people of
   God are well imaged in the typical nation, for, alas, waywardness and
   wandering of heart are the diseases, not only of the Israelites of old,
   but also of the true Israel now. The same expostulations may be
   addressed to us as to that erring nation of old, for we as perpetually
   backslide and as constantly forget the Almighty One and put our trust
   in an arm of flesh. He says to us, also, "Why do you gad about so
   much?" For we are, alas, too often false to Him, forgetting Him and
   wandering here and there, rather than abiding in close and constant
   fellowship with God, our exceeding joy.

   I desire to put this question first to Believers and then to the
   unconverted. May the Holy Spirit bless it to each class!

   I. If you read this question, taking it in its context, you will see,
   in the first place, that there is A RELATIONSHIP MENTIONED. The
   question is asked, "Why do you gad about so much?"

   The enquiry is not made of a traveler, nor of one whose business it is
   to journey from pole to pole and to investigate distant lands. It is
   not asked of a wayfarer lodging for a night, nor of a homeless vagrant
   who finds a poor shelter beneath every bush! It is asked by God of His
   people Israel, describing them under the character of a married wife.
   He represents the nation of Israel as being married to Him, Himself the
   Husband of Israel, and Israel His bride. To persons bearing that
   character, the question comes with great force, "Why do you gad about
   so much?" Let others wander who have no central object of attraction,
   who have no house and no "houseband" to bind them to the spot, but you,
   a married wife, how can you wander? What have you to do in traversing
   strange ways? How can you excuse yourself? If you were not false to
   your relationship, you could not do so! No, Beloved, we strain no
   metaphor when we say that there exists between the soul of every
   Believer and Jesus Christ, a relationship admirably imaged in the
   conjugal tie. We are married to Christ. He has betrothed our souls unto
   Himself. He paid our dowry on the Cross. He espoused Himself unto us in
   righteousness in the Covenant of Grace. We have accepted Him as our
   Lord and Husband. We have given ourselves up to Him and under the sweet
   Law of His Love we ought to dwell evermore in His house. He is the
   Bridegroom of our souls, and He has arrayed us in the wedding dress of
   His own righteousness. Now it is to us who acknowledge this

   marriage union and who are allied to the Lord Jesus by ties so tender
   that the Well-Beloved says, "Why do you gad about so much?"

   Observe that the wife's place may be described as a threefold one. In
   the first place, she should abide in dependence upon her husband's
   care. It would be looked upon as a very strange thing if a wife should
   be overheard to speak to another man and say, "Come and assist in
   providing for me." If she should cross the street to another's house
   and say to a stranger, "I have a difficulty and a trouble--will you
   relieve me from it? I feel myself in great need but I shall not ask my
   husband to help me, though he is rich enough to give me anything I
   require and wise enough to direct me. I come to you, a stranger, in
   whom I have no right to confide and from whom I have no right to look
   for love--and I trust myself with you and confide in you rather than in
   my husband." This would be a very wicked violation of the chastity of
   the wife's heart! Her dependence, as a married woman with a worthy
   husband, must be solely fixed on him to whom she is bound in wedlock.

   Transfer the figure, for it is even so with us and the Lord Jesus. It
   is a tender topic. Let it tenderly touch your heart and mine. What
   right have I, when I am in trouble, to seek an arm of flesh to lean
   upon, or to pour my grief into an earthborn ear in preference to
   casting my care on God and telling Jesus all my sorrows? If a human
   friend has the best intentions, yet he is not like my Lord--he never
   died for me, he never shed his blood for me and even if he loves me, he
   cannot love me as the Husband of my soul loves me. My Lord's love is
   ancient as eternity, deeper than the sea, firmer than the hills,
   changeless as His own Deity! How can I seek another friend in
   preference to Him? What a slight I put upon the affection of my Savior!
   What a slur upon His condescending sympathy towards me! How I impugn
   His generosity and mistrust His power if, in my hour of need, I cry
   out, "Alas, I have no friend." No friend while Jesus lives? Dare I say
   I have no helper? No helper while the Almighty One, upon whom God has
   laid help, still exists with strong arms and unchanged heart? Can I
   murmur and lament that there is no escape for me from my tribulations?
   No escape while my Almighty Savior lives and feels my every grief?

   Do you see my point? Put it in that shape and the question, "Why do you
   gad about so much to look after creatures as grounds of dependence?"
   becomes a very deep and searching one. Why, O Believer, do you look
   after things which are seen, heard, handled and recognized by the
   senses, instead of trusting in your unseen but not unknown Redeemer?
   Oh, why, why, you spouse of the Lord Jesus, why do you gad about so
   much?

   Have we not even fallen into this evil with regard to our own
   salvation? After a time of spiritual enjoyment it sometimes happens
   that our graces decline and we lose our joy. And as we are very apt to
   depend upon our own experience, our faith also droops. Is not this
   unfaithfulness to the finished work and perfect merit of our great
   Substitute? We knew, at the first, when we were under conviction of
   sin, that we could not rest on anything within ourselves, yet that
   Truth of God is always slipping away from our memories and we try to
   build upon past experiences, or to rely upon present enjoyments, or
   some form or other of personal attainment. Do we really wish to
   exchange the sure Rock of our salvation for the unstable sand of our
   own feelings? Can it be that having once walked by faith, we now choose
   to walk by sight? Are graces, frames, feelings and enjoyments to be
   preferred to the tried foundation of the Redeemer's Atonement? Be it
   remembered that even the work of the Holy Spirit, if it is depended
   upon as a ground of acceptance with God, becomes as much an antichrist
   as though it were not the work of the Holy Spirit at all! Dare we so
   blaspheme the Holy Spirit as to make His work in us a rival to the
   Savior's work for us? Shame on us that we should thus doubly sin! The
   best things are mischievous when put in the wrong place! Good works
   have "necessary uses," but they must not be joined to the work of
   Christ as the groundwork of our hope! Even precious gold may be made
   into an idol calf and that which the Lord, Himself, bestows may be made
   to be a polluted thing, like that bronze serpent which once was used to
   heal, but when it was idolized, came to be styled by no better name
   than a piece of brass--and was broken and put away. Do not continually
   harp upon what you are, and what you are not--your salvation does not
   rest in these things, but in your Lord! Go and stand at the foot of the
   Cross--still an empty-handed sinner to be filled with the riches of
   Christ--a sinner black as the tents of Kedar in yourself and comely
   only through your Lord.

   Again, the wife's position is not only one of sole dependence upon her
   husband's care, but it should be and is a position of sole delight on
   her husband's love. To be suspected of desiring anything of man's
   affection beyond that would be the most serious imputation that could
   be cast upon a wife's character. We are again upon very tender ground
   and I beseech each of you who are now thinking of your Lord to consider
   yourselves to be on very tender ground, too, for you

   know what our God has said--"I the Lord your God am a jealous God."
   That is a very wonderful and suggestive expression--"a jealous God."
   See that it is engraved on your hearts. Jesus will not endure it that
   those of us who love Him should divide our hearts between Him and
   something else. The love which is strong as death is linked with a
   jealousy which is cruel as the grave, "the coals thereof are coals of
   fire which have a most vehement flame." The royal word to the spouse
   is, "Forget also your own people, and your father's house and so shall
   the King greatly desire your beauty: for he is your Lord; and you must
   worship him."

   Of course, Beloved, the Master never condemns that proper natural
   affection which we are bound to give and which it is a part of our
   sanctification to give in its due and proper proportion to those who
   are related to us. Besides, we are bound to love all the saints and all
   mankind in their proper place and measure. But there is a love which is
   only for the Master. Inside the heart there must be a sanctum
   sanctorum, within the veil, where He, Himself, alone must shine like
   the Shekinah, and reign on the Mercy Seat. There must be a glorious
   high throne within our spirits where the true Solomon alone must sit,
   the lions of watchful zeal must guard each step of it. There must He,
   the King in His beauty, sit enthroned, sole Monarch of the heart's
   affections. But, alas, alas, how often have we gone far to provoke His
   anger? We have set up the altars of strange gods hard by the Holy
   Place. Sometimes a favorite child has been idolized! Another time,
   perhaps, our own persons have been admired and pampered. We have been
   unwilling to suffer though we know it to be the Lord's will--we were
   determined to make provision for the flesh. We have not been willing to
   hazard our substance for Christ, thus making our worldly comfort our
   chief delight instead of feeling that wealth to be well lost which is
   lost as the result of Jehovah's will. Oh, how soon we make idols!
   Idol-making was not only the trade of Ephesus, but it is a trade all
   the world over! Making shrines for Diana, no, shrines for self, we are
   all master-craftsmen at this work in some form or another! We have set
   up images ofjealousy which become abominations of desolation!

   We may even exalt some good pursuit into an idol! Even work for the
   Master may sometimes take Hisplace, as was the case with Martha. We are
   cumbered with much serving and often think more about the serving than
   of Himwho is to be served. The problem being that we are too mindful of
   how wemay look in the serving, and not enough considerate of Himand of
   how He may be honored by our service. It is so very easy for our busy
   spirits to gad about, and so very difficult to sit at the Master's
   feet. Now, Christian, if you have been looking after this and after
   that secondary matter-- if your mind has been set too much upon worldly
   business, or upon any form of earthly love, the Master says to you, "My
   spouse, My beloved, why do you gad about so much?" Let us confess our
   fault and return unto our rest. Let each one sing plaintively, in the
   chamber of his heart, some such song as this--

   "Why should my foolish passions rove? Where can such sweetness be As I
   have tasted in Your love, AsIhave found in Thee? Wretch that I am, to
   wander thus In chase of false delight-- Let me be fastened to Your
   Cross, Rather than lose Your sight." But a third position, which I
   think will be recognized by every wife as being correct, is not simply
   dependence upon her husband's care and delight in her husband's love,
   but also diligence in her husband's house. The good housewife, as
   Solomon tells us, "looks well to the ways of her household and eats not
   the bread of idleness." She is not a servant--her position is very
   different from that, but, for that very reason she uses the more
   diligence. A servant's work may sometimes be finished, but a wife's
   never is. "She rises also while it is yet night, and gives meat to her
   household, and a portion to her maidens." She rejoices willingly to
   labor as no servant could be expected to do. "She seeks wool, and flax,
   and works willingly with her hands." "She girds her loins with
   strength, and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise
   is good: her candle goes not out by night. She lays her hands to the
   spindle, and her hands hold the distaff." All through the night she
   watches her sick child and then through the work day, as well, the
   child is still tended, and the household cares are still heavy upon
   her. She never relaxes. She counts that her house is her kingdom and
   she cares for it with incessant care. The making of her husband happy,
   and the training up of her children in the fear of God--that is her
   business. The good housewife is like Sarah, of whom it is written that
   when the angels asked Abraham, "Where is

   Sarah, your wife?" he answered, "Behold, in the tent." It would have
   been well for some of her descendants had they been "in the tent, too,
   for Dinah's going forth "to see the daughters of the land" cost her
   dearly!

   Now this is the position, the exact position of the chaste lover of
   Jesus--he dwells at home with Jesus, among his own people. The
   Christian's place with regard to Christ is to be diligently engaged in
   Christ's house. Some of us can say, I trust, that we do naturally care
   for the souls of men. We were born, by God's Grace, to care for them,
   and could not be happy--any more than some nurses can be happy without
   the care of children--unless we have converts to look after and
   weaklings to cherish. It is well for the Church when there are many of
   her members, beside her pastors and deacons, who care for the souls of
   those who are born in the Church. The Church is Christ's family
   mansion. It should be the home of newborn souls, where they are fed
   with food convenient for them, flourished, comforted and educated for
   the better land. You have all something to do--you who are married to
   Christ have all a part assigned you in the household of God. He has
   given you each a happy task. It may be that you have to suffer in
   secret for Him, or you have to talk to two or three, or perhaps in a
   little village station, or at the corner of a street you have to
   preach, or possibly it is the distribution of a handful of tracts, or
   it is looking after the souls of a few women in your district, or
   teaching a class of children.

   Whatever it is, if we have been growing at all negligent, if we have
   not thrown our full strength into our work and have been expending our
   vigor somewhere else, may not the question come very pertinently home
   to us, "Why do you gad about so much?" Why that party of pleasure, that
   political meeting, that late rising, that waste of time? Have you
   nothing better to do? You have enough to do for your Husband and His
   Church if you do it well. You have not a minute to spare--the King's
   business requires haste. Our charge is too weighty and too dear to our
   hearts to admit of sloth. The Lord has given us as much to do as we
   shall have strength and time to accomplish, by His Grace, and we have
   no energies to spare, no talents to wrap up in napkins, no hours to
   idle away in the marketplace. One thing we have to do and that one
   thing should absorb all our powers. To neglect our holy life-work is to
   wrong our heavenly Bridegroom. Put this matter in a clear light, my
   Brothers and Sisters, and do not shut your eyes to it. Have you any
   right to mind earthly things? Can you serve two masters? What do you
   think would any kind husband here think if, when he came home, the
   children had been neglected all day, if there was no meal for him after
   his day's work and no care whatever taken of his house? Might he not
   well give a gentle rebuke, or turn away with a tear in his eye? And if
   it were long continued, might he not almost be justified if he should
   say, "My house yields me no comfort. This woman acts not as a wife to
   me"?

   And yet, Soul, is not this what you have done with your Lord? When He
   has come into His house, has He not found it in sad disorder, the
   morning prayer neglected, the evening supplication but poorly offered,
   those little children but badly taught and many other works of love
   forgotten? It is your business as well as His, for you are one with
   Him, and yet you have failed in it. Might He not justly say to you, "I
   have little comfort in your fellowship. I will leave until you treat Me
   better. And when you long for Me and are willing to treat Me as I
   should be treated, then I will return to you. But you shall see My face
   no more till you have a truer heart towards Me"?

   Thus, in personal sadness, have I put this question. The Lord give us
   tender hearts while answering it!

   II. Painful as the enquiry is, let us turn to it again. A REASON IS
   REQUESTED--what shall we give? "Why do you gad about so much?"

   I am at a loss to give any answer. I can suppose that without beating
   about the bush, an honest heart, convinced of its ingratitude to
   Christ, would say, "My Lord, all I can say for myself is to make a
   confession of the wrong. And if I might make any excuse, which after
   all is no excuse, it is this--I find myself so fickle at heart, so
   frail, so changeable--I am like Reuben, unstable as water and,
   therefore, I do not excel." But I can well conceive that the Master,
   without being severe, would not allow such an extenuation even as that
   because there are many of us who could not fairly urge it. We are not
   fickle in other things! We are not unstable in minor matters. Where we
   love, we love most firmly, and a resolve once taken by us is
   determinedly carried out. Some of us know what it is to put our foot
   down and declare that, having taken a right step, we will not retrace
   it and, then, no mortal power can move us. Now, if we possess this
   resolute character in other things, it can never be allowable for us to
   use the excuse of instability! Resolved elsewhere, how can you be
   fickle here? Firm everywhere else, and yet frail here? O Soul, what are
   you doing? This is gratuitous sin, wanton fickleness! Surely you have
   worked folly in Israel if you give the world your best, and Christ your
   worst! The world your decision, and Christ your wavering? This is but
   to make your sin worse! The excuse becomes an aggravation. It is not
   true that you

   are thus unavoidably fickle. You are not a feather blown with every
   wind, but a man of purpose and will! Ah, why, then, are you so soon
   removed from your Best-Beloved One?

   I will ask you a few questions, not so much by way of answering the
   enquiry, as to show how difficult it is to answer it. "Why do you gad
   about so much?" Has your Lord given you any cause of offense Has He
   been unkind to you? Has the Lord Jesus spoken to you like a tyrant and
   played the despot over you? Must you not confess that in all His
   dealings with you in the past--love, unmingled love has been His rule?
   He has borne patiently with your ill-manners when you have been
   foolish. He has given you wisdom and He has not upbraided you, though
   He might have availed Himself of the opportunity of that gift, as men
   so often do, to give a word of upbraiding at the same time. He has not
   turned against you, or been your enemy. Why, then, are you so cold to
   Him? Is this the way to deal with One so tender and so good? Let me ask
   you, has your Savior changed? Will you dare to think He is untrue to
   you? Is He not, "the same yesterday, and today, and forever?" That
   cannot, then, be an excuse for your unfaithfulness! Has He been
   unmindful of His promise? He has told you to call upon Him in the day
   of trouble and He will deliver you--has He failed to do so? It is
   written, "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk
   uprightly." Has He withheld a really good thing from you when you have
   walked uprightly? If, indeed, He had played you falsely, your excuse
   for deserting Him might claim a hearing, but you dare not say this! You
   know that He is faithful and true.

   "Why do you gad about so much?" Have you found any happiness in gadding
   about. I confess, sorrowfully, to wandering often and wandering much,
   but I am ready enough to acknowledge that I get no peace, no comfort by
   my wanderings, but, like a forlorn spirit, I traverse dry places,
   seeking rest and finding none. If, for a day, or a part of a day, my
   thoughts are not upon my Lord, the hour is dreary and my time hangs
   heavily. And if my thought is spent upon other topics even connected
   with my work in the Church of God, if I do not soon come back to
   Him--if I have no dealings with Him in prayer and praise--I find the
   wheels of my chariot taken off and it drags along heavily, while I cry
   to my Lord--

   "The day is dark, the night is long,

   Unblessed with thoughts of You

   And dull to me the sweetest song,

   Unless its theme is You."

   The soul that has once learned to swim in the river of Christ, will,
   when His Presence is withdrawn, be like a fish laid by the fisherman on
   the sandy shore--it begins to palpitate in dire distress and, before
   long, it will die, if not again restored to its vital element. You
   cannot get the flavor of the Bread of Heaven in your mouth and
   afterwards contentedly feed on ashes! He who has never tasted anything
   but the brown, gritty cakes of this world may be very well satisfied
   with them, but he who has once tasted the pure white Bread of Heaven
   can never be content with the old diet. It spoils a man for
   satisfaction with this world to have had heart-ravishing dealings with
   the world to come. I mean not that it spoils him for practical activity
   in it, for the heavenly life is the truest life even for earth, but it
   spoils him for the sinful pleasures of this world--it prevents his
   feeding his soul upon anything but the Lord Jesus Christ's sweet love.
   Jesus is the chief ingredient of all his joy and he finds that no other
   enjoyment beneath the sky is worth a moment's comparison with the
   King's wines on the lees, well refined!

   "Why then do you gad about so much?" For what? Oh, for what reason do
   you wander? When a child runs away from its home because it has a
   brutal parent, it is excused. But when the child leaves a tender mother
   and an affectionate father, what shall we say? If the sheep quits a
   barren field to seek after needed pasturage, who shall blame it? But if
   it leaves the green pastures and forsakes the still waters to roam over
   the arid sand, or to go bleating in the forest among the wolves, in the
   midst of danger, how foolish a creature it proves itself! Such has been
   our folly. We have left gold for dross! We have forsaken a throne for a
   dunghill! We have quitted scarlet and fine linen for rags and beggary!
   We have left a palace for a hovel! We have turned from sunlight into
   darkness! We have forsaken the shining of the Sun of Righteousness, the
   sweet summer weather of communion, the singing of the birds of promise,
   the turtle voice of the Divine Spirit and the blossoming of the roses
   and the fair lilies of Divine Love to shiver in frozen regions among
   the ice caves and snow of absence from the Lord's Presence. God forgive
   us, for we have no excuse for this folly!

   "Why do you gad about so much?" Have you not always had to pay for your
   gadding? O Pilgrim, it is hard getting back again to the right road!
   Every Believer knows how wise John Bunyan was when he depicted
   Christian as bemoaning himself bitterly when he had to go back to the
   arbor where he had slept and lost his roll. He had to do a triple
   journey--

   first to go on, and then to go back, and then to go on again! The back
   step is weary marching. Remember, also, Bypath Meadow, and Doubting
   Castle and Giant Despair. 'Twas an ill day when the pilgrims left the
   narrow way. No gain, but untold loss comes of forsaking the way of
   holiness and fellowship. What is there in such a prospect to attract
   you from the happy way of communion with Christ? Perhaps the last time
   you wandered, you fell into sin, or you met with a grief which
   overwhelmed you--ought not these mishaps to teach you? Having been
   already burned, will you not dread the fire? Having before been
   assaulted when in forbidden paths, will you not now keep to the King's
   Highway, wherein no lion or any other ravenous beast shall be found?

   "Why do you gad about so much?" Do you not even now feel the drawings
   of His love attracting you to Himself? This heavenly impulse should
   make the question altogether unanswerable. You sometimes feel a holy
   impulse to pray, and yet do not pray. You feel, even now, as if you
   wished to behold the face of your Beloved and yet you will go forth
   into the world without Him--is this as it should be? The Holy Spirit is
   saying in your soul, "Arise from the bed of your sloth and seek Him
   whom your soul loves." If your sloth prevents your rising, how will you
   excuse yourself? Even now, I hear the Beloved knocking at your door.
   Will you not hasten to admit Him? Are you too idle? Dare you say to
   Him, "I have taken off my coat, how shall I put it on? I have washed my
   feet, how shall I defile them?" If you keep Him outside in the cold and
   darkness, while His head is wet with dew and His locks with the drops
   of the night, what cruelty is this? Is this your kindness to your
   Friend? Can you hear Him say, "Open to Me, My Love, My Dove, My
   Undefiled," and yet be deaf to His appeals? Oh, that He may gently make
   for Himself an entrance! May He put in His hand by the hole of the door
   and may your heart be moved towards Him! May you rise up and open to
   Him and then your hands will drop with myrrh, and your fingers with
   sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock. But remember, if you
   neglect Him now, it will cost you much to find Him when you do arise,
   for He will make you traverse the streets after Him and the watchmen
   will smite you, and take away your veil. So rise, and admit Him now--

   "Behold! Your Bridegroom's at the door!

   He gently knocks, has knocked before.

   Has waited long; is waiting still--

   You treat no other friend so ill!

   Oh lovely attitude!He stands

   With melting heart and laden hands!

   Delay no more, lest He depart

   Admit Him to your inmost heart." He calls you yet again, even now! Run
   after Him, for He draws you. Approach Him, for He invites you. God
   grant that it may be so!

   I wish I had the power to handle a topic like this as Rutherford, or
   Herbert, or Hawker would have done, so as to touch all your hearts if
   you are at this hour without enjoyment of fellowship with Jesus. But,
   indeed, I am so much one of yourselves, so much one who has to seek the
   Master's face, myself, that I can scarcely press the question upon you,
   but must rather press it upon myself--"Why do you gad about so much to
   change your way?" Blessed shall be the time when our wanderings shall
   cease--when we shall see Him face to face and rest in His bosom! Till
   then, if we are to know anything of Heaven here below, it must be by
   living close to Jesus, abiding at the foot of the Cross, depending on
   His Atonement, looking for His coming--that glorious hope--preparing to
   meet Him with lamps well trimmed, watching for the midnight cry,
   "Behold, the Bridegroom comes"--standing always in His Presence,
   looking up to Him as we see Him pleading before the Throne of God and
   believing that He is always with us, even unto the end of the world.
   May we be, in future, so fixed in heart that the question need not
   again be asked of us, "Why do you gad about so much?"

   And now I have to use the text, for a few minutes, in addressing those
   who are not converted.

   I trust that some of you who are not yet saved, nevertheless have a
   degree of desire towards Christ. It is well when, like the climbing
   plant, the heart throws out tendrils, trying to grasp something by the
   help of which it may mount higher. I hope that desire of yours after
   better things and after Jesus, is something more than Nature could have
   imparted. Divine Grace is the source of gracious desires. But that is
   not the point. Your desires may be right and yet your method of action
   mistaken. You have been trying after peace, but you have been gadding
   about to find it. The context says that the Israelites would soon be as
   weary of Egypt as they had been of Assyria. Read the whole passage,
   "Why do you gad about so much to change your way? You also shall be
   ashamed of Egypt, as you were ashamed of Assyria. Yes,

   you shall go forth from him and your hands upon your head: for the Lord
   has rejected your confidences, and you shall not prosper in them" (Jer
   2:36, 37). Their gadding about would end in their being confounded at
   last as they were at first. Once they trusted in Assyria and the
   Assyrians carried them away captive, that was the end of their former
   false confidence. Then they trusted in Egypt--and met with equal
   disappointment.

   When a man is first alarmed about his soul, he will do anything rather
   than come to Christ. Christ is a harbor that no ship ever enters except
   under stress of weather. Mariners on the sea of life steer for any port
   except the fair haven of Free Grace. When a man first finds comfort in
   his own good works, he thinks he has done well. "Why," he says, "this
   must be the way of salvation! I am no longer a drunkard. I have taken
   the pledge. I am no longer a Sabbath-breaker. I have taken a seat at a
   place of worship. Go in and look at my house, Sir, you will see that it
   is as different as possible from what it was before! There is a moral
   change in me of a most wonderful kind and surely this will suffice!"
   Now, if God is dealing with that man in a way of Grace, he will soon be
   ashamed of his false confidence. He will be thankful, of course, that
   he has been led to morality, but he will find that bed too short to
   stretch himself upon. He will discover that the past still lives--that
   his old sins are buried only in imagination--the ghosts of them will
   haunt him, they will alarm his conscience. He will be compelled to feel
   that sin is a scarlet stain, not to be so readily washed out as he
   fondly dreamed. His self-righteous refuge will prove to be a bowing
   wall and a tottering fence! Driven to extremities by the fall of his
   tower of Babel, the top of which was to reach to Heaven, he grows weary
   of his former hopes. He finds that all the outward religion he can
   muster will not suffice, that even the purest morality is not enough,
   for, over and above the thundering of conscience, there comes clear and
   shrill as the voice of a trumpet, "You must be born-again!" "Except a
   man is born-again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." "Except you are
   converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the
   Kingdom of Heaven."

   Well, then, what does he do? He resolves to find another shelter to
   exchange Assyria for Egypt. That is to say, as works will not do, he
   will try feelings! And the poor soul will labor to pump up repentance
   out of a rocky heart and, failing to do so, will mistake despair for
   contrition! He will try as much as possible to feel legal convictions.
   He will sit down and read the books of Job and Jeremiah till he half
   hopes that, by becoming a companion of dragons and an associate of
   owls, he may find rest. He seeks the living among the dead, comfort
   from the Law, healing from a sword. He conceives that if he can feel up
   to a certain point, he can be saved! If he can repent to a certain
   degree--if he can be alarmed with fears of Hell up to fever heat then
   he may be saved. But, before long, if God is dealing with him, he gets
   to be as much ashamed of his feelings as of his works. He is thankful
   for them as far as they are good, but he feels that he could not depend
   upon them and he remembers that if feelings were the way of salvation,
   he deserves to feel Hell, itself, and that to feel anything short of
   eternal wrath would not meet the Law's demands! The question may fitly
   be put to one who thus goes the round of works, feelings and, perhaps,
   of ceremonies and mortifications, "Why do you gad about so much?" It
   will all end in nothing.

   You may gad about as long as you will, but you will never gain peace
   except by simple faith in Jesus! All the while you are roaming so far,
   the Gospel is near you, where you now are, in your present state,
   available to you in your present condition, now, for, "now is the
   accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." O Sinner, you are
   thinking to bring something to the Most High God and yet He bids you
   come "without money and without price." Your Father says to you, "Come
   now, and let us reason together: though your sins are as scarlet, they
   shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall
   be as wool." He declares to you the way of salvation, "Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." He calls to you in His
   gracious Word and says, "Whoever will, let him take the water of life
   freely." He bids you trust in His Son, who is the appointed Savior, for
   He has laid help upon One that is mighty! He thus addresses you,
   "Incline your ears and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live;
   and I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies
   of David." You want pardon and Jesus cries from the Cross, "Look unto
   Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." You want
   justification and the Father points you to His Son, and says, "By His
   knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many, for He shall bear
   their iniquities." You want salvation and He directs you to Him who is
   exalted on high to give repentance and remission of sins. The God of
   Heaven bids you look to His dear Son and trust Him!

   Though I preach this Gospel almost every day of the week--and scarcely
   a day passes without my telling the old, old story--yet it is always
   new. If you who hear me so often, grow weary of it, it is the fault of
   my style of putting it, for, to myself, it seems fresher every day! To
   think that the tender Father should say to the prodigal son, "I ask
   nothing of you. I am willing to receive you, sinful, guilty, vile as
   you are--though you have injured Me and spent My substance with
   harlots. Though you have fed swine and though you are fit to be nothing
   but a swine-feeder all your days, yet come, just as you are, to My
   loving bosom--I will rejoice over you and kiss you, and say, 'Bring
   forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and
   shoes on his feet!'" Sinner, God grant you Grace to end all your
   roamings in your Father's bosom! "Why do you gad about so much?"
   Renounce all other hopes and fly away to the wounds of Jesus. "Why do
   you gad about so much to change your way?" Listen and obey these
   closing lines--

   "Wearysouls who wander wide

   From the central point of bliss

   Turn to Jesus crucified,

   Fly to those dear wounds of His!

   Sink into the purple flood

   Rise into the life of God.

   Find in Christ the way of peace,

   Peace unspeakable, unknown!

   By His pain He gives you ease,

   Life by His expiring groan.

   Rise, exalted by His fall--

   Find in Christ your All in AH."
     __________________________________________________________________

An All-important Question

   (No. 3008)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
   JANUARY 13, 1867.

   "Doyou believe in the Son of God?" John 9:35.

   THE man to whom our Savior addressed this question had been born blind,
   but he had been the subject of one of the Master's mightiest miracles
   and was rejoicing in the possession of his newly-found sight! Our Lord
   is not accustomed to doing things by halves, so, having given to this
   poor man natural sight, He intended to also give him spiritual'sight.
   Having delivered him from the misery of living in this world in
   darkness, He would also deliver him from the dense darkness that
   brooded within his soul. "Blessed be the name of the Lord, we are never
   straitened in Him, but only in ourselves; and when we receive not, it
   is either because we ask not, or because we ask amiss." Our Lord had
   given to this man His left hand full of minor mercies and now He finds
   him out with His right hand full of yet richer treasures-- giving to
   him exceeding abundantly above what he had asked or even thought!

   In order to effect this man's salvation, our Lord asked him a question
   upon a most vital point--"Do you believe in the Son of God?" That
   question I will try to press home upon all my Hearers, asking you, dear
   Friends, high and low, rich and poor, old and young, learned and
   ignorant to listen to the question, to give it an honest and earnest
   consideration and to endeavor, as in the sight of God, to answer it
   from your inmost heart.

   I. In the first place, the question of the text, "Do you believe in the
   Son of God?" IS A MOST NECESSARY

   QUESTION.

   I believe it is a question which ought to be asked from the pulpit far
   more often than it is. I have been frequently pained, in reading
   sermons and on the rare occasions when I have had the opportunity of
   hearing sermons, to note that they have been addressed to the whole
   congregation just as though all were Christians. It is too much the
   custom for ministers to address the whole assembly as "Brothers and
   Sisters" and to speak to a mixed multitude of men and women as if they
   all had a part and lot in spiritual things. It seems that if anywhere,
   certainly in the pulpit, there should be a wise and constant use of
   discrimination. The preacher should make his hearers clearly understand
   that there are some who fear God and some who fear Him not--some who
   are still dead in trespasses and sins--and others who are alive unto
   God through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit. It would be a very
   wicked thing for me to delude you with the notion that you are all
   saved, for I cannot help fearing that some of you are not yet saved.
   The outward lives of some here are quite sufficient evidence that they
   have never been sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, I feel sure that
   I am addressing some who would not venture to even claim that they are
   Christians! They are too honest to do that, for they know that they are
   strangers to the saving power of the Grace of God! And how dare these
   lips of mine call those the children of God who are, at present, the
   children of wrath, even as others? How can my tongue pronounce that to
   the gold which I know is but dross? How can I speak to those of you who
   are living and, I fear will die without a Savior, as though you had an
   equal interest in the precious blood of Jesus with those who believe in
   Him?

   Further, the Sunday school teacher must never take this matter for
   granted with his scholars any more than the preacher must take it for
   granted with his hearers. Even when the dear children appear to be
   favorable to the reception of the Truth of God, to be impressed by the
   story of the Cross and to have a sort of childish love to Jesus, I
   think it is still well for us to ask this question over and over again,
   with tearful earnestness, "dear child, do you believe in the Son of
   God? for, if not, all that pretty talk of yours and all those hopeful
   feelings of yours will bring you no solid, lasting good! Unless you
   believe in Jesus, you are outside the bounds of the Kingdom of Grace."

   The people who need to have this question most plainly put to them are,
   probably, those who have had godly parents and who have been brought up
   under religious influences. It is an untold blessing to have had godly
   parents. It is an unspeakable mercy to have been in the habit of
   attending a place of worship from our childhood, but there are dangers
   connected with even these blessings. It is not bigotry, it is not a
   lack of Christian charity, it is not censoriousness when we say that
   there are tens of thousands of people who have attended the services of
   the Church of England from their childhood and who believe that in
   their baptism they were made members of Christ, the children of God and
   inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven! And that since the bishop's hands
   were laid upon them in their confirmation, there is no need to ask them
   whether they believe in the Son of God. Do they not say, in their
   Creed, "I believe in God the Father...and in Jesus Christ, His Son"? To
   ask such people whether they believe in the Son of God must surely be a
   piece of impertinence! Yet I venture to say that there are no people in
   the whole world who need more to be asked that question than they do.
   And while it is especially so in the Church of England because the
   Prayer Book helps Episcopalians to imagine that they are Christians
   when they are not, it is very much the same among Dissenters!

   Many of you were taken to a place of worship in your mother's arms and,
   therefore, unless you have been privileged to sit under a very honest
   and faithful ministry, you may be led to conceive that you are the
   children of God through your godly ancestry--and to imagine that the
   Grace of God runs in your blood and that you are a Christian because
   your father was a Christian. And that you ought to join a Christian
   church because your ancestors, for many generations, have belonged to
   that church. Beware of a mere ancestral religion which may be of no
   more value than the ancestral religion of the Chinese! Do not suppose
   that you are personally right in the sight of God because you have had
   a godly mother and father, or godly grandparents? Christ's message to
   all who have not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit is, "You must be
   born-again." True religion is personal--it is a thing which concerns
   each man himself! In the Prayer Book there is same nonsense about a
   sponsor promising, in a child's name, that he shall "renounce the devil
   and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all
   covetous desires of the same and the carnal desires of the flesh." Why,
   the sponsor cannot promise to do all that for himself, much less can he
   promise it for the child! No, you must yourselves come to God through
   Christ, personally make confession to Him of your own sins, seek pardon
   for your own selves, look with your own eyes to Christ upon the Cross
   and find salvation in Him for yourselves. All teaching that is contrary
   to this is nothing but deception--the invention of priestcraft or of
   the devil! And may God graciously enable you to escape from its snares!

   It also strikes me that this question ought to be frequently asked of
   all religious professors and especially of all ministers of the Gospel
   It is a terribly easy matter to be a minister of the Gospel and a vile
   hypocrite at the same time. My Brothers in the ministry, I feel this to
   be only too true, and I often regret that I am not able to sit in one
   of those pews yonder, to listen to some faithful Brother minister who
   would help me to see myself as I really am in the sight of God-- and
   cause me to tremble before Him, lest I should be either self-deceived
   or a deceiver of others! It is our misfortune that if we begin to
   preach without being truly converted, there is little likelihood that
   we shall ever be converted! This thought makes the pulpit to become a
   place where our shoes may well be, metaphorically, taken off our
   feet--a place of trembling, alarm and anxiety--for who is to preach to
   the preacher if he is, himself, unregenerate? Who shall press upon him
   the question, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" Oh, then what solemn
   heart-searching, what strict self-examinations the preacher should
   have! How he should lay bare his breast before the all-searching eyes
   of God, implore the inspection of the Infallible, ask to be weighed in
   the balances of the sanctuary which cannot err, and seek to be judged
   by Almighty Wisdom lest, as Paul said, after having preached to others,
   he himself should be a castaway!

   And it is very much the same, I am persuaded, with the deacons and
   elders of the church. Ah, my Brothers, it is a high privilege to be
   officers of a Christian Church! And for many of you I have long thanked
   God every time I have bowed my knees before Him. Yet I must remind you
   that even you may be deceived, for some like you have been deceived. As
   I look back, with trembling, over the years of my pastorate in London,
   I cannot help recalling some who did run well, yet something or someone
   hindered them so that they obeyed not the Truth of God. As they turned
   back, may not any one of you, my Brothers, do the same? May not I also
   go and do likewise? Nothing but the Grace of God will prevent such a
   calamity!

   I do not know how to talk with you as I want to do concerning this sad
   condition of soul. My heart would, if it could, get rid of my tongue
   and then it would speak to you something like this--Did not some of
   you, at one time, the

   moment you awoke in the morning, begin communing with God? Were there
   not red-letter days, when, from morning light to evening shade, you
   were in fellowship with the Most High? You had your burdens, but you
   always carried them to Jesus! And you had your joys, but you always
   shared them with Him. You lived for Him! Your heart was warm towards
   Him. You walked with Him in constant communion, but now, can you
   reallylive without even thinkingof Him? Can you be happy without
   thinking of your God? Have you a better house than you used to have,
   and more money, more friends, more of this world's good things--and do
   you now forget your God and go the whole day without any communication
   between your soul and Him? Ah, then, you have, indeed, gone down in the
   world, not up! You are getting poorer and poorer. God help you! If you
   had come to me and told me that you had lost everything, but that you
   loved Jesus more, I would have sympathized with you because of your
   trouble, but I would have congratulated you upon your Grace. But now
   that you have got on so well in the world that you do not love your
   Lord as you once did, I can only pity you because of your dreadful
   prosperity and mourn over the fearful loss which you have experienced.

   And as for you who have been members of this church year after year,
   you who have been baptized into the name of the ever-blessed Trinity,
   you who have often gathered around your Master's Communion Table,
   permit me to shake you out of the slumbers of your fancied security! If
   you have taken it for granted that all must be well with you because
   you are a member of a Christian Church, I do beseech you to make
   diligent search, lest you should be mistaken. I am no advocate of
   doubts and fears, as you all well know--on the contrary, I delight to
   extol the blessings of a full assurance of faith--yet, at the same
   time, I am well aware that it is hardly possible to have too much holy
   anxiety and sacred suspicion lest we should not be right with God! I do
   solemnly beseech you, by the living God--everyone of you old
   professors, you venerable fathers in our Israel-- to again put this
   question of questions to your own heart and conscience, "Do you believe
   in the Son of God?" Have you a real, vital faith in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, or is it only a mere notion or name, a mere sham to which you
   are trusting? God grant that we may all answer the question, and answer
   it honestly, as in His sight, for it is a most necessary question for
   every one of us to answer!

   II. Secondly, and but briefly, I want to remind you that the question
   of the text is A REMARKABLY PLAIN QUESTION. "Do you believe in the Son
   of God?"

   Some people delight to see difficulties even where there are none. They
   revel in reading the Bible through spectacles of various colors. When
   you and I read our Bibles, there are certain passages which seem
   perfectly plain to us--we can understand them without any difficulty.
   But, when these sectarians read the Bible, they find out such
   novelties, such astounding marvels, such wonderful things that are to
   happen in the future, that I can only say that if their interpretation
   of the Bible is the correct one, it is a strange sort of Bible for God
   to have given to ordinary Christians like ourselves, for we might have
   read the Bible through 50 times, yet never have found out such
   mysterious doctrines and practices as the people profess to have
   discovered there! May God graciously preserve all of you from falling
   into the snares that are set by these inventors of novelties and
   absurdities! They are always hunting after some new thing, like the
   Athenians of old, and they lead many away from the simple Truths of the
   Gospel.

   But the question in our text is not a difficult or obscure one. It is,
   as our proverb says, "as plain as a pike-staff"-- "Do you believe in
   the Son of God?" Perhaps you would like me to explain to you the
   Doctrine of Election! Well, I may do that another day. Possibly you
   would like to hear about the Second Advent and that, also, I may tell
   you, as far as I can, in due time, but just now the question is
   concerning your soul's most vital interests. How do you stand in
   relation to God--and especially in relation to Jesus Christ whom He has
   sent to be the Propitiation for the sins of all who believe in Him?
   This question is short, simple, plain, pointed--"Do you believe in the
   Son of God?" That is to say, is Jesus Christ, who was born of the
   Virgin Mary, acknowledged by you to be the Son of God? You know that He
   died in the place of sinners and that His sacrifice atoned for the sins
   of all who trust in Him, so that God can be just, and yet the justifier
   of all who believe in His Son. So again I ask, "Do you believe in the
   Son of God?" When we were singing, a little while ago--

   "Jesus our Lord is crucified"--

   did you feel that the crucified Christ was your Lord and Savior? Did
   you rest your soul, for time and eternity, upon that blessed Substitute
   for sinners, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, expiring upon the accursed
   tree? If so, it is well with your soul! But if not--if your answer to
   the question of the text is in the negative, it amounts to this--"I
   will not accept the Propitiation which God has set forth--the only
   Savior whom God has provided, shall not save me. I will not come unto

   Him that I may have life. I will force my way to Heaven by my own works
   or merits, or else I will go down to Hell neglecting His great
   salvation." That is the real meaning of your negative answer! And I ask
   you, as an honest man, to do one thing if that is your answer--say it
   to yourself in so many words or, better still, write it down and sign
   it with your name. If you mean to serve Baal, say so! If you mean not
   to have Christ as your Savior, say so! Sit down and write out the
   reasons why you reject Christ--put them in black and white, that you
   may see them and weigh them--as every right-minded man should do when
   he takes such an extraordinary course. If you think that Christ is not
   worth having for a Savior, say in your own handwriting, "I will not
   have Him. I will not trust Him. I will not be saved by Him." If you do
   that, there will be something done, sad as it will be. But, at any
   rate, answer the question of the text, for it is so plain and simple
   that it deserves a perfectly plain and straightforward answer.

   III. Now, in the third place, and again with great brevity, I want to
   show you that THIS IS A VERY PERSONAL QUESTION "Do you believe in the
   Son of God?"

   You, young man, have been giving away tracts this afternoon. That is a
   very proper occupation, but do you believe in the Son of God? You,
   young woman, have been teaching a class in the Sunday school. That is
   well done on your part, I hope, but, "Do you believe in the Son of
   God?" You, my Brother, have been preaching the Gospel, this morning,
   according to your ability. So far, so good, but, "Do you believe in the
   Son of God?" Some of us sat, this morning, at the close of the public
   service, around our Master's Communion Table, where we broke bread in
   His name, as is our custom on the first day of the week, but, my fellow
   communicant, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" Wife, you have nothing
   to do with your husband in this matter and, husband, you and your wife
   must be set apart in this instance. For the moment, forget that dear
   child of yours! Hold him on your knee if you will, but apply not the
   question to him just now, but answer for yourself, "Do you believe in
   the Son of God?" That is to say, has your heart really felt the weight
   of your own sin and have you come to Jesus Christ and given that
   life-look at the Crucified One which brings instantaneous pardon to all
   who believingly look? "Do you believe in the Son of God?"

   Even our own prayers may come to be idols and hindrances to us. We may
   think that the way of salvation is to pray, which it certainly is not,
   for the way of salvation is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to
   believe on Him at once! Unbelieving prayers will leave us as they find
   us--they cannot yield us any comfort. As it is with the prayers of
   others, so is it with our own--unless faith in Jesus Christ is mingled
   with them, they can never be a sweet savor unto God, and they can never
   bring a blessing to our own souls. What you have to do, dear Friend,
   broken-hearted and cast down, is to look away from yourself and all
   your fellow men, to Him whom God has set forth to be a Propitiation for
   sin. Looking to Him brings life to the soul and the testimony
   concerning all the saints is this, "They looked unto Him and were
   lightened: and their faces were not ashamed." However feeble may be
   your eyesight, and however dark may be your surroundings--

   "There is life for a look at the Crucified One"--

   and whoever looks unto Him shall live! Those who were bitten by the
   serpents in the wilderness were in various stages of poisoning. Some of
   them, no doubt, had their eyes well-near closed shut by the swellings
   that arose through the bites of the serpents. But, however feeble was
   the look they gave--if it was only through the corner of the eye--if
   they did but catch a glimpse of the serpent of brass that Moses set
   upon the pole, as God commanded him, they lived at once! And if, in
   your case, sin seems to prevent the full exercise of faith and your
   consciousness of guilt hinders your belief in Jesus Christ, yet say to
   Him, "Lord, I believe; help You my unbelief." Touch at least the hem of
   His garment and you shall find that it is not the measure of your
   faith, but the measurelessness of His Grace that will bring you the
   blessing you need! Though your faith is weak, His Grace is strong!
   Though you can scarcely believe in Him, all things are possible unto
   Him and He can cause even your weak faith to be the means of bringing
   salvation to you!

   Ah, my dear Hearers, plainly as I am speaking to you--and the gaudiness
   of oratory would be out of place here-- how hard it is to get you to do
   what I urge you to do! I would gladly go down these stairs and talk to
   you one by one, but I might fail even with such an expedient as
   that--and there are far too many of you for me to come to each one! Yet
   I remember how holy Richard Baxter pleaded with his people, "I would
   gladly come and kneel down before you, one by one, and say to you, 'Why
   will you reject the Savior? Why will you die? Why will you cast away
   your souls?'" If I cannot do that literally, my spirit shall do it. My
   Hearer, I ask you, each one, "Do you believe in the Son of God? This is
   the question which must be put personally to you for you must die alone
   and you must rise in your own body, and you must

   be judged alone--and if you will not believe in the Son of God, you
   must be condemned alone--you must personally be cast into Hell! There
   can be no sponsor for you in the flames of Hell, no substitute for you
   to bear your everlasting woe in your place. You yourself will be cast
   into Hell if you remain an unbeliever and, therefore, again I ask you,
   "Do you believe in the Son of God?"

   Thus I have shown you that the question of the text is a necessary,
   plain, personal question.

   IV. Now, fourthly, I have to tell you that THIS QUESTION IS
   FUNDAMENTAL. "Do you believe in the Son of God?"

   This question goes right down to the very foundations of our faith--the
   fundamentals, as we most properly call them. I do not think that we are
   right in asking for answers to very abstruse questions from young
   people. An aged Christian may be asked many questions concerning his
   experience--the depth of his sense of inward sin, the height of his
   enjoyment of fellowship with Christ. These are proper points to be
   brought before those "who are of full age, even those who by reason of
   use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." It
   would be very improper to put questions upon these points to a babe in
   Grace, but it would not be improper to put to a babe in Grace the
   question now before us. I venture to come to any man who professes to
   be a Christian--and whether he is illiterate or not--to put to him this
   question, "Do you believe in the Son of God?"

   I wish that some of you would put this fundamental question to
   yourselves, instead of trusting to the nonsense and absurdity in which
   you sometimes put your trust. Why, to this very day, there are some
   people who believe that they are Christians because, as they looked out
   of the window, they thought to themselves, "If the Lord is gracious to
   us, we hope the sun will shine upon us." The sun did shine upon them
   and, therefore, they think that God must be gracious to them! What
   fools they must be to talk like that! Others have said that as they
   were at their work, or in their bed, they thought they heard a voice.
   Suppose you did, what then? If all the voices in the world were heard
   by you, I would not give a penny for your religion if you do not
   believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! Another says, "I had such-and-such a
   text impressed upon my mind." If it had been impressed upon your heart
   by the Holy Spirit, it would have been a different matter. There is a
   superstitious way of misusing the Bible, of which even Mr. Wesley was
   guilty when he put a pin into the Scriptures to find out what he ought
   to do in a certain emergency! I believe that was as wicked as if he had
   shuffled a pack of cards for the same purpose. God does not guide us in
   any such way as that. Neither is there any importance to be attached to
   what you dream, or what you heard, or what you saw--the one fundamental
   question is, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" If you do, and yet you
   never dreamed a dream in all your life, thank God that you have slept
   so well and that you have not been troubled with indigestion, which is
   a great cause of dreams and visions of the night. If you have never
   heard mysterious voices, thank God that you have a well-regulated
   imagination and a well-balanced mind. If you have never had a text that
   seemed to speak to you like a mysterious incantation, thank God that
   when you reverently read the Scripture, it speaks to you as the voice
   of God, and not as the voice of some witch of Endor, or as the voice of
   some old Delphic oracle speaking to a superstitious ear! My Brother, if
   you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, all is well with you, so far as
   your salvation is concerned. You may ask yourself, "Am, I growing in
   Grace? Am I making such advances as I ought, in the Divine life?" These
   questions are right and proper and deserve to be duly pondered by you,
   but if you believe on the Son of God, you have the root of the matter
   in you! You have the Tree of Life planted in your soul and you shall
   assuredly find a place in the Paradise of God. So, ask no further
   question upon this point, for this is the fundamental question--"Do you
   believe in the Son of God?"

   V. Now just for a few moments, let me remind you of what you know so
   well, namely, that, THIS QUESTION IS

   ALL-IMPORTANT.

   "Have you made your will?" somebody asks, and that is a very important
   question to one who has anything to leave. I think that people ought to
   see to that matter and there are 50 other questions that might be
   asked, all of which would have their relative importance, but this is
   the weightiest question of all--"Do you believe in the Son of God?" How
   can I put that question, with due solemnity, to each person in this
   congregation? Do you not know, Man, that life and death, Heaven and
   Hell and bliss or unutterable woe depend upon your answer to that
   short, simple question? If you believe on Jesus, there are robes of
   whiteness and tearless eyes for you! But if you believe not, there are
   for you--

   "Flames that no abatement know Though briny tears forever flow!"

   If you can truly say, as you look, by faith, to the precious blood of
   Jesus, "I am washed in that crimson flood and I am clean every
   whit"--if it is, indeed, so, then all things are yours, whether things
   present or things to come, life or death, time or eternity--all are
   yours, for you are Christ's and Christ is God's. All is well with you
   now, and all shall be well with you forever and ever! But, oh, if you
   have to shake your head and sorrowfully say, "No, I never was cleansed
   by Christ's blood. I never accepted Him as my Savior." Do you know what
   your portion must be? Come, Man, do not close your eyes, like the silly
   ostrich, and then think to escape the hunter because you do not look
   upon him! Come Man, come look at the portion that awaits you! Do you
   start at sight of it? Can you see your dying bed surrounded with gloom
   and darkness? Are you afraid of that? That is a fair sight compared
   with what I have yet to show you!

   There, move away that bed, and let the next scene appear. Do you see
   that? What? Dare you not look at it? It is your naked spirit shivering
   before the face of God while He pronounces its doom! Does that frighten
   you? I have to show you a more terrible picture by far than that! It is
   the earth on a blaze--the mountains are reeling to and fro, like
   drunken men! The stars, like withered fig leaves, are falling from the
   sky! The sun is becoming black as a sackcloth of hair and all the while
   you are crying to the hills to cover you and to the rocks to give you
   shelter, for the great Day of God's Wrath has come and you are unable
   to endure it! Can you not gaze upon that picture? It is what you will
   come to if you remain unsaved. But if you are afraid of the picture,
   why are you not afraid of the dreadful reality, for I have not yet
   shown you the worst of your doom? I scarcely dare to lift the curtain
   which hides that dreadful prison of the lost, "where their worm dies
   not, and the fire is not quenched," where the wrath to come, like a
   mighty ocean, never ceasing in its fiery flow, beats over the guilty
   forever and ever! Where the fierce tornado of the Divine Wrath blows
   upon the lost forever and ever, leaving them never a resting place, nor
   a moment's cessation from their awful agony!

   My poor words, which may seem to some, terrible in their intensity, are
   feeble compared with the weighty words of the Lord Jesus as recorded in
   the Gospels and, therefore, as a man who cares for you, and who would
   gladly have you care for your own immortal souls, I do implore you,
   each one, to ask yourself this question, "Do you believe in the Son of
   God?" If you must honestly answer, "No," then I ask you, Will you not
   believe in Jesus now? Oh, that the Holy Spirit would graciously enable
   you, this very hour, to trust wholly to that glorious finished work
   which, on the Cross, my Master has concluded once and for all, and the
   merit of which, even in Heaven, He delights to bestow upon all the sons
   and daughters of men who will believe on Him!

   VI. I feel persuaded, further, that, this is A QUESTION WHICH CAN BE
   ANSWERED AND WHICH OUGHT TO BE ANSWERED. "Do you believe in the Son of
   God?"

   I did not put into "Our Own Hymn Book" the hymn which begins--

   "'Tis a point I long to know Oft it causes anxious thought-- Do I love
   the Lord or no? Am I His, or am I not?"

   I deliberated a good deal about it and I left it out, not because I
   doubt whether a Christian may sing it, not because I have not sung it
   myself, but because I am not quite clear that I ought to ask any
   congregation to sing it, for I hope that most of those in any ordinary
   congregation will not be in such a state of mind as that. It is a
   suitable hymn for one to sing sometimes in private, when one cannot
   sing anything better--but it would scarcely suit a company of true
   Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ! A man may be and I think sometimes
   will bein doubt as to whether he really believes in Jesus, but chronic
   doubt is a sin that is not to be tolerated! Constant questioning as to
   whether you are saved, or not, is an unhealthy state for any of you to
   be in. You cantell and you oughtto tell whether you believe in Christ,
   or whether you do not believe in Him. Faith is, in one sense, the gift
   of God, but, in another sense, it is a mental act for which we are
   responsible. God gives us faith, but He does not believe for us. He
   does not give us faith as we give our children bread, but He, by the
   gracious operation of His Holy Spirit, makes us willing in the day of
   His power--and then we will to believe in Jesus and we do believe in
   Him. Well, then, this being the case, I should think that you can, each
   one, tell whether you have ever believed in God's Son as readily as you
   can tell whether you have ever trembled at God's Word. One mental act
   must surely be as much under the cognizance of your inner consciousness
   as another mental act is.

   Besides, you can judge whether you have faith by seeing whether you
   have its fruits. If you have believed on the Son of God, you have a
   care about spiritual things which you never had while you were an
   unbeliever. You are living in a world that is new to you--in the
   spiritual realm where God rules by His Spirit--and you are no longer
   confined to that

   which you can see with your eyes and touch with your fingers. You now
   see, and hear, and feel, and know a thousand things of which you were
   formerly utterly unaware. If you have truly trusted in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, you are "a new creature; old things are passed away; behold,
   all things are become new." You love what once you hated and you hate
   what once you loved. You have altogether new tastes--you would not now
   find pleasure where once you reveled in it! And the weariness which you
   formerly felt in the services of God's House is now all gone and you
   find the Sabbath to be a delight, and the company of God's people to be
   a foretaste of Heaven! Are you, dear Friends at this moment desirous to
   be obedient to all the Lord's Commandments? Obedience to God is a
   flower that never grew on nature's dunghill! It grows only where the
   Spirit of God has tilled the soil and planted the root from which it
   springs. Surely you know whether you believe in Christ or not! At any
   rate, go not to your bed this night till you know the truth about your
   case. Fall not asleep with even the possibility that you may awake in
   Hell! Rest not, Man, till you are forever safe! Sleep not till you know
   that God is your Friend and that Christ is your Savior, lest, in the
   watches of the night, the hair of your head should stand on end with
   horror as you are awakened to find that your last hour has come and you
   are not prepared to stand before your Judge!--

   "How will your heart endure

   The terrors of that day

   When earth and Heaven, before your face

   Astonished shrink away?"

   VII. Now I must come to the conclusion of my discourse and I do so by
   saying that THIS QUESTION DEMANDS AN IMMEDIATE REPLY--"Do you believe
   in the Son of God?"

   Possibly, one of you says, "Well, Sir, I will give you my answer when I
   have a more convenient season." No, you will not, for you will probably
   forget all about it unless you give the answer now. Oh, what a lot of
   hammering and beating the iron of the human heart will stand! I am sure
   that if the iron that comes out of the heart of the earth were half as
   difficult to soften and to cast into molds as the nature of man is, the
   ironworker would give up his task as hopeless. Oh, how many times I
   have tried to preach the Gospel to some of you--not without tears and
   not without headaches and heartaches, too--not without earnest
   pleadings in secret with God--not without thinking and planning how I
   could set the old Truth of God in a new light and by what means I might
   enlighten your understandings, or interest your imagination and capture
   your heart! But, alas, thus far, with some of you, the hunter has lost
   his prey and the fisherman has waited in vain for his fish--and he is
   bitterly disappointed at his failure! When will the day come when we
   shall capture you for Christ? What weapon of the Truth of God will
   pierce you who are like leviathan in his pride? When shall we draw you
   ashore to life, peace, holiness and happiness?

   The great mischief with many of you is that you always talk about what
   you will do tomorrow! Yet there are newly-dug graves every day and the
   gravediggers hide the bodies of your fellows beneath the sod of the
   cemetery. It is true that, thus far, you have been spared, but are you,
   therefore, foolish enough to dream that you are immortal? Do you think
   that there is no tree growing out of which your coffin is to be made?
   Ah, Sirs, some of you will never see another year! This is not a matter
   of guesswork with me! I know that it is the truth that a certain
   proportion out of every thousand persons now living must die this year.
   Everybody knows that and here we have some six or seven thousand
   persons gathered together! [Remember, this was preached on a Sunday
   evening!] Well, then, there must be so many of us who must go to the
   grave within the next 12 months. You know that you are not immortal!
   You know that you must die sooner or later and some of you know that if
   you were to die now, you would die without hope, for you have not
   believed in Jesus and you would be eternally lost! I do beseech you, if
   you have any wits left, to use them now and to be startled as I put to
   you that ancient question, "Why will you die?" Where is the sense of
   it! Where is the reason for being damned? Do anything that is
   reasonable, Man, and who can blame you? If you have a good excuse for
   doing a certain thing, if it pays you well to do it, if it is the right
   thing to do for your country even though it does not pay you--go and do
   it! Cassius did a noble deed when he rode into the chasm in the Forum
   and so filled it up, for he did good to Rome. But what good will your
   damnation do to you or anybody else? What good will it do even to the
   lost in Hell? Even they might wish to keep you out of that dread place
   of torment as the rich man wished to warn his brothers, for they would
   get no good through your ruin.

   What possible good can ever come to you if you are lost? It will be all
   hurt, and no good! All loss, and no gain! All wretchedness, and no joy!
   All darkness, and no light! All Hell, and no Heaven--forever and ever!
   In the name of the living God, I beseech you! In the name of Jesus of
   Nazareth, I implore you to trust Christ and live! He who stopped the
   storm on the Galilean Lake and saved the all-but-shipwrecked crew of
   the little ship can stop the waters of wrath that threaten to beat upon
   your boat and save you even now! He who said to the dying thief, "Today
   shall you be with Me in Paradise," can do as much for you! His precious
   blood still pleads for mercy! His Almighty Power is still engaged on
   mercy's side. O my Master, enable these poor souls to trust in You!
   Father, call the prodigal home! Welcome him now! Give him the kiss of
   forgiveness now! Clothe him with the best robe now! Spirit of the
   living God, descend and do what we cannot do--turn hearts of stone to
   flesh--and to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shall be the praise forever
   and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

Our Champion

   (No. 3009)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1861.

   "And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the
   doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with
   them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up
   to the top of the hill that faces Hebron." Judges 16:3.

   POOR Samson! We cannot say much about him as an example to Believers.
   We must hold him up in two lights--as a beacon and as a prodigy. He is
   a beacon to us all, for he shows us that no strength of body can
   suffice to deliver from weakness of mind. Here was a man whom no fellow
   man could overcome, but he lost his eyes through a woman--a man mighty
   enough to tear a lion like a kid, yet, in due time, though himself
   stronger than a lion, he was bound with fetters of brass. When I think
   of the infatuation of which Samson was the subject and remember that we
   are men of like passions with him, I can only, for myself, put up the
   prayer, "Lord, hold You me up, and I shall be safe," and urge you to do
   likewise.

   And Samson is also a prodigy. He is more a wonder as a Believer than he
   is even as a man. It is marvelous that a man could smite thousands of
   Philistines with no better weapon than the jawbone of a newly-killed
   ass, but it is still more marvelous that Samson should be a saint,
   ranked among those illustrious ones saved by faith, though such a
   sinner! The Apostle Paul has put him among the worthies in the 11th
   Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews and Paul wrote by
   Inspiration--therefore there can be no mistake about the fact that
   Samson was saved. Indeed, when I see his childlike faith, and note the
   way in which he dashed against the Philistines and smote them, hip and
   thigh, with a great slaughter--the way in which he cast aside all
   reckonings and probabilities and, in simple confidence in his God
   achieved the most tremendous feats of valor--when I see this, I cannot
   but wonder and admire!

   The Old Testament biographies were never written for our imitation, but
   they were written for our instruction. Upon this one matter, what a
   volume of force there is in such lessons! "See," says God, "what faith
   can do? Here is a man, full of infirmities, a sorry fool, yet, through
   his childlike faith, he lives. 'The just shall live by faith.' He has
   many sad flaws and failings, but his heart is right towards his God. He
   does trust in the Lord and he does give himself up as a man consecrated
   to his Lord's service and, therefore, he is saved." I look upon
   Samson's case as a great wonder, put in Scripture for the encouragement
   of great sinners. If such a man as Samson, nevertheless, prevails by
   faith to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, so shall you and I! Though our
   characters may have been disfigured by many vices and we may have
   committed a multitude of sins, if we can but trust Christ to save us,
   He will purge us with hyssop and we shall be clean! He will wash us and
   we shall be whiter than snow--and in our death we shall fall asleep in
   the arms of Sovereign Mercy to wake up in the likeness of Christ!

   But now I am going to leave Samson alone, except as he may furnish us
   with a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Samson, like many other Old
   Testament heroes, was a type of our Lord. He is especially so in this
   case and I shall invite you to look at Christ rather than at Samson.
   First, come and behold our Champion at His work Then, let us go and
   survey the work when He has accomplished it And thirdly, let us enquire
   what use we can make of the work which He has performed.

   I. Come with me, then, Brothers and Sisters, and LOOK AT OUR MIGHTY
   CHAMPION AT HIS WORK. You remember when our Samson, our Lord Jesus,
   came down to the Gaza of this world, 'twas love that brought Him. Love
   to a most unworthy object, for He loved the sinful church which had
   gone astray from Him many and many a

   time. Yet He came from Heaven and left the ease and delights of His
   Father's palace to put Himself among the Philistines, the sons of sin
   and Satan here below!

   It was rumored among men that the Lord of Glory was in the world and
   straightway they took counsel together how they should slay Him. Herod
   makes a clean sweep of all the children of two years old and under,
   that he may be sure to slay the newborn Prince. Afterwards, scribes and
   priests and lawyers hunt and hound Him. Satan tempts Him in the
   wilderness and provokes Him when in public. Death also pursues Him, for
   he has marked Him as his prey. At last, the time comes when the triple
   host of the Savior's foes has fairly surrounded Him, and shut Him in.
   They have dragged Him before Pilate. They have scourged Him on the
   pavement. They drag Him to the place called Calvary, while His blood
   drips upon the stones of Jerusalem's streets. They pierce His hands and
   His feet. They lift Him up, a spectacle of scorn and suffering and now,
   while dying in extreme pangs, and especially when He closes His eyes
   and cries out, "It is finished," sin, Satan and death all feel that
   they have the Champion safe! There He lies silently in the tomb. He who
   is to bruise the old serpent's head, is, Himself, bruised! O you who
   are the world's great Deliverer--there You lie as dead as any stone!
   Surely Your foes have led You captive, O You mighty Samson!

   He sleeps. But think not that He is unconscious of what is going on. He
   knows everything. He sleeps till the proper moment comes and then our
   Samson awakes--and what happens now? He is in the tomb and His foes
   have set a guard and a seal that they may keep Him there. Will any now
   help Him to escape out of their charge? Is there any man who will aid
   Him? No, there is none! If the Champion escapes, it must be by His own
   singlehanded valor! Will He make a clear way for Himself and come up
   from the midst of His foes? You know He will, my Brothers and Sisters,
   for the moment the third day comes, He touches the stone and it is
   rolled away! He has defeated death! He has pulled up the posts of the
   grave and taken away its gates and bars! As for sin, He treads that
   beneath His feet--He has utterly overthrown it! And Satan, too, lies
   broken beneath the heel that once was bruised! He has broken the old
   dragon's head and cut His power in pieces forever! Solitary and alone,
   His own arm brings salvation unto Him and His righteousness sustains
   Him. I think I see Him now as He goes up that hill which is before
   Hebron--the hill of God. He bears upon His shoulders the uplifted gates
   of the grave--the tokens of His victory over death and Hell! Doors and
   posts and bar and all, He bears them up to Heaven. In sacred triumph He
   drags His enemies behind Him. Sing to Him! Angels, praise Him in your
   hymns! Exalt Him, cherubim and seraphim! Our mightier Samson has gotten
   to Himself the victory and cleared the road to Heaven and eternal life
   for all His people!

   You know the story. I have told it poorly, but it is the most
   magnificent of all stories that ever were told! "Arms, and the man, I
   sing," said one of the great classic poets of old, but I can say, 'The
   Cross and the Christ, I sing." 'Tis my delight to tell of Him who
   espoused the cause of His people and, though for a while a captive,
   broke the green straps and fetters of brass and, having gained the
   victory for Himself, also liberated others, then goes, at the head of
   His emancipated people, along the way which He has opened--the new way
   which He leads to the right hand of God!

   II. Let us go now, dear Brothers and Sisters, and calmly SURVEY THE
   WORK WHICH CHRIST HAS ACCOMPLISHED.

   We will stand at the gates of old Gaza and see what the Champion has
   done. Those are ponderous hinges, and they must have held up huge
   doors. We will look at these doors, posts and this bar. Why, it is a
   mass of iron that ten men could hardly lift--and it might take 50 more
   to carry those huge doors! They were scarcely moved, even on their
   hinges, without the efforts of a dozen men--and yet this one man
   carried them all and I read not that his shoulders were bent, or that
   he grew weary. Seven miles, at least, Samson carried that tremendous
   load, uphill all the way, too! Still he bore it all without staggering,
   nor do I find that he was faint as he was aforetime at Ramath-Lehi.

   I will not linger upon Samson's exploits, rather would I lift up your
   thoughts to the great Captain of our salvation! See what Christ has
   carried away. I said that He had three enemies. The three beset Him and
   He has achieved a threefold victory over them!

   There was death. My dear Friends, Christ, in being first overcome by
   death, made himself Conqueror over death and He has also given us the
   victory, for, concerning death, we may truly say that Christ has not
   only opened the gates, but He has taken them away--and not the gates
   only, but the very posts, and the bar and all! Christ "has abolished
   death and has brought life and immortality to light."

   He has abolished it in this sense--in the first place, the curse of
   death is gone. Believers die, but they do not die for their sins.
   "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." We die, but it
   is not any longer as a punishment. It is the fruit of sin, but it is
   not the curse of sin that makes the Believer die. To other men, death
   is a curse--to the Believer, I may almost put it among his Covenant
   blessings, for to sleep in Jesus Christ is one of the greatest mercies
   that the Lord can give to His believing people! The curse of death,
   then, being taken away, we may say that the posts are pulled up.

   Christ has also taken away the after results of death, the soul's
   exposure to the Second Death. Unless Christ had redeemed us, death,
   indeed, would have been terrible, for it would have been the shore of
   the great Lake of Fire. When the wicked die, their punishment begins at
   once--and when they rise again, at the general resurrection, it is but
   to receive in their bodies and in their souls the due reward of their
   sins! The sting of death is the Second Death--that which is to come
   afterwards--

   "To die--to sleep--

   To sleep! Perhaps to dream. Yes, there's the rub, For in that sleep of
   death what dreams may come!"

   said the world's poet--no, not what "dreams" may come, but what
   substantial pains, what dread miseries, what everlasting sorrows will
   come! These are not for Christians. There is no Hell for you, Believer!
   Christ has taken away posts, and bar and all. Death is not to you any
   longer the gate of torment, but the gate of Paradise!

   Moreover, Christ has not only taken away the curse and the after
   results of death, but from many of us He has taken away even the fear
   of death! He came on purpose to "deliver them, who through fear of
   death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." There are not a few
   here who could conscientiously say that they do not dread death--no,
   but rather look forward to it with joyful expectation! We have become
   so accustomed to think of our last hours that we die daily--and when
   the last hour shall arrive, we shall only say, "Our marriage day has
   come."--

   "Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge! That sets my longing soul at
   large." We shall joyfully hail the summons to mount beyond this land of
   woes, sighs and tears to be present with our God! The fear of death
   having been taken away, we may truly say that Christ has taken away
   posts, bar and all.

   Besides, Beloved, there is a sense in which it may be said that
   Christians never die at all. Jesus said to Martha, "He that believes in
   Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoever lives and
   believes in Me shall never die." Believers do not die, they do but--

   "Sleep in Jesus and are blessed."

   But the main sense in which Christ has pulled up the posts of the gates
   of death is that He has brought in a glorious Resurrection. O Grave,
   you cannot hold your prisoners, for they must rise! O Death, your
   troops of worms may seem to devastate that fair land of human flesh and
   blood, but that body shall rise again blooming with more beauty than
   that with which it fell asleep! It shall rise from its bed of dust and
   silent clay to dwell in realms of everlasting day! Conceive the picture
   if you can! If you have imagination, let the scene now present itself
   before your eyes. Christ, the greater Samson, sleeping in the dominions
   of Death--death boasting and glorifying itself that now it has
   conquered the Prince of Life! Christ waking, striding to that gate,
   dashing it aside--taking it upon His shoulders, carrying it away and
   saying as He mounts to Heaven, "O Death, where is your sting? O Grave,
   where is your victory?"

   Another host which Christ had to defeat was the army of sin. Christ had
   come among sinners and sins beset Him round. Your sins and my sins
   beleaguered the Savior till He became their captive. "In Him was no
   sin" yet sins "compassed Him about like bees." Sin was imputed to
   Him--the sins of all His people stood in His way to keep Him, as well
   as them, out of Heaven. When Christ was on the Cross, my Brothers and
   Sisters, he was looked upon by God as a sinner, though He never had
   been a sinner. And when in the grave, He could not rise until He was
   justified. Christ must be justified as well as His people. He was
   justified not as we are, but by His own act. We are not justified by
   acts of our own as He was. All the sin of the elect was laid upon
   Christ--He suffered its full penalty and so was justified. The token of
   His Justification lay in His Resurrection. Christ was justified by
   rising from the dead and in Him all His people were justified too. I
   may say, therefore, that all our sins stood in the way of Christ's
   Resurrection--they were the great iron gate and they were the bar of
   brass that shut him out from Heaven. Doubtless, we might have thought
   that Christ would

   be a prisoner forever under the troops of sin, but oh, see Him, my
   Brothers and Sisters! See how the mighty Conqueror, as He bears our
   sins "in His own body on the tree," stands with unbroken bones beneath
   the enormous load, bearing--

   "All that Incarnate God could bear,

   With strength enough, but none to spare."

   See how He takes those sins of ours upon His shoulders and carries them
   right up from His tomb and hurls them away into the deep abyss of
   forgetfulness, where, if they are sought, they shall not be found any
   more forever! As for the sins of all God's people, they are not partly
   taken away--they are as clean removed as ever the gates of Gaza
   were--posts, gates, bar and all! That is to say, every sin of God's
   people is forgiven--

   "There's pardon for transgressions past, It matters not how black their
   cast! And, oh, my Soul, with wonder view, For sins to come there's
   pardon too!"

   Every sin that all the elect ever did commit, are now committing, or
   ever shall commit was taken away by Christ-- taken upon His shoulders
   in His great atoning Sacrifice and carried away! There is no sin in
   God's book against any of His people! He sees no sin in Jacob, neither
   iniquity in Israel--they are justified in Christ forever.

   Moreover, as the guilt of sin was taken away, the punishment of sin was
   consequently taken away, too. For the Christian there is no stroke from
   God's angry hand. No, not so much as a single frown of punitive
   justice! The Believer may be chastised by a Father's hand, but God, the
   Judge of all, has nothing to say to the Christian, except, "I have
   absolved you: you are acquitted." For the Christian, there is no Hell,
   no penal death, much less any second death. He is completely freed from
   all the punishment as well as the guilt of sin--and the power of sin is
   removed too. It may stand in our way to keep us in perpetual warfare,
   but, oh, my Brethren, sin is to us a conquered foe! There is no sin
   which a Christian cannot overcome if he will only rely upon his God to
   enable him to do so. They who wear their white robes in Heaven overcame
   through the blood of the Lamb--and you and I may do the same. There is
   no lust too mighty, no besetting sin too strongly entrenched--we can
   drive these Canaanites out though they have cities walled unto Heaven--
   we can pull their cities down and overcome them through the power of
   Christ! Believe, Christian, that your sin is virtually a dead thing. It
   may kick and struggle--there is force enough in it for that, but it is
   a dead thing! God has written condemnation across its brow. Christ has
   crucified it, "nailing it to His Cross." Go now and bury it forever,
   and the Lord help you to live to His praise! Oh, blessed be His name!
   Sin, with the guilt, the power, the shame, the fear, the terror of it,
   is gone! Christ has taken posts, and bar and all up to the top of the
   hill!

   Then there was a third enemy and he, also, has been destroyed--that was
   Satan. Our Savior's sufferings were not only an Atonement for sin, but
   they were a conflict with Satan and a conquest over him. Satan is a
   defeated foe. The gates of Hell cannot prevail against the Church of
   Christ, but Christ has prevailed against the gates of Hell! As for
   Satan, the posts and bar and all have been plucked up from his citadel
   in this sense--that Satan has now no reigning power over Believers. He
   may bark at us like a dog and he may go about like a roaring lion, but
   to rend and to devour us are not in his power. There is a chain about
   the devil's neck and he can only go as far as God likes, but no
   further. He could not tempt Job without first asking God's permission
   and he cannot tempt you without first getting God's permission. There
   is a permit needed before the devil dares so much as look on a
   Believer! And so, being under Divine permission, he will not be allowed
   to tempt us above what we are able to bear.

   Moreover, the exceeding terror of Satan is also taken away. A Man has
   met Apollyon foot to foot and overcome him. That Man in death triumphed
   over Satan--so may you and I. The prestige of the old enemy is gone.
   The dragon's head has been broken and you and I need not fear to fight
   with a broken-headed adversary! When I read John Bunyan's description
   of Christian's fight with Apollyon, I am struck with the beauty and
   truth of the description, but I cannot help thinking, "If Christian had
   but known how thoroughly Apollyon had been thrashed in days gone by, by
   his Master, he would have thrown that in his face and made short work
   of him." Never encounter Satan without recollecting that great victory
   that Christ achieved on the tree! Do not be afraid, Christian, of
   Satan's devices or threats. Be on your watch-tower against him. Strive
   against him, but fear him not. Resist him, being bold in the faith, for
   it is not in his power to keep the feeblest saint out of Heaven, for
   all the gates which he has put up to impede our march have been taken
   away, posts, bar and all--and our God, the Lord, has gotten to Himself
   the victory over all the hosts of Hell!

   III. We will now see HOW WE CAN USE THIS VICTORY.

   Surely there is some comfort here--comfort for you, dear Friend, over
   yonder. You have a desire to be saved. God has impressed you with a
   deep sense of sin. The very strongest wish of your soul is that you
   might have peace with God. But you think there are so many difficulties
   in the way--Satan, your sins, and I know not what. Beloved, let me tell
   you, in God's name, there is no difficulty whatever in the way except
   in your own heart, for Christ has taken away the gates of Gaza--posts,
   bar and all! Mary Magdalene said to the other Mary, or the women said
   to one another, when they went to the sepulcher, "Who shall roll away
   the stone for us?" That is what you are saying. And when they came to
   the place, the stone was rolled away! That is your case, too, poor
   troubled conscience--the stone is rolled away! What? You cannot believe
   it? Here is God's testimony for it--"Though your sins are as scarlet,
   they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they
   shall be as wool." You need an atonement for your sins, do you? "It is
   finished." You need someone to speak for you. "He is able to save unto
   the uttermost, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for us." Can
   you believe in the mercy of God in Christ and rest your poor guilty
   soul upon the merit of His doing and the virtue of His dying? If you
   can, God is reconciled to you! There may have been great mountains
   between you and God, but they are all gone. There may have been the Red
   Sea of your sins rolling between you and your Father. That Red Sea is
   dried up. I tell you, Soul, if you believes in Christ Jesus, not only
   is there a way of access between your soul and God, but there is a
   clear way! You remember, when Christ died, the veil of the Temple was
   torn in two. There was not a little slit for sinners to creep through,
   but it was ripped in two from the top to the bottom, so that big
   sinners might come in the same way as when Samson pulled up gates,
   posts, bar and all! There was a clear way out into the country for all
   who were locked up in the town. Prisoner, the prison doors are open!
   Captive, loose the bonds on your neck--be free! I sound the trumpet of
   jubilee! Bond-slaves, Christ has redeemed you! You who have sold--

   "Your heritage for nought,

   Shall have it back unbought,

   The gift of Jesus'love!"

   The Lord has anointed His Son Jesus "to preach deliverance to the
   captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Trust
   Him! May His mercy lead you to trust Him now, for there is really
   nothing to prevent your salvation if you rest in Him. Between your soul
   and God, I tell you, there is no dividing wall. "He is our peace, who
   has made both one...and came and preached peace to you which were afar
   off, and to them that were near." May these precious words be treasured
   up by such as need them! Some of you need them. May the Spirit of God
   put them into your hearts and lay them up there, that you may find
   comfort in Christ!

   But is there not something more here? Is there not here a ground of
   exhortation to Christians Brothers and Sisters, have not some of you
   been tolerating some sin--some besetting sin which you think you cannot
   overcome? You would be more holy, but the thought that you are not able
   to overcome it makes your arm helpless against your own sin. So you
   think that Christ has left the posts, do you? I tell you, no! "Whoever
   is born of God does not commit sin." He that is born of God sins not
   with allowance. He sins not with constancy and it is in his power, with
   the Holy Spirit's aid, to overcome his sin! And it is his duty, as well
   as his privilege, to go to war against the stoutest of his corruptions
   till he shall tread them under foot. Now, will you believe, Brothers
   and Sisters, that in the blood of Christ and in the water that flowed
   with it from His side, there is a Sovereign virtue to kill your sins?
   There is nothing standing between you and the pardon of your sins but
   your unbelief--and if you will but shake that off, you shall march
   triumphantly through the gate of Glory!

   Once more and I am through. Is not this an incentive for us, who
   profess to be servants of Christ, to go out and fight with the world
   and overcome it for Christ Brothers and Sisters, where Jesus leads us,
   it needs not much courage for us to follow. "The earth is the Lord's,
   and the fullness thereof." Let us go and take it for Him! Nations that
   sit in darkness shall see a great light. Satan may have locked up the
   world with bigotry, with idolatry and with superstition, as with posts
   and bars, but the Kingdom is the Lord's! And if we will but awaken
   ourselves to preach the Word, we shall find that the Breaker has gone
   up before us and broken and torn away the gates, posts, and bar and
   all--and we have nothing to do but to enjoy an early victory. God help
   us to do so!

   And now, as we come to the Lord's Table, let us have before us this
   vision of our glorious Samson achieving His mighty victory! And while
   we weep for sin, let us praise His superlative power and love that have
   worked such marvels for us. The Lord give us to enjoy His Presence at
   His table, and He shall have the praise! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   PSALM 51.

   A Psalm of David, when Nathan the Prophet came to him and rebuked him,
   in the name of God, for his great sin with Bathsheba.

   Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness:
   according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my
   transgressions. This is not a Psalm to be sung to the joyous music of
   the harp and the viol, but rather to the minor music of sighs, groans
   and tears. You must have the picture of weeping David before your
   mind's eye if you would really get to the heart and soul of his
   language here. There is only one thing on the Psalmist's heart, and
   that is the consciousness of his great sin which seemed to swallow up
   everything else. He feels that he must have that sin forgiven--he
   cannot rest until he knows that it is pardoned.

   Note how he makes his appeal to the loving kindness and tender mercies
   of God. A sinner under a sense of sin has a keen eye for the mercy of
   God, for he knows that there is his only hope and, therefore, he looks
   for it as a mariner at sea looks for a star! He will not allow even one
   to escape his observation if there is but one visible between the rifts
   of the clouds. David urges the most powerful plea with God--"According
   to Your loving kindness; according unto the multitude of Your tender
   mercies blot out my transgressions."

   2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For
   he loathes it. It is abominable in his sight. His whole spirit seems
   sickened at the very recollection of it. He not merely prays, "Wash
   me," but, "'Wash me thoroughly." Wash me thoroughly, not only from sin,
   but from the inequity of it, the wrongdoing of it, that wherein it was
   essentially sin and when You have washed me, cleanse me, for, perhaps,
   washing will not be enough--there may need a cleansing by fire. Lord
   cleanse me anyway, only cleanse me from my sin."

   3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is always before me.
   He had tried to forget it, but he could not, for it haunted him
   wherever he went. He had put it behind his back, but now it had gotten
   in front of his eyes. It seemed as if it were painted on his eyeballs
   and he could not see without seeing through his sin. This is how God
   makes men repent--how He makes sin to be like gall and wormwood to
   them.

   4. 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. David had sinned against a great many others beside God, but the
   virus, the very poison of the sin, seemed to him to lie in this--that
   he had sinned against his God. The unregenerate usually take no account
   of that, they care nothing about sinning against God. Offending men,
   doing some injury to their fellow creatures, may cause them trouble,
   but as for offending God they snap their fingers at that and count it
   to be something not worth even thinking of! But when a man is really
   awakened by Divine Grace, he sees that sin is an attack upon God, an
   offense against God's very Nature and this becomes the heaviest burden
   to him. Do you know what this experience means, dear Friends?

   5. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive
   me. David has got further than seeing sin upon him--he sees that he is,
   himself, sinfulness--that his nature, his very being, is steeped and
   dyed in sin! The evil is not merely that you have sinned, but that you
   are a sinner Sin would never come out of you if it were not in you.
   And, oh, what a mine of sin, what a bottomless deep of sin there is in
   human nature! No wonder that it bursts forth as it does. As the volcano
   is but the index of a mighty seething ocean of devouring flame within
   the heart of the earth, so any one sin is only a token of far greater
   sinfulness that seethes and boils within the cauldron of our nature!
   "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive
   me."

   6. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts. "Alas, O Lord, it is
   not there! I have looked there, but have seen only sin. It is not
   truth, but the reverse of truth that I find in my inward parts! Lord,
   You will never have what You desire to see in me unless You put Your
   hand to the work."

   6. And in the hidden part You shall make me to know wisdom. Yes, God
   can teach us. Even those hidden parts which no human teaching can
   reach, God can touch and there He can make us to know wisdom.

   7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. "Sprinkle the blood of
   Atonement upon me, give me a sacrificial cleansing, and then I shall be
   clean."

   7. Wash me, andI shallbe whiter than snow. To my mind, this is a
   wonderful expression of faith. I do not know of any Scripture that
   seems more full of holy confidence than this is. David had such a deep
   sense of his sinfulness that it was a wonderful thing that he should
   have, side by side with it, such a perfect confidence in the power of
   God to cleanse him! It is easy enough to say, "I shall be whiter than
   snow," when we do not realize what scarlet sinners we are, but when the
   crimson is before us and we are startled by it, it requires a real and
   living faith to be able to say to God, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter
   than snow."

   8. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have
   broken may rejoice. God has a way of making our sins come home to us
   like the blows of great bone-breaking hammers. I suppose that no pain
   can be much worse than that of a broken bone, but God can make the pain
   of sin in the conscience to be as continuous and as intense as that of
   broken bones and then, blessed be His name, He knows how to heal the
   bones which He has broken and to make each broken bone to sing and
   rejoice. Whereas it groaned before, he can give it a new power and make
   that very bone to be a mouth out of which shall come praise to God!

   9. Hide Your face from my sins. "Lord, look no more at them. Do not
   hide Your face from me, but hide it from my sins!"--

   "O You that hears when sinners cry, Though all my crimes before You
   lie, Behold them not with angry look, But blot their memory from Your
   book!"

   9. And blot out all my iniquities. "Do not let them be recorded any
   longer, O Lord! Run Your pen through them! Let them not stand against
   me in Your books of remembrance!"

   10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within
   me. Here the truly quickened man speaks. It is not salvation from
   punishment he asks for, but salvation from the power of sin. He wants a
   new heart. He wants to have removed from him the defiling power of sin
   over his affections. "Create in me a clean heart, O God." It will need
   the Creator to do it. Only the God who made the world can make me what
   I ought to be. Great Creator, put Your hand to this work--'Create in me
   a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.'"

   11. Cast me not away from Your Presence; and take not Your Holy Spirit
   from me. "O Lord, do not thrust me into a dungeon and say, 'You shall
   never be a favored child of Mine again.' 'Take not Your Holy Spirit
   from me. That I should dread beyond everything else!"

   12. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation; and uphold me with Your
   free Spirit. "Lord, I shall slip again unless You hold me up, and,
   since You cannot trust Your little child by himself, come and teach me
   how to walk."

   13. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways; and sinners shall be
   converted unto You. "If You will but teach me, and save me, and cleanse
   me, then I will tell to others what great things You have done for me.
   I will tell out the story of Your love that others, also, may prove its
   power."

   14. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, You God of my salvation:
   and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.This was a
   wonderful prayer, but it was not wonderful that David should get relief
   when he called his sin by its right name. Another man, in his place,
   might have said, "I did not kill Uriah. It is true that I had him put
   where he was likely to be slain, but then the sword devours one as well
   as another." That was the way that David did hypocritically talk at
   first--but now that his conscience has been awakened, he confesses that
   he is a murderer-- "Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God."

   15. 16. O Lord open You my lips: and my mouth shall show forth Your
   praise. For You desire not sacrifice; else would I give it: You delight
   not in burnt offering. How wonderfully a true sense of sin puts a man
   on the track of Evangelical doctrine! David could see that sin was too
   grievous a thing for the blood of sheep and bulls to wash it away, and
   though he did not despise the ritual which God had ordained, he looked
   beyond it to something greater and better of which it was but a type.

   17, 18. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a
   contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Do good in Your good
   pleasure unto Zion: build You the walls of Jerusalem. This is a blessed
   end to David's mournful Psalm. He felt that his sin had a tendency to
   do injury to the Church of God--that he had, in fact, pulled down the
   towers of Zion by his iniquity, so he prays "Build You the walls of
   Jerusalem."

   19. 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.
     __________________________________________________________________

Jacob's Model Prayer

   (No. 3010)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
   16, 1867.

   And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac,
   the LORD who said unto me, Return unto your country, and to your
   kindred, and I will deal well with you: I am not worthy of the least of
   all the mercies, and of all the truth which You have showed unto Your
   servant, for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am
   become two bands. Deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my brother,
   from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me,
   and the mother with the children. And You said, I will surely do you
   good, and make your seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
   numbered for multitude."

   Genesis 32:9-12.

   You must have noticed, dear Friends, how very frequently God makes the
   life of a man to be the reflection of his character. There is an echo
   in the outward experience, to the inward character of the man.

   Look at the life of Abraham. He trusted God in a very eminent
   degree--shall I be incorrect if I say that God also eminently trusted
   him? The Lord spoke with Abraham as a man speaks with his friend and
   when He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He said, "Shall I hide
   from Abraham that thing which I do?" And as Abraham had trusted God in
   so notable a manner, the Lord entrusted his seed with the oracles of
   God and with the outward forms of religious worship, so that it was
   through the seed of Abraham that the Truth of God was handed on, from
   generation to generation, until the days of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   Then, next, in contrast to the life of Abraham, take the case of Jacob.
   He begins life by cheating his brother and, however that cheating may
   have been overruled so as to fulfill the purposes of God, it was
   altogether unjustifiable. Now, as he had begun with Esau in that
   fashion, so he had it returned into his own bosom. When he was with
   Laban, he was cheated again and again--cheated even in the wife who was
   given or sold to him. He was a great bargainer--shrewd, crafty, not
   over scrupulous--the typical father of the Jews, yet you know how he
   was continually being overreached by Laban who could also bargain on
   his own account. What a bargaining life it was all through--and what a
   life of sorrow, although he was still favored of God. His outward
   experience was the echo of his inward character. As he had done to
   others, so was it done to him and in him was fulfilled our Lord's
   declaration which had not then been uttered, "With what measure you
   mete, it shall be measured to you again."

   Also look at Moses, practically renouncing the throne of Egypt by
   refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter because he esteemed
   the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than all the treasures in
   Egypt! Yet what did he afterwards become? Was he not king in Jeshurun,
   with a strange and marvelous power over the hosts of the Lord and with
   a greater Kingdom under him, according to the judgment of all who are
   able to weigh things rightly, than he could ever have had if he had
   become the ruler of Egypt and the son of Pharaoh's daughter?

   I might give you other illustrations of this fact, but I want, rather,
   to attract your attention to the better side of Jacob's character as we
   have it revealed in the prayer which I have selected for our meditation
   on this occasion.

   The Chapter from which our text is taken informs us as to the
   circumstances of Jacob's case at the time that he offered this prayer.
   He had just escaped from his trouble with Laban when he received the
   inexpressible honor of being met by "the angels of God." But, lest he
   should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the
   Revelations which they made to him, a second trouble followed closely
   upon the heels of the first. He was soon to meet his brother, Esau, and
   then the great sin of his earlier years would be brought home to him.
   He had deceived his old father, Isaac, and had gained the birthright
   blessing by utterly unjustifiable subtlety--and he might reasonably
   expect that he was about to reap the due reward of his evil deeds!

   With true Oriental craft and also with a considerable amount of common
   sense, he has various plans for appeasing the wrath of his brother. And
   then, when he had done what he thought to be wise, he betook himself to
   prayer. Brothers and Sisters, let us learn from Jacob's experience to
   expect troubles, especially if we have so acted as to bring trouble
   upon ourselves--but let us also learn from Jacob's action that while
   planning is right enough when kept within its proper bounds, prayer is
   much more important. We may easily go to excess in our planning. We may
   depend so much upon an arm of flesh and upon our own wisdom and
   prudence--and have such confidence in our own scheming that it may,
   after all, turn out to be utter folly! The staff on which we lean may
   turn out to be, at best, but a broken reed--perhaps even a spear which
   shall pierce and wound us. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to
   put confidence in man"--or to have confidence in ourselves for, even if
   we had all the wisdom that it is possible for man to attain, it would
   be but created wisdom! Whereas, if we go at once to the Lord our God,
   we shall go to Infinite Wisdom and we may expect to be guided rightly
   through all the difficulties of the way!

   Prayer, my Brothers and Sisters, must be our first resource. But if it
   is the last, let it be the first as well. Let us not merely go to God's
   door because we have tried everybody else and failed. Let us not go to
   the Fountain simply because the cisterns are exhausted, but let us go
   to our God first and foremost! And let us say, "Even if earth's
   cisterns did contain water, we would not forsake our God for them. And
   if all the forces of our fellow creatures were as real and powerful as
   they profess to be, we would still lean upon the arm that bears up the
   whole universe--the unseen arm of the faithful Creator."

   I selected this subject for our meditation, on this occasion, because
   it appears to me to give us a sort of model of what prayer should be.
   We shall view it first in that light and when we have done so, I shall
   have a little to say about Jacob's last plea, for it is most
   suggestive. And then I shall close with a word or two upon the answer
   to this model prayer of the Patriarch

   I. First, then, concerning JACOB'S MODEL PRAYER, which is one of the
   earliest that is recorded in Holy Scripture--at least in such detail.

   I commend it for your imitation, my dear Friends, first, because of the
   plainness of its matter Jacob does not come before God with a long
   roundabout story, telling in general terms the fact that he was in some
   sort of trouble, out of which he wished to be Divinely helped, but he
   distinctly mentions the perilous circumstances in which he found
   himself. He says, "O God...deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my
   brother, from the hand of Esau." Of course God knew that the name of
   Jacob's brother was Esau, yet Jacob thought it was necessary to mention
   his brother's name in order that his prayer should be definite and
   clear. So he pleaded, "Deliver me, I pray you, from the hand of my
   brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and
   smite me, and the mother with the children." He was probably then
   alluding to his dearly-beloved Rachel and her son Joseph, though he may
   also have referred to the other mothers in the company, for he was a
   tender father and cared for his children and he mentioned them as being
   very near his heart, and especially needing Divine protection. So you
   see that Jacob is very clear as to what he asks of God--and I urge you,
   my Brothers and Sisters, to imitate him in this respect.

   When we pray, we sometimes use very roundabout expressions. We do not
   come straight to the point. We seem to imagine that a kind of religious
   etiquette forbids us from speaking plainly at the Throne of Grace. I am
   persuaded that this notion is altogether wrong and, instead of God
   approving this mode of speaking to Him in prayer, He would much rather
   have us speak to Him as a child speaks to his earthly
   father--respectfully, reverently, remembering that He is in Heaven and
   we are on earth--yet simply and plainly, for our Heavenly Father needs
   no garnishing of our speech and the poor tawdry flowers of eloquence
   with which some of our Brothers at times adorn their prayers must be
   displeasing to God rather than acceptable to Him. Especially must you
   unconverted ones imitate Jacob in this matter of plainness of
   speech--when you pray, never mind about the mode of your expression,
   but come to the main point at once. Tell the Lord that you have
   grievously offended Him and mention your sins by name to Him in
   private. If your great sin has been drunkenness, call it by that name!
   If it has been uncleanness, call it by that name! Do not endeavor to
   dissemble before the Lord, or to cloak your sin before the all-seeing
   Jehovah! You need not reach for a Prayer Book to see how the bishops
   would have you pray, nor borrow somebody's Morning Devotions to see how
   a certain eminent Divine prayed--but go

   straight to God and say, "O Lord, You know what I need! I am a poor
   guilty sinner and I cannot express myself in such a way as to please my
   fellow creatures, but You know what I am and what I need. Will You
   graciously give me the pardon of my sin, O You who alone can forgive
   the guilty? Will You receive me to Your bosom, You blessed Savior of
   the lost?" Come to the point with God, dear Friends. Be explicit with
   Him. Let it be seen that you are not praying for the mere sake of
   performing a certain religious ceremony, but that you have real
   business to transact with the Most High! You know what your request is
   and you do not intend to leave the Mercy Seat until your request is
   granted. So I commend Jacob's prayer to you because of the plainness of
   its speech.

   Next, it is to be commended for the humility of its spirit. Notice
   especially these words of the Patriarch, "I am not worthy of the least
   of all the mercies, and of all the truth which You have showed unto
   Your servant, for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am
   become two bands." If you even hint that there is any worthiness in
   yourself, the power of your prayer is at once destroyed! But if you
   plead your unworthiness, you will then be standing where the publican
   stood when he cried, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." And you know
   how "he went down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee," who
   said that he fasted twice in the week, gave tithes of all he possessed,
   and was not like other men, especially that publican! In that way he
   destroyed any power that his prayer might otherwise have possessed. His
   self-conceit tore the chariot wheels from his prayer so that it dragged
   heavily and soon could not move even an inch! On the other hand, a deep
   sense of sin, a full consciousness of utter unworthiness will enable
   you, like Jacob, to wrestle with the great Angel of the Covenant and to
   prevail over Him. Possibly you have not succeeded with God because you
   have not sunk low enough before Him. You unconverted ones, especially,
   if you put your mouths in the very dust, that will be the best attitude
   for you to assume. If you still have some relics of strength, you will
   not receive Divine Strength. If there are some remnants of the pristine
   idea of human merit tolerated in your heart, the robe of Christ's
   righteousness will not be wrapped around you! Ask the Lord to strip you
   of every rag of self-righteousness, to enable you to trust in Jesus,
   alone, and to have no confidence in the flesh--either in the feelings
   which you experience or in the works which you do! Your time of
   uplifting will follow close upon your time of falling down flat upon
   your face. The dawn of day succeeds the darkest hour of the night, so
   ask God to bring you down to that dark hour in which the night covers
   every hope that is born of human confidence, for then will the Lord
   appear to you in His brightness! So, imitate the prayer of Jacob in its
   humility of spirit.

   The third point in which I would have you copy Jacob's model prayer is
   in the arguments to be used. The whole prayer is highly argumentative.
   If some of the prayers I have heard at Prayer Meetings--though I must
   say that the fault is less in this place than in most others with which
   I have become acquainted--if some of the prayers at certain Prayer
   Meetings were less doctrinal, less experimental and more argumentative
   with God, they would be more like true prayer should be, for true
   prayer is just pleading with the Most High, spreading our case before
   Him, and then pressing our suit with all the arguments we can muster!

   In this short prayer of the Patriarch, no less than four arguments are
   used. The first is the argument from the Covenant--"O God of my father
   Abraham, and God of my father Isaac." God had entered into Covenant
   relationship with Abraham and made solemn promises to him and to his
   seed, so Jacob prays, "O Lord, You have pledged yourself to be the God
   of the seed of Abraham, whose grandson I am, and of the seed of Isaac,
   whose son I am--now, therefore, by Your faithfulness to Your Covenant
   promise, help me in this dark hour of my life!" Beloved Friends, this
   is the kind of plea that we can use with the Lord--"O God, have You not
   made a Covenant with the Lord Jesus by which You have promised that You
   will save all them that trust in Him? Have You not said, 'I have given
   Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people?
   Then, Lord, though guilty, I trust to the merits of Your dear Son and I
   ask to be absolved by virtue of His great atoning Sacrifice. Behold, as
   the earthen vessel hangs upon the nail, so hang I upon Him and upon Him
   alone. Now, by the Covenant of Your Grace, which is ordered in all
   things and sure, I beseech You to manifest Your love to me." If you use
   such gracious pleading as that with the Lord, you will surely prevail
   with Him. And I urge you, also, children of God, to do the same, for
   the Everlasting Covenant is a mighty plea with God--

   "In every dark distressful hour, When sin and Satan join their power."

   Then we pass on to the next use which Jacob makes of the promise which
   God had given him--"You said unto me, Return unto your country, and to
   your kindred, and I will deal well with you." If you and I know that we
   are walking in

   the path of duty, if we are where the Lord has bid us go, we can always
   claim the Divine promise! The Lord is bound to protect His servants
   when they are in the path of obedience to His commands. If you follow
   your own counsel, you must manage to take care of yourselves. But if
   you go where the Bible and the clear indications of Divine Providence
   guide you, you may always reckon that the Master who sent you will
   protect His obedient servants, let the dangers of the way be whatever
   they may. If God should command you to go to the utmost verge of this
   green earth, to rivers unknown to song, or if He should bid you travel
   through distant deserts, as Mungo Park journeyed through the midst of
   Africa, yet He could preserve your life there, as well as here in
   England--and being there, sent by Him--you may rest assured that you
   shall hear the sound of your Master's feet behind you, or have other
   unmistakable evidences of His Presence with you!

   And, Sinner, this is a good plea for you to use. You can say, "Lord,
   You told me to believe in Jesus Christ, Your Son, then will You not
   accept me, for His sake, for I have done what You told me to do? You
   have said, 'Call upon Me in the day of trouble.' Lord, this is a day of
   trouble with me and I do call upon You, so will You not answer me?" If
   you argue with the Lord in such a style as this, you will find that
   this kind of pleading is potent with Him who is Omnipotent.

   Then, further, Jacob argued with God from his past history. He said
   that he was not worthy of the least of God's mercies, yet he had
   received many of them. Though he went over the river Jordan, when he
   left his home, a sad and solitary man with nothing but his walking
   staff in his hand, yet, he had come back with wives and children and so
   great a number of servants, cattle, camels, goats, sheep and asses that
   he had become like two bands. "Now, Lord," he said, "after all Your
   past mercies to me, I beseech You, do not leave me now! Have You
   blessed Your servant up to this moment and can You leave him now?" I
   cannot tell you how often I have been comforted by the Truth of God
   implied in John Newton's words--

   "Determined to save, He watched over my path

   When Satan's blind slave, I sported with death!

   And can He have taught me to trust in His name,

   And thus far have brought me to put me to shame?

   His love in time past forbade me to think

   He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink.

   Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,

   Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through." So Jacob prayed,
   in effect, "Lord, You have often been my Helper in the past, so now
   deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of
   Esau." You, my unconverted Friend, may ever adopt this form of
   pleading, for you can say, "Lord, You have saved my life many a time
   when I have provoked You. Let Your long-suffering, which now leads me
   to repentance, also move You to forgive my sin. I remember what You did
   on Calvary for sinners in ages long past. Did you give your
   well-beloved and only-begotten Son to die for sinners and will You not
   now accept every trembling sinner who seeks Your favor?" This also
   shall prove to be the kind of pleading that will cause the gates of
   God's Grace to open!

   The fourth argument that Jacob used was perhaps the best of all--"You
   said, I will surely do you good," and so on. Ah, that was the
   masterstroke and, in like manner, if you would succeed at the Mercy
   Seat, you must bring down the hammer of the promise upon the head of
   the nail of prayer and then clinch it, as Jacob did, by saying to the
   Lord, "You said," so-and-so and so-and-so. David once said to God in
   prayer, "Do as You have said." When a man has promised you something
   that you really need, you take him by the button-hole and you say to
   him, "Now, you promised to give me that." And if he is an honest man,
   you can hold him to his own word--and shall the God of Truth ever fail
   to perform His promise? No, that is one of the things that God cannot
   do--He cannot lie and yet cannot run back from His promise, nor does He
   want to do so. O Christian, if you would get anything from God, find a
   promise of it in His Word, and then you may count the thing as good as
   received! When a man of means gives you his check, you count it just as
   good as hard cash--and God's promises are even better than checks or
   bank notes! We have only to take them and plead them before Him, and we
   may rest assured that He will honor them!

   II. Thus I have tried to place before you the points in which Jacob's
   prayer is worthy of both commendation and imitation. And now I want to
   say something concerning our LAST PLEA which seems to me to be very
   suggestive-- "You said."

   Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, I need not say more to you upon
   this matter, for you know the value of the promises of God, and you
   know how to use them. But to those who are not converted, I may perhaps
   speak a few words suggested by Jacob's last plea--"You said, I will
   surely do you good." Sinner, lay hold, as fast as you can, of the
   promise of God and then plead it with Him. To this end, I would say to
   every unconverted one here who desires to obtain the priceless blessing
   of salvation--study the Word of God very diligently and always read it
   with the view of finding a promise that may suit your special case. And
   when you read it, study it with the firm conviction that it is God's
   Word and that, in each promise, God is as truly speaking to you as
   though He had sent an angel to apply that promise personally to you.
   Take a text which you find to be applicable to yourself and say, "This
   is what the Lord says to me as certainly as though He now spoke it in
   my ear."

   Next, I beseech you to remember that God's Word is absolutely true. Fix
   that fact in your memory and then say to yourself that the promise,
   being true, must be fulfilled. Next to the Person of the Lord Jesus
   Christ, the great object of faith is the promise of God--and if we were
   more familiar with His promises, we should more speedily get out of
   that Slough of Despond in which so many of us flounder so long! Bunyan
   says that "there are, by the direction of the Lawgiver, certain good
   and substantial steps placed even through the very midst of this
   Slough...but these steps are hardly seen--or if they are, men, through
   the dizziness of their heads, step besides, and then they are stuck in
   the mud, notwithstanding the steps are there." Look for these steps of
   promise, my Friend! There is, in the Bible, a promise just exactly
   suited to your case, so mind that you find it. Did you ever send for a
   locksmith to open a drawer because you had lost the key and could not
   open it? He comes with a great bunch of rusty keys--very much like
   God's promises which you have allowed to get rusty through not using
   them--and first he tries one key and then another, and another till, at
   last, he gets the right one--and the treasures in your drawer are
   spread open before you! It is just so with the treasures of God's
   mercy. There is one special promise in Scripture which will fit the
   words of the lock of your experience--and you must try promise after
   promise till, at last, you get the right one and then you can say to
   the Lord, as Jacob did, "You said." That is the main matter--what God
   has said. Never mind what I say--that does not mean a thing except so
   far as I say what God says! Never mind what anybody else has said, but
   let your one concern be to know what God says!

   Good Mr. William Jay, of Bath, writing upon this passage, "You said, I
   will surely do you good," makes four observations which I commend to
   both saints and sinners. The first is, God has the ability to do you
   good. Whatever good it is that you need, God can give it to you. Pardon
   of sin, help in trouble, comfort in distress, whatever it is that you
   really need, God has the ability to give it to you and so to do you
   good. In the second place, God has the inclination to do you good. You
   need not speak to Him as if He were unwilling to bless you--it is
   according to His Nature to be gracious. Love is one of His chief
   attributes and His loving kindness and tender mercies greatly abound.
   He as much delights to show kindness to the needy as a generous man
   delights to relieve the needs of the poor. In the next place, God is
   under an engagement to do you good. "You said, Surely I will do you
   good." God has given a promise to seeking sinners that He will be found
   of them. To repentant sinners, that He will pardon them. To believing
   sinners, that they shall find eternal life. And then, the fourth thing
   is, God has already done good to you. This fact ought to strengthen
   your faith. The Lord has the ability, the inclination and He is under
   engagement to do you good--and He has already begun to do it!

   I may say to you, my Hearers, that the Lord has done you some good in
   bringing you here to listen to the Gospel and in making that Gospel so
   sweet and so generous a Gospel as it is--a Gospel for those who labor
   and are heavy laden, and who can find no rest anywhere else--a Gospel
   for the very chief of sinners, as Paul wrote to Timothy, "This is a
   faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
   into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." I put into your
   hands this plea of Jacob, "You said, I will surely do you good." Go and
   plead it and the Lord do unto you according to your faith!

   III. My last words which must be very few--concern THE ANSWER WHICH
   JACOB'S PRAYER RECEIVED. His prayer was answered, but it was not
   answered in the way he expected it would be. When he had done praying,
   he

   found that all his plans had been knocked on the head--so you need not
   wonder if you find the same thing happen to you

   when you have done praying! Do not be astonished, my dear Hearers, if,
   when you have gone to God in prayer, you should seem to feel worse than
   you did before. There is a young friend--I daresay he is here now--who
   told me that he came to hear me for many months--that he became
   outwardly reformed and was, as he thought, going on well, till there

   came, one Lord's-Day morning, a sermon [Sermon Number 732, Volume
   13--THE HEART--A DEN OF EVIL] about the corruption of the human heart
   which knocked all to pieces his pretty castle in the air, upset all his
   hopes and utterly destroyed his self-confidence! I am very glad it did,
   for his hopes and trust were all false! And, afterwards, by God's
   Grace, he began to build upon a far firmer foundation. Sometimes, when
   you have been praying for salvation, God answers you by destroying all
   your hopes. You ask Him to save you, and you think he would do it in a
   way that would make you happy. But, instead of that, He plucks up all
   your fine plants by the roots and turns your pretty garden into a
   desert because He knows that the flowers you were growing were all
   poisonous and must be cleared away before He can plant those which will
   be the plants of His right hand planting!

   When God answered Jacob, He met him, not as his Friend, but as his
   wrestling Opponent. Jacob had a fierce duel, which lasted all night
   long, by Jabbok's Brook. And if God really appears to you, I should not
   be surprised if He comes at first like an enemy and you will have to
   say to Him as Job did, "You hunt me as a fierce lion." God's choicest
   mercies often come to us under the guise of adversities. God sends His
   love letters to us in black-edged envelopes and sometimes we are afraid
   to open them. If we would but do so, we should soon know the loving
   kindness of the Lord. Jacob was to have an answer to his prayer but,
   before the answer came, he had to wrestle--no, worse than that--before
   Jacob was fully delivered, he had to be made to limp and all his life
   afterwards he went halting upon his thigh. You, poor Sinner, may be
   made to feel your sinfulness so much that you will be driven almost to
   despair! And you, Believer, will possibly have to fight with Satan as
   long as you are in this body.

   Although Jacob's own plans were put on one side, and God met him as
   though He were his enemy, and the poor Patriarch went on limping when
   the sun rose over Peniel, yet, for all that, he did get his prayer
   answered!His brother "Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell
   on his neck, and kissed him." So, Beloved, trust in the Lord and wait
   patiently for Him, and your enemies shall become your friends, your
   doubts shall end in joy, your tribulations shall melt away into glory
   and you shall prove that "all things work together for good to them
   that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."

   Brothers and Sisters, the pith of the whole matter is this, "Trust in
   the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." As
   for you who know Him not, I pray you to trust in the Sacrifice of His
   dear Son, Jesus Christ. As the doves hide themselves in the clefts of
   the rock, hide yourselves in the wounds of Jesus by trusting in His
   atoning Sacrifice. And as for you, the saints of the Lord, return unto
   your rest for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you, therefore, "rest
   in the Lord and wait patiently for Him," remembering that "they who
   wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
   wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and
   not faint." May the Lord graciously give all of us His blessing and
   benediction, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: GENESIS 32.

   Jacob had just come out of a great trouble. God's gracious
   interposition had delivered him out of the hands of the angry
   Laban--Laban the churl, who cared for Jacob only for what he could get
   out of him.

   Verses 1, 2. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
   And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host: and he called the
   name of that place Mahanaim. The angels of God are always around His
   people. It was well for Jacob to be reminded of that fact, for he was
   about to pass into another trouble. John Bunyan truly says--

   "A Christian man is seldom long at ease When one trouble's gone,
   another does him seize." Certainly it was so with Jacob for, after he
   had escaped from Laban, he knew that he had to meet his brother Esau,
   whom he had so greatly wronged so many years before. Then it was that
   "the angels of God met him." Go on your way in peace and safety,
   beloved Believer, for God's hosts are all around you. You do not go
   unattended at any single moment of your

   life. Better than squadrons of horses and regiments of foot soldiers
   are the ministering spirits who are "sent forth to minister for them
   who shall be heirs of salvation."

   3-5. And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the
   land of Seir, the country of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, Thus
   shall you speak unto my lord Esau; Your servant Jacob says thus, I have
   sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now: and I have oxen, and
   asses, flocks, and men servants, and women servants: and I have sent to
   tell my lord that I may find grace in your sight. This was a wise and
   proper action on the part of Jacob, for he had grossly wronged his
   brother and it was right for him to make advances toward a
   reconciliation. He prayed to God for help, but he also used such means
   as he could--the means that ought always to be used when any of us
   realize that we have done an injury to others. We should even be
   willing to humiliate ourselves in order to make peace. I think that
   when Christians differ from one another, there should be a holy
   emulation between them as to which shall be the first to give way, and
   which will give way the more to the other. How many quarrels might soon
   be ended if there were this spirit of conciliation among all professing
   Christians! I have heard of one who had offended a brother Christian
   during the day. Possibly the brother Christian had offended him quite
   as much. But the first one saw that the sun was going down, so he
   turned to seek his friend, that he might say to him, "Friend So-and-So,
   I was wrong in being angry today." Half-way between their two houses,
   they met, and each of them said, "I was just coming to say that I was
   wrong." There is no need of any arbitrator when each of the disputants
   is willing to say, "I was wrong." And the trouble is soon over when
   that point is reached. In this case, it certainly was Jacob's duty to
   make some reparation to his brother, whether Esau accepted it or not.

   6. And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to your
   brother Esau, and also he comes to meet you, and four hundred men with
   him. He would not have minded Esau coming alone to meet him, but the
   thought of the four hundred rough men who had gathered around this wild
   warrior of the desert made him wonder what they might do and what Esau
   might do with their help.

   7, 8. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the
   people that were with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels
   into two bands and said, If Esau comes to the one company, and smites
   it, then the other company which is left shall escape. He used the
   means that he judged to be the best under the existing
   circumstances--and I believe that God intends us always to use our best
   wits and judgment--and then to fall back upon Him in confiding prayer
   just as if we had done nothing at all! Do everything as if God were not
   about to help you and then trust in God as if you had done nothing. An
   Arab said to Mohammed, "I let my camel run loose and trusted it to
   Providence," but Mohammed replied, "You should have tied it up, first,
   and then trusted it to Providence." And Jacob was very much of that
   mind and a very sensible mind it was, not at all inconsistent with the
   very best of faith!

   9-12. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father
   Isaac, the LORD which said unto me, Return unto your country, and to
   your kindred, and I will deal well with you: I am not worthy of the
   least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which You have showed
   unto Your servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now
   I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my
   brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and
   smite me, and the mother with the children. And You said. That is
   always the most powerful plea when we can quote God's own promise--"You
   said."

   12-19. I willsurely do yougood, and make your seed as the sand ofthe
   sea which cannot be numbered for multitude. And he lodged there that
   same night; and took of that which came to his hand a present for Esau
   his brother two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred
   ewes and twenty rams thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine,
   and ten bulls, twenty she asses and ten foals. And he delivered them
   into the hand of his servants, every drove by themselves; and said unto
   his servants, Pass over before me, and put a space between drove and
   drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother
   meets you, and asks you, saying, Whose are you? And where go you? And
   whose are these before you? Then you shall say, They are your servant
   Jacob's; it is a present sent unto my lord Esau: and, behold, also he
   is behind us. And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all
   that followed the drove, saying, In this manner shall you speak unto
   Esau, when you find him. That was a very anxious night for Jacob. He
   was to have another night of still sterner work, but in doing as he did
   he acted wisely and rightly.

   20. And say you moreover, Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us. For
   he said, I will appease him with the present that goes before me and
   afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will accept of me. Depend
   upon it, our sins will come home to us sooner or later! Jacob must have
   bitterly regretted that he had ever wronged Esau. There was a long
   interval between Jacob going away and his coming back, but his sin came
   home to him! And if you are a child of God and you do wrong, it is more
   certain to come home to you, in this life, than if you were one of the
   ungodly! As for them, they are often left to be punished in another
   world, but if you are a child of God, you will be chastened here for
   your iniquity. Remember how earnestly David, too, prayed about the sins
   of his youth and his later transgressions. And Jacob, in deep humility,
   must have most vividly remembered his sin against his brother.

   21-24. So went the present over before him: and himself lodged that
   night in the company. And he rose up that night, and took his two
   wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over
   the ford'/abbot And he took them, and sent them over the brook, and
   sent over that he had. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a
   Man with him until the breaking of the day. We know who that Divine Man
   was--the God who afterwards actually became Man, of whom it might even
   then be said that "His delights were with the sons of men."

   25. And when He saw that He prevailed not against him, He touched the
   hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint,
   as he wrestled with Him. For even with a dislocated hip, Jacob would
   not give up wrestling! He meant to hold this wondrous Man until he got
   a blessing from Him.

   26-29. And He said, Let Me go, for the day breaks. And Jacob said, I
   will not let You go, except You bless me! And He said unto him, What is
   your name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, Your name shall be called
   no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince have you power with God and
   with men, and have prevailed. And Jacob asked Him, and said, Tell me, I
   pray You, Your name. And He said, why is it that you ask after My name?
   And he blessed him there. He would not gratify Jacob's curiosity
   concerning His name, but He gave him the blessing that he craved. This
   was just as our Divine Master acted when His disciples enquired of Him
   concerning the times and seasons--He told them it was not for them to
   know what the Father had retained in His own power. But Christ added
   what was much better for them, "You shall receive power, after that the
   Holy Spirit is come upon you." He will not tell us all we want to know,
   but He will give us all we need to have. What a wise and prudent Lord
   is ours!

   30, 31. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen
   God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over
   Peniel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh. He was lame
   and probably remained lame for life.

   32. Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank
   which is upon the hollow of the thigh unto this day: because He touched
   the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank. Some touch of
   human weakness must always accompany the Divine Strength that God may
   give us. If we are allowed the high honor of carrying the untold
   treasure of the Gospel, we must be reminded that "we have this treasure
   in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and
   not of us." Yet who would not be content to limp for life if he might
   but win such a victory as Jacob won on that memorable night by the
   Brook Jabbok?

   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"-- 229, 734, 326.

   --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.
     __________________________________________________________________

Faith First, Confession Following

   (No. 3011)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 4,
   1867.

   "For with the heart, man believes unto righteousness, and with the
   mouth, confession is made unto salvation." Romans 10:10.

   [For two other sermons on this text, see Numbers 519 and 520, Volume
   9--BELIEVING WITH THE HEART and CONFESSION WITH THE MOUTH]

   IN speaking of this important matter--confessing with the mouth what we
   have believed with the heart, I call your attention, first of all, to
   the order of the two things. Believing with the heart must come first.
   Confession with the mouth must and should come afterwards. To confess
   with the mouth what I do not believe with the heart would be hypocrisy
   instead of being an acceptable sacrifice. It would be an abomination in
   the sight of God. How dare I profess to have faith if I do not possess
   it? How dare I assume a form of godliness unless I have proven its
   power in my spirit? So first comes the heart's believing and then
   follows the mouth's confession. Do not reverse the Scriptural order,
   but take care that you do all things in their due course. Among the
   last words of the Lord Jesus Christ to His disciples are these, "He
   that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Note the order--not
   Baptism first and believing afterwards--but he who first believes and
   then is baptized upon profession of his faith, is the servant of Christ
   who obeys his Master's commands in their right order--and he it is who
   "shall be saved."

   Having noted the order of faith and its confession, next, note the
   connection between them. Confessing with the mouth is to follow
   believing with the heart just as effect follows causes. We are to
   confess with the mouth because we believe with the heart. The heart's
   belief is to be so potent and energetic a thing that it constrains us
   to confess openly what we have received inwardly--no confession is
   worth anything unless it is the outcome of the Grace by which we have
   received the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior!

   There is a due order for faith and confession--and there is a clear
   connection between faith and confession.

   Notice, also, the result of the two put together--"With the heart, man
   believes unto righteousness, and with the

   mouth, confession is made unto salvation." The result of faith and
   confession is salvation. I do not doubt that a man who

   truly believes in Jesus is saved even before he makes a confession of
   his faith, but it is very remarkable that the blessing of

   salvation is constantly connected with these two things rather than
   with either one of them alone--and we must not put

   asunder what God has joined together. The same Truth of God is taught
   in the memorable sentence which I quoted to

   you just now--"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." There
   is no saving efficacy in Baptism, yet belief and

   Baptism are joined together by our Lord Jesus Christ and again I say,
   "What, therefore, God has joined together, let not

   man put asunder." I would not like to attend to one duty and neglect
   another when I found my Master laying both upon

   me. The path of obedience is always the path of happiness and if any
   God-given command should ever seem to your

   imperfect apprehension to be less important than another, remember the
   wise words of the mother of Jesus to the servants

   at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, "Whatever HE says unto you, do
   it"--and do it conscientiously, gladly, promptly,

   because He commanded it, even though you cannot see any other reason
   for doing it. [For two other sermons upon this subject, see Number
   2275, Volume 38--BLIEF, BAPTISM, BLESSING--and Number 2339, Volume
   39--BAPTISM ESSENTIAL TO OBEDIENCE]

   We have, on this occasion, to consider the lesser duty of the two,
   which is, nevertheless, most certainly enjoined upon all Believers in
   the Lord Jesus Christ. In talking of it, I still have to speak of four
   things. First, what it is that we are to confess? Secondly, when are we
   to confess it? Thirdly, why we should confess it? And, fourthly, how
   and in what spirit should we confess it?

   I. First, then, as BELIEVERS IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHAT IS IT THAT
   WE ARE TO CONFESS?

   It is clear, from the text, that we are to confess with the mouth that
   which we believe with the heart. The same things which, through our
   faith in them, are the basis of our salvation, become the subject of
   our confession before God. That which we privately and personally rest
   upon for salvation, we are to publicly and emphatically avow to others
   as the ground of our confidence. And you know whom that is, Beloved. It
   is neither more nor less than the Person, work, Character and offices
   of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We build for eternity upon
   Him. He is the foundation and the chief cornerstone of the invisible,
   yet most substantial structure upon which all our confidence rests! And
   if any Believer should ask, "What am I to confess?" the answer is plain
   enough--confess JESUS CHRIST!

   First, we are to confess that we believe Him to be the appointed Savior
   of sinners--that we look upon Him as being the long-promised Seed of
   the woman who came into this world to bruise the old serpent's head and
   to recover His chosen people from among the terrible ruins of the Fall.
   We believe Him to be the Son of God, equal with the Father and the
   ever-blessed Spirit. And we accept Him and confess Him as our Savior,
   in whom alone we have confidence, upon whose unique Sacrifice we rely
   for pardon of all our sins and upon whose constant intercession we
   depend for our preservation unto the end. We confess Christ before men
   as King of kings and Lord of lords, as "the Apostle and High Priest of
   our profession," the Messiah by whom alone can be fulfilled Gabriel's
   prophecy to Daniel, "to finish the transgression and to make an end of
   sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in
   everlasting righteousness." We must confess Christ in all His offices
   and Characters--and if we lay stress upon any part of His life, or any
   attribute of His Character, it must be upon that which is most attacked
   in the age in which we live. The great point of controversy in Paul's
   day was the Resurrection of Jesus and, therefore, wherever he went, he
   preached the Resurrection. He knew that this Truth of God would excite
   the ridicule of the philosopher and bring down upon him the fierce
   opposition of the Jews, but, nevertheless, this was always a prominent
   point in his preaching and writing, "Christ is risen from the dead."

   Sometimes it has been the duty of Christians to make most prominent the
   Deity of Christ because that Truth has been the one most attacked just
   then. Some years ago, many insults were cast upon the Godhead of our
   Lord and then every genuine Christian was bound to expound and defend
   that master Doctrine that Jesus Christ "is over all, God blessed
   forever." Whatever may be the point in the Character of our Lord which
   is most debated and controverted, it is the duty of His true disciples
   to bear witness upon that point with special distinctness and
   frequency. To confess Christ is to say of Him, "I have received Him
   into my soul as my Savior and He is my sole hope for time and for
   eternity. I honor Him as the Son of God and I submit to His Laws as
   those of the great King who is worthy to rule as He pleases. Let others
   set up what lords they will and be governed by what laws they choose,
   as for me, the crucified Man of Nazareth--who is none other than the
   ever-blessed Son of God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit--shall
   have the absolute control of all my powers and faculties. This, I take
   it, is the way in which "with the mouth confession is made unto
   salvation."

   But, in confessing Christ, we must take care that we confess all His
   words as well as Himself. You recollect that solemn declaration of the
   Lord Jesus Christ, "Whoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of
   My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him, also, shall
   the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in the Glory of His Father with
   the holy angels." A Scriptural confession of Christ involves our
   profession of faith in that form of Doctrine which is revealed in the
   Divinely-Inspired Scriptures, our union with that body of Believers who
   most clearly comply with the requirements of our Master's Words, our
   willing subjection to whatever we perceive to be according to the mind
   and will of Christ. And we are not altogether faithful to our
   conscience unless, in every point, as far as we receive the Light of
   God, when we know our Master's will, we do it! Oh, that all Christians
   would look upon this kind of confession as being one of the most
   important parts of the Christian's business here below! Instead of
   that, it seems to be the view of some that you are to keep a great many
   Truths in the background just because they happen to be inconvenient
   either to yourselves or to other people! But, Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ, the true ideal of a New Testament Christian Church is that of a
   company of Believers witnessing to the whole of Christ's Truth,
   counting every fragment of the Word to be so precious that if the
   entire Christian community should go to martyrdom in defense of just
   one Truth of God, that priceless Truth of Revelation would be saved at
   a cheap rate even by so great a sacrifice! To stand firmly by God's
   Word in everything, to conform to our Master's will even to the jots
   and tittles, to savor the things that are of God and not those that are
   of men--this it is what every Christian should seek to do by the aid of
   the ever-blessed Spirit!

   Further, dear Friends, it is the duty of each Christian to confess his
   clear faith in Christ. You should avow before your fellow men that you
   have believed in Jesus. I think the Scriptures teach us that this ought
   to be done early in our Christian career. We should not live as secret
   Christians, for years, as some do, as though they were ashamed of Jesus
   and saying nothing to show that they have believed in Him. Confess that
   unless you are dreadfully deceived, you are saved by

   Christ, and are resting in Him! Then confess what Christ has done for
   you and do not be ashamed to confess the details of your case. Paul
   told Timothy that "before he was a blasphemer and a persecutor, and
   injurious." But he adds, "However, for this cause I attained mercy,
   that in me, first, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering,
   for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life
   everlasting." Do not be ashamed to confess that there is a change in
   you, that you are not now what you once were! Tell the story of your
   spiritual experience. Is it not written, concerning God's deliverance
   of His people, "It shall be to the Lord for a name?" Do not rob God of
   the great name of Deliverer, to which He is so fully entitled! It is
   due to a physician, when he has been the means of curing some
   extraordinary disease, that you should tell of what he has done, so,
   tell to others what the Great Physician has done for you!

   If you have been, spiritually, raised from the dead by the Lord Jesus
   Christ, never cease to publish abroad what He has done for you! And as
   you grow older and your experience increases, confess with your mouth
   the deeper Truths of God that have been revealed to you. Tell to the
   young people around you what the Lord did for you in your times of
   trouble. Speak well of your Master--imitate the holy resolution of
   David--"I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall
   continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord;
   the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad." And when the time comes
   for you to die, mind that you bear a closing testimony to Christ, then,
   if it is possible. Let those around your bed hear you tell, in your
   last moments, how real and true you find Christ to be to you when all
   else in the world seems like a dream and your life melts away like a
   shadow.

   This appears to me to be an accurate, though brief, summary of a
   Christian's confession of faith--what Christ is in himself and what
   Christ has been to him and been for him. You can yourselves supply any
   deficiency that there may be in my summary, for the flight of time
   prevents me from dealing further with this part of the subject.

   II. Now, secondly, let us enquire WHEN SHOULD ONE WHO BELIEVES WITH THE
   HEART, MAKE

   CONFESSION WITH THE MOUTH?

   Should he not make it as soon as he is converted Is it not the most
   fitting time for making his first confession when he comes forward to
   unite himself with a Christian Church? Many churches, nowadays, have
   given up the old-fashioned custom which once prevailed in Baptist
   churches, of candidates coming before the Church and making a public
   avowal of their faith before their fellow Believers and, through the
   abandonment of that Scriptural method, they have bred a race of
   cowardly good-for-nothings who hardly dare to say that their souls are
   their own, who never know what their religious convictions are, but are
   turned this way and that with every wind that blows, like so many
   weather-cocks! But you, my Brothers and Sisters, though some of you
   once thought it a great ordeal and trial, have all testified before the
   Church, "Yes, we do believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." Some of you said
   it with very trembling lips, but still, you all said, personally and
   individually, as your turn came, "Yes, we are on the Lord's side." It
   seems to me that this is an Apostolic custom which ought never to be
   given up and I scarcely count that to be a church which receives its
   members without any testimony of their faith being verbally given! We
   know that Paul, himself, when he went up to Jerusalem, "essayed to join
   himself to the disciples," but they were afraid to receive him until
   they had heard how he had been converted to God, "and how he had
   preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus." Then they gladly
   received him, "and he was with them coming in and going out at
   Jerusalem." Why is it that good Christian people are so frightened over
   the little matter of saying to their fellow Christians, "We believe in
   Jesus," utterly amazes me! If you have been, as Jeremiah says, wearied
   by running with the footmen, how can you contend with horses? And if,
   in these little billows of trouble through making your open avowal of
   faith to your own Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you get so
   frightened, what will you do in the dwellings of Jordan? You are afraid
   of going to see your minister about joining the church, are you? Yet
   you have to meet the devil, foot to foot, as Bunyan's Christian had to
   meet Apollyon! Are you afraid of meeting a few of your fellow
   Christians? Why, you have to meet DEATH! You have to face a scorning,
   scoffing, frowning, jeering, persecuting world! If you are afraid of a
   company of Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who are only too glad to
   hear you say that you are on the Lord's side if it is really true, and
   who will cheer and comfort, and help you as far they possibly can--if
   you are afraid of us, surely you cannot have the courage which ought to
   be the possession of all good soldiers of Jesus Christ!

   Then, next, the two ordinances of the Christian religion are, both of
   them, confessions of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It seems to me
   that the Baptism of Believers is a most impressive and instructive mode
   of confessing with the mouth what we have believed with the heart.
   Coming to the open pool, the Believer says to you who look on, "I
   believe that Jesus Christ died and was buried, and rose again on my
   behalf, in testimony to which I, also, am about to be buried in this
   liquid and out of which I shall rise, as He rose from the grave. I
   believe that this flesh of mine is past improvement and must die--I
   look for no perfection in my body, for I know that the perfection I am
   to receive is spiritual. As Paul

   wrote to the Romans, "If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of
   sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." And I give up
   this body of mine to be buried--the body of my flesh, these old
   corruptions, to be buried once and for all. I openly confess, this day,
   that I am dead to the world, that my life is hid with Christ in God,
   and that the life which I henceforth live shall be a resurrection-life,
   a life in the power of the Holy Spirit who has quickened me, and raised
   me up from among the dead to live with Jesus Christ in newness of
   life!" I cannot conceive a more impressive and instructive form of
   confession with the mouth than that which our Master Himself has
   enjoined upon us, not only by precept, but also by example when He told
   John to baptize Him in the river Jordan, and said to him, "Thus it
   becomes us to fulfill all righteousness."

   And then, when we gather around the Table of Communion in obedience to
   our Master's command, "This do in remembrance of Me," we, "do show the
   Lord's death till He comes." And there, in the breaking and eating of
   the bread, and the pouring out and drinking of the wine, we make
   another confession with the mouth that we have trusted in Jesus as our
   Savior, that He is "the Living Bread which came down from Heaven," upon
   which we live and, "the wine on the lees, well refined," which is the
   choicest cordial our quickened spirits can enjoy.

   So you see that both the ordinances are God's own methods by which we
   are to confess our confidence in His Son, Jesus Christ.

   More than this, every Christian is bound to acknowledge his faith in
   Christ at all times when it is possible. We are not merely Christians
   on some special occasions, we are always Christians and Christians
   forever if we are Christians at all! We are not only Believers in Jesus
   when we meet each other at the Communion Table, or at a Prayer Meeting,
   but we are Believers in Jesus out of doors, at our work, in our
   business, or our daily occupation, whatever it may be. I utterly abhor
   that so-called, "piety," which belongs only to places and to dates!
   Your "holy" places, and your "holy" dates, and your "holy" water, and
   so on are all alike anti-Christian and Popish! To the Christian, every
   day is alike holy, every place alike holy and everything alike holy! He
   is a sanctified man and all things that are around him are sanctified
   to God's service and to his fellow creatures' good and, to that end, he
   confesses Christ with his mouth at all times.

   Still, there are certain special occasions when we should do this. For
   instance, it is our duty to confess Christ with the mouth when
   enquirers ask us for information about Him. There are many persons in
   the world with a sufficiently candid spirit to want to know what
   Christianity really is. So, as the Apostle Peter says, "be ready always
   to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason for the hope that
   is in you with meekness and fear." Do not let such enquirers go away
   unsatisfied, even though it may be a very long and difficult matter to
   satisfy their enquiries.

   Mind, also, that you are always ready to make confession of your faith
   to objectors, even though they should only ask questions and raise
   objections just for the sake of opposition. When a controversy is
   started and someone else speaks on the wrong side, do not hesitate to
   put in a word for that which is right and true! I have heard of some
   people who are of so gentle a spirit that if they hear others engaged
   in controversy, they always walk away. Well, have you ever heard of the
   soldier who was so gentle-spirited that whenever there was any fighting
   to be done, he always hid away in a corner, or some other safe place?
   That was not very creditable on his part and when he was discovered, he
   was shot! And that mode of skulking, which some people adopt whenever a
   religious controversy is on, is about as honorable to them! If you can
   say a word that will really help a good cause, do not keep it back,
   for, sometimes, even the simplest observation may come in just at the
   right time and may overthrow the adversary of the Truth of God. So,
   bear your personal testimony for the Truth in times of controversy. And
   take care that you always confess Christ when you are likely to be
   ridiculed for doing so. This, indeed, will be a test of your sincerity!
   To confess Christ in summer weather when religion, as it were, walks in
   silver slippers, is what a hypocrite might do--but to take your place
   beside Christ when He stands in the pillory and every man's hands are
   full of mud and filth to throw at Him--this is what only a genuine
   Christian can do! Confess Christ when His followers are in rags!
   Acknowledge Him when His disciples are oppressed and persecuted!
   Remember what Paul mentions to the praise of Onesiphorus--"he often
   refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chains." Do not any of you
   Christians be ashamed of Christ's chains, but count it your highest
   honor and glory, as Paul says, to "fill up that which is behind of the
   afflictions of Christ," "for His body's sake, which is the Church."

   Let me, having thus given you sufficient opportunity for making your
   confession of faith, urge upon those present who have believed in
   Jesus, but have never yet confessed their faith, the duty of doing so
   at once! Be no longer backward, but say, "I, also, am on the Lord's
   side." I pray you, if you have never done so, take the first
   opportunity you have of doing it and, in some way, but especially in
   your Lord and Master's own way, come forward and say, "He is my Savior,
   my King, my All-in-All, and I hereby avow Him in the midst of this
   crooked and perverse generation." III. Now, thirdly, let us ask, WHY
   SHOULD WE CONFESS OUR FAITH IN CHRIST?

   I shall not spend many minutes on this point, for it seems to me that
   every true Christian's heart can supply him with many reasons for
   acting thus. To confess God in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, is
   a part of true religious homage which is naturally due to the Most
   High. Our prayers and praises are rightly due to the great Being who
   created us and who still preserves and provides for us--and our
   confession of Christ, if we have truly believed in Him, is due to the
   One who has redeemed us from destruction with His own most-precious
   blood!

   We should confess Christ with the mouth because He claims this from us.
   I repeat the solemn words I quoted to you a little while ago--"Whoever,
   therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of My Words in this adulterous
   and sinful generation; of him, also, shall the Son of Man be ashamed
   when He comes in the Glory of His Father with the holy angels."
   Tremble, lest you should incur the doom of those who are ashamed of
   Christ! There is another terrible passage in the 21st Chapter of the
   Revelation and the 8th verse--"But, the fearful, and
   unbelieving...shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire
   and brimstone, which is the second death." "The fearful"--that is,
   those who are afraid to confess Christ--not those who are fearful
   concerning their own salvation! Not the Little-Faiths and the
   Much-Afraids--but those cowards who are afraid to suffer for Christ's
   sake and who, therefore, take the side of the world for the sake of
   their present ease and comfort--these are they who shall be shut out of
   Heaven and have their everlasting portion with idolaters and liars in
   the lake which burns with fire and brimstone! I implore you to tremble
   lest that should be your lot.

   We should openly acknowledge Jesus Christ, my Brothers and Sisters, if
   only for our own sakes, for really, it does a Christian great good to
   say openly, "I love the Lord." It gives happiness, comfort,
   satisfaction, rest of heart and lasting joy to confess Christ before
   men! I have not the time to tell you of all the blessings that I
   personally received through publicly acknowledging that Christ was my
   Savior. One thing I may say, however, I believe that up to that time I
   was one of the most timid persons in the world! I never spoke to
   anybody and never ventured to give an opinion upon anything without
   tears coming into my eyes. But, from that happy day when I walked into
   the water at Isleham Ferry to be baptized into the name of Christ, I
   have never been afraid of any man in the world, nor of the devil,
   either, while engaged in the pursuit of the things of God! My Baptism
   was a sort of crossing of the Rubicon for me. I had burnt my boats,
   drawn my sword and thrown away the scabbard--so there was no
   possibility of going back--and I never wished to do so. And I believe
   that others who are always timorous, trembling and afraid, would derive
   perpetual benefit from once and for all boldly and openly acknowledging
   themselves to be on the Lord's side!

   And, Brothers and Sisters, we ought also to do this for the sake of
   others. Who knows what good you may do in your family by confessing
   Christ with the mouth if you have believed on Him with your heart?
   There is another poor trembler in your home--if you come out for
   Christ, that other one will soon come out, too. Frequently, it is my
   happy lot to see a daughter come to join the Church and when I ask her
   if her parents are godly people, she says, "Oh, yes, I hope so, Sir!"
   "Do they attend the Tabernacle?" "Oh yes, Sir!" "Then how is it that
   they have not joined us?" "Well, Sir, I think it is because they are so
   timid." And then, often, in about a month afterwards, the father and
   mother both come--they cannot let their daughter be in the Church
   without them, so they also come and openly acknowledge their faith in
   Christ. It is not the right order, you know, for the child to come
   first, but it is often so--and when one comes, others soon follow. I
   have known many a time, the youngsters of the family to be the boldest
   in acknowledging Christ as their Lord and Master and then, when they
   have broken the ice, the other Believers in the household have followed
   them and made the heroic plunge. Confess Christ, therefore, because of
   the good you may do to others by so doing!

   Further, by giving such public testimony to your faith--that is, if you
   live up to it--you help to let the world know that the old faith has
   not died out.And though they may hate you for doing it, you will have
   borne your personal witness that there is a God, that there is a Savior
   and the wicked world will not be able to sleep so soundly as it did
   before! Your confession will touch its guilty conscience and cause it
   to have disquieting dreams. It may be that you will help to awaken it
   and so be the means of bringing some out of it whom Christ has bought
   with His precious blood who will also boldly come out on the Lord's
   side!

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if you will look through the
   history of the Church of Christ, you will find abundant reasons why
   every Christian should publicly acknowledge his Master. Look at those
   days of diabolical persecution under Diocletian and the other Roman
   emperors. Look all down the blood-red path of the noble army of
   martyrs. Where would the confessors of Christ have been if all
   Christians had left the knowledge of their faith to themselves? Where
   would the Church of Christ, itself, have been if every Believer had
   done as some do now--namely choke the good Seed within their own hearts
   by never giving expression to the faith that is in them? Why, when the
   fires

   of persecution were the hottest, Christians were the bravest--and
   multitudes of men and boys, matrons and maidens, were not ashamed to
   come to the Roman and other tribunals and say, "We are followers of
   Christ, we acknowledge the Man of Nazareth as our Lord and Savior."
   They did not hide themselves away--many of them even seemed to court
   grim Death, though he came dressed in his most terrifying garb!
   Torture, flaying alive, breaking on the wheel, dragging at the heels of
   wild horses, rotting in foul dungeons, burning at the stake--none of
   these things could quench their courage! They knew whom they had
   believed and were persuaded that He was able to keep that which they
   had committed unto Him and, therefore, they marched bravely to prison
   and to death! What then? Shall others fight to win the prize and shall
   you, as a coward, abide by the stuff? God forbid! Instead thereof, the
   Lord help you to confess Christ in the day of His rejection that you
   may be honored with Him in the day of His exaltation! God help you to
   take His part in the midst of the sinners of the world, that you may be
   with Him when the acclamations of cherubim and seraphim, and the
   innumerable host redeemed by His blood shall make all Heaven ring and
   ring again with the music of His matchless name!

   IV. And now, lastly, IN WHAT SPIRIT SHOULD WE CONFESS CHRIST?

   We should confess Christ, first, with due self-examination. As it is
   with the Lord's Supper, so it is with this important matter of
   confessing Christ with the mouth. "Let a man examine himself," says the
   Apostle, and so say we, for, remember that confession with the mouth
   will be very dangerous unless you are sure that you have believed in
   Christ with your heart. I am greatly afraid for those of you who are
   not converted, but who have united yourselves with some Christian
   Church. After the exercise of the best judgment on the part of Church
   officers, such a calamity will occasionally occur, but if, my Friends,
   this is your case, you are in a most perilous position! You are now not
   very likely to be converted, for the preacher's message to the sinner
   will pass on to somebody else when it should be received by you. The
   fact of your being in the Church may be very much to your spiritual
   injury. Therefore do not confess with the mouth what you have not
   believed with the heart!

   But, when you have believed with the heart, take care that you promptly
   and quickly confess Christ with the mouth. Do not need to be pressed to
   do it. Do not need that mother, or father, or friends should urge you
   to do it. Christ did not need any pressing to give Himself to die for
   you, so you should not need any pressing to live for Him. The best wine
   flows most freely from the grape and the sweetest honey is that which
   drops freely from the comb. Let your soul freely drop with love to
   Christ like the droppings of the honeycomb. "Freely we have received,
   freely give" to Him who freely gave His all for you.

   Take care, too, that you also came forward very boldly. Do not be
   ashamed to confess Christ with the mouth in His own appointed way. What
   you are about to do has no shame connected with it. If you sincerely
   believe in Jesus, you have no more need to blush at being baptized than
   a king has when he comes forward to be crowned, or a knight when he
   kneels to receive the accolades from his sovereign. There is no sin in
   being a disciple of the Son of God and no shame in confessing that you
   am His!--

   "Ashamed of Jesus? That dear Friend On whom my hopes of Heaven depend?
   No, when I blush, to this my shame, That Inot more revere His name."

   Further, confess Christ with the mouth very plainly. Do not acknowledge
   Him in a mystical sort of way which nobody can understand, but bear
   your testimony by plain words and by still plainer actions. Remember
   that "actions speak louder than words" and, therefore, make your
   confession most of all by the consistent Christian character of your
   daily life. "Let your conversation be as it becomes the Gospel of
   Christ."

   Then, constantly make your confession with the mouth. Do not retract at
   home what you say abroad and, on the other hand, do not disown abroad
   what you acknowledge to be true at home! Do not be one thing in the
   Church and another thing in the world. Remember that you are always a
   Christian if you are ever a Christian! Stand fast in the faith,
   therefore, at all times. Nail your colors to the mast if you have
   entered the service of the Lord High Admiral of the Galilean Lake!

   Above all things, confess the Lord Jesus Christ sincerely. Let there be
   no hypocrisy about your confession in any way. Do not repeat some other
   Christian's experience which is not your own. Do not borrow your
   confession of faith from the biography of some eminent Christian. Let
   your own experience be what you profess. Say, with the Apostle John,
   "that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."

   Also, make your confession modestly--not as though you had anything to
   boast of in being a Christian--not as though your Christianity was the
   result of any good thing in you. Take care to ascribe it all to
   Sovereign Grace. Do not blush at being a Christian, but, at the same
   time, do not boast about it. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, "Rejoice
   in Christ Jesus," but, "have no confidence in the flesh."

   Further, make your confession of Christ wisely--not doing it so as to
   unnecessarily irritate others--being willing to suffer for Christ if
   necessary, but not making a martyr of yourself when there is no
   occasion for doing so. Boldly speak out for Christ whenever you can,
   but always blend the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the
   dove.

   Finally, confess Christ out of love to Him because you cannot help
   doing so. Let holy zeal blaze and burn within you till the sparks fly
   out of your soul in the form of a burning confession of Christ. Let
   your feet be dipped in the holy oil of complete consecration to Christ,
   that you may leave a sacred unction behind you wherever you walk. That
   will be the best confession of your faith that you can make. Still, do
   not dissociate the word of confession from the action, for it is to be
   confession with the mouth. Do say and say it unmistakably, "I am a
   Christian." If Christians have any other nickname beside that of
   Christians--for so it was given to them at the first--do not be ashamed
   of that nickname. Do not be ashamed of the denomination to which you
   belong, even though some may denounce you as a sectarian. Remember that
   the genuine Christian is and must be a sectarian--that is to say, he is
   one who firmly holds the whole Truth of God which he has learned from
   the Scriptures through the teaching of the Holy Spirit and, therefore,
   he is what the world calls "a sectarian." But as for latitudinarianism,
   which believes nothing and counts no truth to be worth anything--the
   modern Diana of the Ephesians--I pray you, make no shrines for that
   hideous idol and pay no reverence to it, but, like honest men and
   women, read your Bibles, find out what is the revealed Word of God and
   stand to it at all costs. If it brings an ugly name upon you and you
   are called a sectarian, be willing to bear that name for Christ's sake!
   Only take care that in bearing it you have not the horrible spirit of
   some sectarians who denounce all others because they do not see eye to
   eye with them--and who have no fellowship with them because they cannot
   say, "Shibboleth," exactly as the sectarians say it. Love the whole
   family of God but do not be ashamed of those distinctive Truths of God
   which give you a name which makes you a separatist from the ungodly and
   from those who do not follow the whole counsel of God. Stand out boldly
   for Christ and for His Truth, so that when He comes again, He may say
   to you, "Well done, you good and faithful servant, you have been
   faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things.
   Enter you into the joy of your Lord."

   You who have not yet believed on Jesus with the heart, must make no
   confession with the mouth. But I pray that you may be, even now, led to
   believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The way of salvation is simply
   this--Trust Jesus Christ--that is believing with the heart. Depend upon
   His merits, rely upon His all-sufficient atoning Sacrifice, rest in His
   perfect righteousness. If you do that, you are saved! And then, being
   saved, come forward and openly acknowledge your faith and God bless you
   in so doing, for Christ's sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

God Comforting His People

   (No. 3012)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JULY
   11, 1867.

   "The LORD has comforted His people." Isaiah 49:13.

   THE JOY of the Prophet was too great for him to give adequate
   expression to it with his own solitary tongue and, therefore, he would
   have even the angels of God and the redeemed from among men in Heaven
   to praise the Lord for His super-abounding mercy! He would also have
   the redeemed upon earth and all the works of God's hands take up the
   joyful strain of praise to the Most High! And he would have even the
   great mountainous masses of inanimate Nature find tongues with which to
   express the greatness of God's loving kindness and tender mercy in
   having comforted His people!

   And, when we come to think of it rightly, we see at once that it is a
   theme for wonder, worthy of the consideration of Heaven and of earth
   that ever the Infinite God should stoop so low as to comfort finite and
   fallible creatures such as we are. Had He nothing better to do than
   that? Were there no more worlds to be created? Were there no other
   deeds of power and glory to be performed that He must come to this poor
   earth to comfort the sick, the sad and the sorrowing? To speak
   comfortably even to those who had rebelled against Him and to give them
   peace and joy when their penitent hearts were breaking in earnest
   longing for His pardoning mercy? That is a wonderful passage in the
   147th Psalm--"He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.
   He counts the number of the stars. He calls them all by their names."
   He is truly great in the majesty of His power, but He is equally great
   in the condescending Character of His love and, as "the morning stars
   sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" when Jehovah's
   great creative works were worked, let them not be slack in their music
   when His condescending works are worked--when, from the highest
   heavens, He stoops to the couch of deepest woe to lift us up from our
   sins and sorrows by the power of His eternal love!

   Taking the text somewhat out of its immediate context and speaking
   simply upon these six words, "The Lord has comforted His people," we
   see that in the first place, the Lord has a people. Secondly, they are
   a people who need to be comforted. And thirdly, the Lord gives them the
   comfort that they need.

   I. First, then, it is clear, from the very wording of our text, that
   THE LORD HAS A PEOPLE. Isaiah does not say, in general terms that the
   Lord has comforted the children of men as a whole, but he says, "the
   Lord has comforted His people." Here is, as Dr. Watts says--

   "A garden walled around, Chosen and made peculiar ground! A little
   spot, enclosed by Grace Out of the world's wide wilderness"-- and it is
   concerning this particular portion of the human race--selected and
   elected by God--that the Prophet was moved by the Holy Spirit to write,
   "the Lord has comforted His people."

   Observe, in the first place, that the children of God are "His people"
   in this sense, that they enjoy His special love. Never let us doubt the
   universal benevolence of God. Let us hold it as a fundamental Doctrine
   that "the Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His
   works." And let us firmly believe that if any man shall be consigned to
   carnal misery, it will be because it is just that he should so suffer
   and he has brought his terrible doom upon his own head, for, as the
   Apostle Peter tells us, God is "not willing that any should perish, but
   that all should come to repentance." Yet, we must never forget that
   inside this universal love, there is a private, secret, distinguishing,
   discriminating love which is set only upon those whom God chose, before
   the foundation of the world, to be His own peculiar people. Paul writes
   to his

   son, Timothy, "We trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men,
   specially of those that believe." And Moses, long before, was Inspired
   to write, "The Lord's portion is His people." There is something
   peculiarly personal in His affection for them. He is kind and generous
   to all His creatures, but He is lavishly liberal to His own people. And
   Paul bids us imitate him when he says, "Let us do good unto all men,
   especially unto them who are of the household of faith."

   The Lord, then, has a people whom He regards with a special love which
   is not shed abroad in the hearts of others. These people He set apart
   for Himself from eternity. They are a people who are near and dear unto
   Him, to whom He says, by the pen of the Apostle Peter, "You are a
   chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar
   people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called
   you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

   They are not only God's people because He has thus chosen them unto
   Himself, but because, having fallen into sin, they are now His by
   particular and special redemption. Again let me remind you that the
   Scriptures plainly teach us that the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ
   has a universal bearing and it seems to me that those who limit the
   value of the Atonement do most seriously err from the faith. I believe
   the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ was so Infinite that if there had been
   ten thousand worlds full of sinners to have been redeemed, it was amply
   sufficient to have redeemed them all! Paul writes to Timothy, "There is
   one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man, Christ Jesus,
   who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." And I
   am not known to put a limit where I see no limit put by God's Word.
   Yet, notwithstanding that Truth of God, you cannot diligently read the
   Scriptures and study them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit without
   learning that there is a special aim and objective in the redemptive
   work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself said, "I lay down My life for
   the sheep." The singers in Heaven, in their new song, declare that
   "these were redeemed from among men"--they were bought out of the great
   mass of mankind, "not with corruptible things, as silver and gold...but
   with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and
   without spot." Paul says that "Christ also loved the Church and gave
   Himself for it."

   The special objective of Christ, in coming to this world, was that He
   might "save His people from their sins." That is the very meaning of
   His name, Jesus. It is in them that redemption attains its great end.
   It is in them that Christ sees of the travail of His soul and is
   satisfied. It is for each of them, personally and individually, that
   the Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood on Calvary with the distinct
   purpose of saving them. Christ did not die for Judas as He did for
   Peter. He did not shed His blood for Demas as He shed it for Paul.
   There is, in the redemptive work of Christ, an inner and select circle
   into which none but those who are spiritually quickened by the Spirit
   of God are ever privileged to enter--and herein, Beloved, we see that
   God has a people who are specially His--a people especially loved and
   specially redeemed.

   These same people, too, are especially called by the Spirit of God.
   Again, to keep up the parallel with which I commenced, let me remind
   you that all sinners are called to repentance and faith in Christ
   wherever the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed. It is true that
   Christ Himself said, "Many are called, but few are chosen," yet the
   call of the Gospel is a universal call to all mankind. Wisdom truly
   says, "Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men,"
   but, Beloved, there is another call, a special, peculiar, personal,
   effectual callby which only the Lord's chosen and redeemed people are
   called out from among the mass of men by whom they are surrounded. The
   New Testament title for the Church of Christ is the ecclesia--the
   assembly of those who are "called out" from among men by the
   distinguishing Grace of God. The Holy Spirit has breathed upon those
   who were, spiritually, like the dry bones in the valley--and they have
   "stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." Though they were,
   once, heirs of wrath even as others, and far off from God by wicked
   works, they have been brought near by the blood of Christ and now they
   are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." They are now
   regenerated, quickened and so completely changed that "all things have
   become new" with them! They now enjoy the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
   in a way which others know nothing at all. The Holy Spirit may "strive"
   with some men who ultimately perish, yet He does not operate upon them
   as He does upon those in whom He works effectually, making them what He
   would have them to be, without violating their will, yet so effecting
   the Divine Purpose as to constrain them to be obedient to the will of
   the Most High.

   These, then, are the Lord's people--especially loved, especially
   redeemed and especially called.

   Besides that, they are especially cared for in the world. God's
   Providential care extends not only to the righteous, but also to the
   wicked--yes, and not only to the wicked among men, but to the very
   beasts of the field. You know what I said to you, the other Sabbath
   morning, about the God who makes the grass to grow for the cattle. [See
   Sermon No. 767, Volume

   13--IN THE HAY FIELD] It is the same great Provider who feeds the

   young ravens when they cry, and the hungry lions when they roar for
   their food. God's Providence not only extends to mankind in general,
   and to the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, and the
   innumerable fish in the sea, but also to every atom of matter in the
   universe. The grain of dust that is blown from the threshing floor is
   steered as certainly as "the stars in their courses." It is the same
   God who provides for the little and for the great--though all must be
   infinitely little to Him who alone is great. Yet, while all that I have
   said is true, we cannot read the Bible without knowing that there is a
   special Providence always watching over and caring for the people of
   God. That comforting assurance in Psalm 34:7 applies not to all men,
   but only to some men--"The Angel of the Lord encamps around them that
   fear Him, and delivers them." Then there is that cheering question
   concerning the holy angels, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent
   forth to minister"--not for all men, but--"for them who shall be heirs
   of salvation" Turn to Romans 8:28. "We know that all things work
   together for good"--to whom? Not to every son or daughter of Adam,
   but--"to them that love God, to them who are the called according to
   His purpose." The wheels of Divine Providence are like those wheels
   which Ezekiel saw--full of eyes, but everyone of those eyes gazes upon
   everything out of love to the chosen people of God who are thus
   especially cared for, as well as especially loved, especially redeemed
   and especially called.

   I need not try to describe the sense in which the saints are to be
   God's people throughout the never-ending eternity of bliss which is
   especially reserved for them. It will suffice if I remind you that God
   has said of them that they are to be His special treasure, His royal
   regalia, His crown jewels--"They shall be Mine, says the Lord of Hosts,
   in that day when I make up My jewels." Just as a man sometimes says of
   a certain thing that he prizes beyond everything else, "I will give all
   else away, but I will reserve this for myself," so God gives to kings
   and princes the power to rule in the world and He frequently gives to
   the ungodly the very fat of the land--but He gives away everything but
   His people--and of them He says, "They shall be Mine." He claims such
   complete ownership of them that He will never give them away. For them
   the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and lived, loved, labored
   and died. For them that same Jesus still lives to plead before His
   Father's Throne above. Their names are engraved on His hands and on His
   heart. He carries them upon His shoulders as the shepherd carries the
   sheep that was lost and He will never let go His hold of any one of
   them till He has brought it home and called together the holy angels
   and the redeemed from among men, and said to them, "Rejoice with Me,
   for I have found My sheep which was lost."

   Thus I have shown you that God has a people.

   II. Now, secondly, and very briefly, because I do not want to make the
   roll of lamentation too long, THEY ARE A PEOPLE WHO NEED TO BE
   COMFORTED.

   You never find God giving any blessings that are not really required.
   "Works of supererogation" are talked of by fools and knaves, but such
   works are never performed by God, nor by man either! So that, when the
   Lord comforts His people it is because they needcomfort.

   If I began to tell you why the people of God need to be comforted, you
   would think that I was attempting a work of supererogation! You do not
   need to be told that--some of you can find enough reasons in your own
   recollections to assure you that the people of God often need comfort.
   Yet I may, perhaps, give you one or two reasons that occur to me.

   We need comfort because we are in the valley of tears. We do not travel
   long in that gloomy valley without finding that the dewdrops of tears
   are hanging thickly every morning and every evening upon the briers and
   the brambles by the wayside. Many of you have troubles in your family
   and they are very heavy troubles. Some of you have dead crosses in the
   form of those who have been taken from you, and living crosses--which
   are much heavier to carry--in the form of those who seem to live only
   to trouble you. Others of you meet with serious losses in your business
   and you have to ask how that bill is to be met and how that liability
   can be honorably discharged. There are troubles in the house and
   troubles in the field--troubles on the land and troubles on the sea
   and, worst of all, there are troubles even in the Church of God.

   "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." But when we were
   born-again, we were born to a double set of troubles. Both our births
   bring us troubles! Our first birth brings us the troubles that are
   incident to sin and our second birth brings us the troubles that are
   incident to fighting against sin. But, though we get a double share of
   trouble, we get a double share, a triple share, a sevenfold share, a
   thousand-fold share of joy when we become partakers of the new life in
   Christ Jesus! There are troubles incident to ordinary manhood and
   troubles incident to Christian manhood. But the worst trouble of all is
   that caused by our inbred sin. I would not mind all the trouble that
   comes from the world if I could but get rid of sin--if I could but live
   without temptation, or even with temptation if it came only from the
   devil. We could manage very well, even with him, if it were not for the
   evil that is within our own hearts--for we are worse enemies to
   ourselves than even the devil is! Our great enemy cannot do us much
   harm if he is kept locked outside the gates--as long as there is no
   traitor within the walls of Mansoul to admit him into the castle of our
   heart. The sailor does not fear the roaring billows outside his vessel,
   but when he finds that a leak in the ship gives the water power to rise
   in the hold, then he begins to fear. And, alas, we have many a leak in
   the ship of our soul and, in that way, temptation gets great power over
   us. We need comfort from God while we are wrestling with inbred sin.
   That fearful trinity, "the world, the flesh and the devil," will keep a
   Christian from imagining that this world is his rest, for one or other
   of them will stuff his pillow with thorns and make his bed hard for him
   to lie on and cause the pilgrimage of his life to be like passing
   through a hedge of thorns and briers which lacerate the flesh and weary
   the spirit.

   The sorrows of God's people not only come from within and from without,
   from Satan beneath and from the world around, but they also come from
   God, Himself, when He chastens His people for their good. Is there any
   son, anywhere, whom his father chastens not? If so, he is not a son of
   God, for He "scourges every son whom He receives." Among the mercies of
   the Covenant, the rod is very conspicuous, and when the Lord chastens
   us with it, He causes us to smart! Yet every twig of the rod is
   sanctified and every stroke we receive from it is for our lasting good.

   I said that I would not enlarge upon this part of the subject. Neither
   will I. But I know that there is not a little trouble in the lives of
   many whom I am now addressing. As I look around this area and these
   galleries--though I know far less of many of you than I would like to
   know, and if there were fewer of you, I could know you better--I
   remember some of your sorrows and I know that many of you are seldom
   long at ease, yet, with all your troubles, you enjoy that peace which
   is like a river, for you have learned to drink of that river, the
   streams of which make glad the city of our

   God!

   III. Now I must pass on to the third point which is more comforting to
   us. It is this--as God has a people who need to be comforted, the
   Prophet Isaiah is Inspired to tell us that "THE LORD HAS COMFORTED HIS
   PEOPLE.

   It is profitable to us to note the various ways in which God has
   provided for our comfort in our ever-recurring sorrows. He knew that we
   should have many fountains of grief and, therefore, He appointed quite
   as many fountains of joy and even more. And besides opening the
   fountains for us, blessed be His name, He draws the water for us and
   puts it to our parched lips, as the Holy Spirit applies to us the
   precious promises which God has provided for us in His never-failing
   fountain of comfort.

   In the first place, in providing for the comfort of His people, God has
   been pleased to give us this grand old Book, the Bible. What a
   storehouse of comfort this is! Many times have we gone to it, under the
   guidance of the Holy Spirit, and we have never gone there without
   finding a portion that just exactly met our needs. Some of you, my
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ are, perhaps, in old Giant Despair's
   castle, but if you use this precious Book rightly, you will find in it
   a key that will open every lock in Doubting Castle and make the way
   clear for you to pass through the great iron gate. O Beloved, what
   would we do without this Bible of ours? Let us prize it, among other
   reasons, because through it, "the Lord has comforted His people."

   Then He has also been pleased to give us that blessed institution which
   is not second in importance even to the Bible, namely, the Mercy Seat.
   Wherever we may be, that Mercy Seat is always accessible! What a mercy
   it is that there are no longer any specially holy places, like the
   Temple at Jerusalem but that--

   "Wherever we seek Him, He is found, And everyplace is hallowed ground!"
   If I thought that I had always to go up to a certain "sacred" building
   in order to be able to pray to God, or that there were certain "holy"
   hours in which it was right to pray, I would often be miserable--but it
   is not so. At midnight, in prison, prayer is in season and in place,
   for Paul and Silas thus prayed at Philippi--and the prison walls began
   to shake and the prison doors flew open! Prayer is in season at all
   hours, for David says, "Evening and morning, and at noon, will I pray
   and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice." No matter where you are,
   nor into what state you may have fallen, nor how low and desponding you
   feel--and no matter how sinful you are--for God has said, "Call upon Me
   in the day of trouble. I will deliver you and you shall glorify Me."
   After providing for us the Mercy Seat, over which is written, "Ask,

   and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it
   shall be opened unto you," surely you may truly say, "The Lord has
   comforted His people!"

   You all know that prayer to God is necessary in great things, but it is
   equally necessary in little things. None of you doubt that when much is
   at stake you ought to pray, but you ought equally to pray when little
   is at stake. I do not think that many true Believers go wrong in the
   difficult places of their pilgrimage, for they then kneel down and ask
   God's guidance. And so they go right. But when they get to the very
   plain places, they think they know all about the road and then it is
   that they are sure to make a mistake. The warrior was not slain in
   battle for lack of courage, nor for want of armor--why was he slain? It
   was because one nail was missing from his horse's shoe, as the old
   saying puts it, "For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the
   want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for the want of a horse, the rider
   was lost"-- and many a Christian has been almost lost "for the want of
   a nail." Mind that you look after the nails and take care of them. Take
   the little things to God in prayer, for the little is the mother of the
   great and that of the greater, and even the little is great if we only
   look at it rightly. Just as the brush of a bird's wing sets the first
   snow-flakes moving, which afterward accumulate into a ball, which grows
   into a great mass, which comes rushing down the mountain in a mighty
   avalanche, so it is the little thing that sets the great in motion! And
   it is for this that we need particularly to enquire of the Lord--

   "There is no sorrow, Lord, too light To bring in prayer to Thee. There
   is no anxious care too slight To wake Your sympathy. You who have trod
   the thorny road Will share each small distress. The love which bore the
   greater load Will not refuse the less."

   Besides that, He has been graciously pleased to give us the means of
   Grace. I trust that you have often gone out of this House of Prayer
   saying, "Truly, 'the Lord has comforted His people' this morning." Or,
   "We have certainly had our burdens taken away from us while we have
   been listening to His precious Truth this evening." When God the Holy
   Spirit has spoken through the preacher, you have found that the Word
   preached has been to you a delightful spiritual repast and cordial, so
   that you have been able, at least for the time, to forget your sorrows!

   The Lord has, however, comforted us in a still higher way, by forgiving
   all our sins. I recollect the time when I would gladly have made a
   strange bargain with God, if He would have agreed to it. My sin was
   such an awful burden to me that I thought that if I might but have it
   all pardoned, I would even be willing to be imprisoned for a hundred
   years. If you have ever felt the weight of your sin, you must
   acknowledge that there is no bodily affliction that is at all
   comparable to it. If you once really know, by sad personal experience,
   what the word, "guilt," means--if its horrors are clearly revealed to
   your soul--you will be distracted in mind and know not what to do. And
   you will admit that all the griefs that could possibly be heaped upon
   you could not equal the horror of great darkness which comes over the
   soul under a sense of sin. But, then, "the Lord has comforted His
   people," because He has forgiven their sin. Your coat may be
   threadbare, my Brother, but your sins are forgiven you for Christ's
   sake! Your loaf may be but a very small one, and your bed may be a very
   hard one, but, being justified by faith, you have peace with God
   through our Lord Jesus Christ! If you are the very poorest of God's
   saints, in pardoning your sins "the Lord has comforted His people." Is
   not this the best comfort you could possibly have? Long ago the Prophet
   Isaiah was Inspired to write, "Comfort you, comfort you My people, says
   your God. Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that
   her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." The
   forgiveness of all their sins is the greatest comfort that the Lord's
   people can ever enjoy!

   Moreover, in addition to giving us the pardon of all our sins, the Lord
   has graciously adopted us into His family. Ah, poor son of toil, your
   brow may often be covered with sweat, but you shall, by-and-by, be made
   like unto your Divine Elder Brother, for you have become, by Grace, a
   child of God! How delightful it is to us to know that "we have received
   the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father"! There is no
   other peace like this, no other joy like this! The angel Gabriel has
   not half so much reason to be happy as I have. It is true that he has
   not my cares, nor my troubles, but then, he is not a child of God, for,
   as Paul wisely asks, "Unto which of the angels said He at any time, You
   are My

   Son?"But He does say that to us who have believed in His Son, Jesus
   Christ! We are the sons and daughters of the Most High God! The holy
   angels are highly favored in having been kept from sinning, yet the Son
   of God took not up angels, but He became a Man that He might redeem us
   from destruction and, through Him, we are brought into closer communion
   with God than the angels ever have! Oh, what cause we have, then, for
   thankfulness when we think of our adoption as well as of our pardon!

   My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I have not time to even mention all
   the blessings which are already in your possession. Truly, the full
   roll of them would need eternity in which to display it rightly before
   your eyes, "for all things are yours...whether 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." So you have every reason to rejoice and
   no cause to be disconsolate, for God has comforted you with the richest
   of consolations in the blessings which He has already bestowed upon
   you!

   But think of what is yet to come! Let the pearly gates be opened for a
   moment. You will soon be inside them--how soon, none of us can tell.
   Unless our Lord shall first come--as He may--we who have believed in
   Jesus shall all pass through the gates of pearl and our disembodied
   spirits shall see our Savior face to face! Glory be to God, there is a
   crown there that no head but yours shall wear, Believer! A harp that no
   hands but yours shall play, a mansion that none but you shall inhabit.
   Without you, Christ's mystical body would not be complete--one of its
   members would be missing without you! The hallelujah chorus of Heaven
   would lack some of its jubilant notes and the eternal orchestra would
   miss one of its players on golden harps--so you must be brought there.
   The Apostle Paul, speaking of glorified saints who have gone to Heaven
   before us, says, "They without us should not be made perfect." They
   must have us to perfect the company of the redeemed, to gather in Glory
   the full complement of the elect! Come, Brothers and Sisters, take off
   your sackcloth and ashes. Take down your harps from the willows. Put
   away the sackbut and bring out the Psaltery and all kinds ofjoyous
   music, and let us sing, in the words of the familiar hymn--

   "My God, I'll praise You while I live,

   And praise You when I die!

   And praise You when I rise again,

   And to all eternity."

   Well now, what follows from all that I have been saying to you? This
   question surely follows--who would not be one of the Lord's people I
   pity those of you who have great grief, but no consolation. I do not
   know how some of you manage even to live! You work hard, but what do
   you get by it all--food and raiment? Yes, and then you go on again and
   again, and all your life is like that of the blind horse at the mill,
   going round and round and round, and you never make any real progress.
   You bring up your children--in a fashion. You grow old, and you die,
   and that is the end. It would be better for you if it were the end,
   but, alas, there is something far worse to come! How can you keep on
   living as you do, without any objective beyond this poor groveling
   world? I can understand a Christian galley-slave, chained to the oar
   and flogged all day long, feeling that he was living up to the dignity
   of a man in Christ Jesus, for he could say, "I have a Savior on high
   and though my legs and wrists are bound, yet my free, immortal spirit
   has fellowship with the eternal God." But I cannot understand how men
   can work on, day after day, or, being above work, can roll along in
   their carriages and yet have no thought beyond this present,
   sin-stained world! It is not even fit for immortal spirits to think
   much about--it is too base, too scant, too poor, too barren a thing to
   satisfy immortals! Its atmosphere is a coverlet too narrow for a man to
   wrap himself and all that earth calls good or great is a bed too short
   for a never-dying spirit to stretch itself upon! How do you live
   without your God? Especially you who are sick and ill! You young people
   who have consumption stamped upon your cheeks--you young men who are
   mortally ill and know you must soon depart, you graybeards who are not
   only awaiting the assaults of Death, but are already attacked by
   him--how can any of you bear the thought that God's short sword of
   Infallible Justice is furbished against you? How can you make mirth on
   the very edge of the bottomless Pit? Oh, that you would flee away to
   Christ, lay hold upon Him by a simple faith and so be saved forever!

   If a man suffers much trouble, some persons draw from that an inference
   that he is one of God's people. I have sometimes heard very great
   professors of religion pacify their consciences with the idea that
   because they were going through much tribulation, they must, therefore,
   inherit the Kingdom--because they were tried and troubled, they have,
   therefore, inferred that they must necessarily be the children of God.
   Let such understand that there is a rod for the wicked as well as a rod
   for the righteous! 'Tis true that many go through much tribulation to
   the Kingdom of Heaven,

   but it is equally true that many go through all their tribulations to
   the depths of Hell. "Well" says good Mr. Watson, an old Puritan, "The
   path to Hell is hard and rough to many. Many a man has gone to
   Perdition in the sweat of his brow and has toiled harder to win for
   himself eternal damnation than ever the Christian has labored to serve
   his Master." I doubt not that this is exactly the truth, or may even
   come short of it!

   There is another thought that is suggested by what I have been saying.
   It is this, If God comforts His people, we should imitate Him. If we
   are His, let us be God-like. I do not know when a man is more like God
   than when he wipes the tears from a mourner's eyes. God wipes away the
   tears from all eyes in Heaven, so, whenever we have wiped a tear from
   the eye of a saint here below, we have been doing similar work to
   God's. If you do not yet know what joy and satisfaction are to be found
   in helping the fatherless and the widow, I hope you will all soon have
   that joy and satisfaction by helping them in every way that you can.
   When you go to visit the widow and see those many little children,
   their heads rising one above another like a set of stairs, the father
   dead, the mother doing a little needlework to provide for her
   children-- when you see all this, I am sure you will help them all you
   can! It has been a great joy to some of us, this very night, to receive
   some six or seven fatherless children into the Orphanage which has yet
   to be built--and we could not help feeling great joy as we accepted
   them. There is great joy in helping the fatherless and the widow,
   relieving the poor and needy, comforting those who are broken-hearted,
   speaking a cheering word to the mourner, or a guiding word to the soul
   that is seeking Christ, repeating a word of promise in the ear of a
   backslider, or of one who, for a while, has lost his evidences. So, my
   Brothers and Sisters in Christ, as God has comforted His people, mind
   that you try to do the same good work, remembering that in ministering
   to them, you are also ministering to HIM, as our hymn puts it--

   "They who feed YOUR sick and faint

   For YOURSELF a banquet find!

   They who clothe the naked saint

   Round YOUR loins the raiment bind!" And then, finally, as Godhas
   comforted His people, why do they go about the worldas ifthey were not
   comforted I thank God that there are so many members of this Church the
   sight of whose face is enough to make us glad even in the worse
   weather! Some of my Brothers and Sisters, when I am the most
   disconsolate, cheer me up with the very grasp of their hands! These are
   cheerful Christians who live near to God and who so firmly believe in
   Christ that they will not believe the devil's lie when he tells them
   that God has forsaken them. Dear Brothers and Sisters, should we not
   all try to be like them? It is a great blessing to be of a happy,
   thankful spirit and to carry a cheerful countenance wherever we go. Yet
   some Christians, when you go to see them, are always telling you how
   poor they are, how badly they have had the rheumatism, how many aches
   and pains and trials and troubles they have, and so on. I remember one
   visitor who had heard this sort of story so often from one good old
   lady whom he used to visit, that one day he said to her, "My dear
   Sister, I have heard all about your troubles so many times that I think
   I could repeat them word for word! So could you now change the subject
   for once, and tell me something about your joys?" Whenever we must
   touch the mournful theme, let us do as the swallow does when it just
   brushes the brook with its wing and flies up into the clear air as if
   its whole being were full of joy. So let it be with us--sometimes
   touching the waters of trouble, as we must, yet swiftly mounting in
   sweet contemplation and holy meditation--leaving the sinful, sorrowing
   world behind us and entering into the very Presence of our Lord and
   Savior, Jesus Christ--

   "Why should the children of a King

   Go mourning all their days?

   Great Comforter, descend and bring

   Some tokens of Your Grace." God bless you, dear Friends, with the
   Spirit of consolation! The Holy Spirit is the Comforter! May He comfort
   you, for Jesus' sake! Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

Warning and Encouragement

   (No. 3013)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN
   THE YEAR 1864.

   "I sleep, but my heart wakes: it is the voice of my beloved that
   knocks, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled:
   for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the
   night." Song of Solomon 5:2.

   How changeable is the creature! In the verse preceding our text, we
   find the spouse in a happy, healthy, heavenly frame of mind, for her
   Beloved was with her and she was in the enjoyment of the closest
   communion with him. We find him saying, "I am come into my garden, my
   sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten
   my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat,
   friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved." Yet, from the height
   of this glorious fellowship, how soon the spouse comes down to the
   depths of such a cry as this, "I sleep, but my heart wakes"! Truly, the
   weather of our isle is not more variable than the feelings of
   Believers. One day the sun shines hot and strong. The next day comes a
   black cloud, accompanied with the lightning flash and the voice of
   thunder. Then come the rattling drops of hail and then, in a few more
   hours, it is hot again, or perhaps the chilly North wind begins to
   blow. Have you not been on Mount Tabor at one moment and at another in
   the Valley of Achor? Have you not been at one time like the chariots of
   Amminadib, driving so fast that the axles were hot with speed, and soon
   after you have been like Pharaoh's chariots when the wheels were taken
   off so that you drove heavily? Now you mount as upon eagle's wings and
   soon you sink as in deep mud where there is no standing! At one moment
   delighting in God's goodness and mercy, but the next moment, crying,
   "All Your waves and Your billows have gone over me." Lord, what a
   changeable creature is man! When You have taken him up to his highest
   altitude, how speedily he comes down, by the force of Your hand, to the
   very depths! How soon do You bring him down from his highest eminence
   even to the very dust!

   Christian, when the Lord favors you and your soul walks in near
   fellowship with Him, remember that there is a devil within you and a
   devil outside you. Be careful of your footsteps--even when you are on
   the top of the mountain, even when Jesus is sitting by you and
   whispering in your ear that you are His, watch with the greatest,
   possible care, for you never lose your corruption! Your communion may
   be transient, but your corruption is perpetual. To be with Christ is
   but a thing of a moment with you, but to be with your corruption is a
   thing of every hour in the day! I pray you, keep this in mind and
   whenever you are in your best frame, then be doubly careful lest you
   should lose your Beloved and have to cry once again, "I sleep, but my
   heart wakes!" Dr. Ives, who used to live on the road to Tyburn at the
   time when prisoners were always carried in a cart to be hanged there,
   would frequently say, when he had any friends with him, if he saw the
   criminals riding by, "There goes Dr. Ives." And when they asked him
   what he meant, he replied, "Such crimes as that felon has committed I
   would have committed but for the Grace of God." That is true even of
   you who live nearest to God. You who have the most familiarity with
   Christ and enjoy the most holy fellowship with Him may soon become the
   very leaders of the hosts of Satan if your Lord withdraws His Grace!
   David's eyes go astray and the sweet Psalmist of Israel becomes the
   shameless adulterer who robs Uriah of his wife. Samson one day slays a
   thousand of his enemies with the might of his arm and the velour of his
   heart--another day his honor is betrayed, his locks are shorn, and his
   eyes are put out by a strumpet's treacherous wiles.

   How soon are the mighty fallen! Behold Solomon, the wisest of men, yet
   the greatest fool who ever lived! Even Job fails in patience and
   Abraham staggers as to his faith. "Let him that thinks he stands take
   heed lest he fall." These observations seem to rise at once to our
   minds when we consider such passages as abound in this "Song of Songs,
   which is

   Solomon's." We find, at one moment, that the spouse is so happy that
   she cries out, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am
   sick of love," and, at another moment, she is searching for her Beloved
   and cannot find him, and mourning because of the darkness, and of the
   cruelty of "the watchmen that go about the city."

   The text very readily suggests three subjects for meditation--first, a
   lamentable state--"I sleep." Secondly, a hopeful sign--"but my heart
   wakes." And thirdly, a potent remedy--"It is the voice of my Beloved."
   Nothing can wake a Believer out of his sleep like the voice of his
   Beloved!

   I. First, here is A LAMENTABLE STATE--"I sleep."

   I think I can describe this state pretty well because I experience it
   too often and I am afraid many of you could also describe it with some
   degree of accuracy, for frequently you, too, fall into it. What is it
   for a Christian to sleep? Well, thank God, there is a sleep which the
   Believer never knows. He can never again sleep that deadly sleep in
   which Christ found him while he was in his sinful state--he shall never
   sleep the judicial sleep into which some were cast as the result of
   sin! He shall not sleep, as do others, to his eternal ruin, yet he may
   sleep dangerously and sinfully--and this is the state in which the
   Christian is found when he thus sleeps--in a state of inaction. You are
   doing something for God but you are doing it as a matter of custom than
   as a matter of loving earnestness. You pray. You go up to the House of
   God. You teach in the Sunday school but you do these things
   mechanically, as a man walks who is sound asleep. You are in a sort of
   spiritual somnambulism! The work that you are called upon to perform,
   you do after a fashion, but there is none of the power of God in the
   work--there is no earnestness thrown into it. It is done, and that is
   the end of it--but your heart has been absent from it.

   Coupled with this, there is a need of vigor in everything to which such
   a man sets his hand. If he preaches, there is no force or burning
   energy, no boiling, scalding periods--he just takes his text and speaks
   upon it. Perhaps God's people are edified, perhaps sinners are saved,
   but that man has no enjoyment in his work during the whole time that he
   sluggishly performs it thus. A man, to enjoy the work of the Lord, must
   throw his whole strength into it. It is the same when you come to
   prayer. You pray after a sort, but it is not that wrestling with the
   Angel which gets the blessing from Him. You knock at the door, but not
   with that force which causes it to open. You have forgotten your former
   vigor. Whereas once your place of prayer was the witness of groans and
   tears, now you can go into it and come out of it without so much as a
   single sob. And it is just the same when you read the Scriptures. Once
   the page sparkled with promises and your soul was satisfied with marrow
   and fatness. But when you read it now it is very dull and you no longer
   derive refreshing consolation from it. Like the temple out of which God
   has moved, you walk through it--there are the pillars, there stand all
   the symbols of worship. The altar is there, but God, the King, has gone
   and a voice has been heard to say, "Arise, let Us go from here." And
   so, you go through the sacred edifice and find nothing there. In this
   same sleepy state, we go up to the House of God to listen to His Word
   and if our sleep has got a strong hold upon us, we cannot get any
   comfort. We begin to rail at the minister because we are not edified as
   we used to be--we think that a change has come over him. That is
   possible, but it is just as likely, and more so, that our lack of
   enjoyment of God's Word is owing to ourselves. We sit and hear as God's
   people hear--and we sing as God's people sing, and pray as they
   pray--after the outward form, but we go out as a man rises from his bed
   whereon he has tossed all night and we feel that we are not a whit
   refreshed! And the Sabbath that was once a joy and delight to us, has
   perhaps become a weariness and a burden!

   There is no enjoyment while a man is thus asleep and, as there is no
   enjoyment, there is no consciousness of pain. Ah, Beloved, I have known
   seasons when I would almost have given my right arm to be able to shed
   tears of repentance-- wherein I wished that I might again have a broken
   heart--when I have longed to make my soul feel even the pains of Hell
   rather than not feel anything! This is one of the worst states a
   Christian can be in--to go nodding on through life, slumbering over
   eternal realities, dreaming over Heaven, nodding his head and
   continuing to sleep when he is in the Presence of the Most High God and
   should have gathered up all his powers and strung them to the highest
   pitch of intensity! Have you not been in such a state? If you have not,
   happy man are you! There are most holy men, some of the giant servants
   of God, who have fallen into this state and have been compelled to cry
   out, "I sleep," finding themselves happy, indeed, if they could add, "I
   sleep, but my heart wakes."

   Such a state as this is very sinful Is it not sinful, O my Soul, to be
   trifling with the eternal state, to be playing at prayer? Can you be so
   dull and heavy about eternal things when worldlings are so thoroughly
   awake about their silver and gold and commercial pursuits? When souls
   are being hurried to eternity, how is it that I can still be
   indifferent?

   While time is speeding on and eternity is so near, how can I still go
   to my slothful couch and cry, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a
   little folding of your hands to sleep"? Chosen in Christ, redeemed with
   His precious blood, quickened by the Divine Spirit and made partakers
   of the Divine Nature, how can it be consistent with our position and
   condition to sleep as do others? The light of God's Grace has shone
   upon us--is this a time to slumber? Let the world sleep if it will, for
   its object and aims are not worthy of the Christian's high ambition,
   but shall you and I sleep when Heaven is before us and Hell behind
   us--when there is temptation surrounding us everywhere and angels
   beckon us to Heaven while a glorious company of saints holds us in full
   survey? Come, my Brothers and Sisters, we must feel that such a state
   as this is sinful in the highest degree!

   And how dangerous it is, tool A man who sleeps in his enemy's camp is
   exposed to imminent peril. There lies Sisera asleep in Jael's tent.
   Little do you know, O silly Dreamer, when that woman's hand lifts up
   the mallet to drive the nail through your brain! If you desire to
   sleep, Christian, wait until you get Home! There you shall have rest
   enough forever in your Father's House, but, to sleep here is to sleep
   in the dragon's jaw! To sleep on the top of the mast when the ship is
   driving before the storm! No, awake and think of your position and
   condition and sleep no longer! O God, have mercy upon Your people who
   have long prosperity! There is the pinnacle of the Temple and blessed
   is the man whose feet slip not when he stands there. I do not think we
   sleep so much, spiritually, when we have bodily affliction, though
   pains of body frequently make a Christian long for his rest. Nor do I
   think we have slumbering times when we are losing our friends. Men
   cannot easily sleep when the funeral knell is tolling in their ears and
   when they are following dear departed ones to the grave. Nor do I think
   we sleep much when we are the subjects of very violent temptations and
   have a great many doubts and fears. But when we are in our vessel when
   the day is fine and the sail is spread, and the wind blows softly, and
   the ship goes on steadily without a motion, gliding as o'er a sea of
   glass--then it is that the mariner, perhaps, forgets the rock and the
   shoal! The poet was right when he said--

   "More the treacherous calm I dread, Than tempests lowering overhead."

   I do not like trouble and pray God to deliver me from it. I cannot well
   endure bodily pain. I find myself impatient under tribulation, but I am
   able to say this--if I had my choice between the severest affliction
   and a state of sinful slumbering, I would prefer to have the
   affliction. "There is no devil," said one, "like having no devil." That
   is to say, there is no temptation like the temptation of not being
   tempted! The worst form of danger is when a man is left to himself,
   when he is not much tossed about, when he is quiet and easy. It ought
   not to be so. The greater our prosperity, the better should we love
   God. And the more our spirit is at ease, the more we should serve Him
   with both our hands and render Him hearty thanksgiving for His favor
   towards us! It should be so, but it is not so. In these smooth waters
   we are sure to meet with mischief and, therefore, may the Lord, in His
   mercy, watch over us when we are in much prosperity!

   Do I hear somebody ask, "How may I know when I am asleep?" If you are a
   true Christian, you will soon know it by a sort of instinct, when an
   unutterable sense of misery comes over you. I may compare the sleep of
   a sinner to the sleep produced by opium which gives its victim dreams
   of the most magnificent character, carrying the soul up to Heaven and
   then, soon, dashing it down to the depths. All sorts of fantastic
   imaginations are the offsprings of that deadly drug, yet the man enjoys
   himself while under its influence. But though it causes some happiness
   in the use of it, it will bring him to Hell as surely as murder itself!
   The sleep of a Christian, when he falls into this state, is rather like
   the sleep produced by henbane--it is a kind of uneasy, short,
   disturbed, unreeling rest. It does a man little harm compared with the
   other and his constitution recovers from the shock much more readily.
   Such, I say, is the Christian's sleep--there is no pleasure in it as
   there is in the sinner's sleep, but his sleep is uneasy, his conscience
   pricks him, his heart wakes and he finds no peace in it. It lasts but
   for a little time and it does him much damage, but still, not the
   deadly damage that the world's sleep of sin brings to its votaries. God
   save you from it! May He ever keep you from falling into that kind of
   sleep!

   I think many of you will not need me to warn you of it. Still, if you
   do need to know, let me ask you to compare yourself with what you used
   to be. Are you as lively in Divine things as you once were? Is prayer
   as fervent and refreshing to your souls as it once was? Do you find
   that willingness to pray that you once had? Do you find that you have
   to flog yourself into your closet and, when you get there, do you offer
   up your prayers and desires with coldness which you were known to offer
   with warm and loving fervor? Do you still continue to have the
   blessedness you had when first you knew the Lord? If not, that is a
   symptom of sleep. Then, compare yourself with what you ought to be.
   Think how you ought to

   have grown during the years that you have been a Believer. Are you what
   you ought to have been? Then, if you are not, you must be asleep, or
   else you would have made better progress. Compare yourself with what
   others have been and you will see cause for shame! And if so, my
   Brothers and Sisters, you are asleep! You are in a dangerous condition
   and I pray the living God, by the demand for watchfulness when the
   Prince of this world comes, by the agonies of Christ in Gethsemane,
   yes, by the blood of Him who poured out His soul unto death, to awake
   you out of this deadly sleep, for it is a state that will lead to some
   great and grievous sin, some black and terrible fall unless God shall
   prevent it by His Grace! First you sleep, then you slumber, then you
   sin, then you sin again, then you go still deeper and so will you
   continue unless God, in His Grace, steps in to deliver you from the
   consequences of this dreadful sleep!

   II. Yet, secondly, there is, in the text, A HOPEFUL SIGN.

   I think that most of us, though we do sleep, can say as the spouse
   does, "my heart wakes." Beloved, it is a blessed sign that the spouse
   knows her state and truly confesses it She does not say, mark you, "I
   am a little tired. My eyes are heavy." No, but with honesty of heart
   she says, "I sleep." Ah, it is a good sign when you and I know our
   state and are willing to confess it before God. I have heard of a
   Believer in Christ who, on one occasion, was intoxicated, and he was
   expelled from the church as the result of it. But he was visited by
   many Christian Brothers and among the rest by one who prayed with him.
   They prayed together to God, but he could not get any peace. "No," said
   his friend, "and you never will until you come to the point and confess
   your sin as it really is." And when the man said, in his prayer, "Lord,
   You know that I have disgraced myself. I have been drunk," it was then
   that he obtained peace. He had directed the lances to the wound--he had
   put before God the right state of the case and this is what we must do,
   Beloved, if we would have restoring and renewing Grace--we must tell
   the Lord what our sin really is. As the spouse did, we must confess, "I
   sleep."

   But you will observe that the spouse is as bold in saying, "my heart
   wakes," as she was in saying, "I sleep. "What does this mean, "my heart
   wakes"? Why, just this. "My conscience tells me that this sleepy state
   is not a proper one for me to be in and my heart cries that I must get
   out of it. I cannot find any rest while I slumber. At a distance from
   God, I cannot be happy." Peter may follow afar off, but Peter cannot be
   happy afar off. Peter may sit and warm his hands with the servants in
   Pilate's Hall, but he cannot warm his heart. Sinners may say, "Why make
   all this fuss about a little sleep? There is no great sin in it." Ah,
   but little sins trouble Believers far more than great sins trouble
   sinners! If a Christian's soul is but a little away from God, it is
   sufficient to mar his joy and make him unhappy. A man clad in armor may
   go walking through the woods and may never feel the thorns, but another
   man who has had his armor taken off, will be scratched and torn to
   pieces! Sinners clad in the armor of sin feel not the thorn of Christ's
   desertion--but saints who have thrown this armor aside and are tender
   of heart, feel even His slightest frown.

   My dear Hearer, perhaps you are slumbering this evening and are content
   to be so. Then you are no child of God! But if you are slumbering and
   there is some power--something within you that keeps crying out, "O
   God, I would be delivered!" Though this voice is ever so feeble, though
   this cruel sleep of yours may almost have gagged it, yet if it does
   rebel against this state and cries out, "Lord, I would be changed! I
   would be different! Turn You unto me and I shall be turned! Revive me,
   and I shall be revived!" If there is such a longing as this in you, you
   are still a child of God and well may you exclaim, "I sleep, but my
   heart wakes. Lord, I would live near to You if I could. I am like a man
   that rides a sorry jade of a horse--the horse will not go, but he spurs
   him, hacks at the bit and strikes him again and again, for the man
   would go if he could--and so it is with me! 'The spirit indeed is
   willing, but the flesh is weak' and, 'when I would do good, evil is
   present with me,' and 'how to perform that which is good I find not.'"
   Lord, help Your servants and let them not sleep any longer!

   III. Now, thirdly, here is A POTENT REMEDY--"the voice of my Beloved."

   Some Christians try to get themselves into a healthy state of heart by
   looking to the Law of God, by self-examination and by a thousand other
   remedies. But, after all, the true cure for every disease in the
   Christian is in Christ Himself You may try to chasten yourselves for
   your sins, but you will continue to sin if that is all that you do.
   Beloved, I know that the heart has a great objection to coming to
   Christ after being in a sleepy state. Old Legality whispers in our ears
   that, "You cannot go and trust Christ as you did, for see how badly you
   have behaved? You must not go to the fountain filled with blood, now,
   as you did at first, for look, you have played the harlot and you
   cannot go with the same confidence as you went at first." "Ah, Old
   Legality, I can, and I will!" The Law never did bring us out of our
   state of nature and will it

   bring us now out of our state of lethargy? If the Law had first of all
   quickened us, then it would be well to look for restoration by the Law!
   But inasmuch as we found our first life by simply believing in Christ,
   the only way to renew that life is by believing in Jesus Christ again!
   I will listen, then, not to the voice of the curse, not to the
   condemnation of Moses, but to the voice of my Beloved, for no music is
   like His and nothing can so wake my soul as hearing Him speak to me.
   Hear, then, the voice of your Beloved in the Gospel! He is still your
   Beloved, though you are asleep! But He sleeps not and He calls to you,
   "Come to My bosom; come, My Beloved, open the doors of your heart to
   Me. Come, My affianced and Precious One, I have not put you away,
   though you have grieved Me and opened My wounds afresh. I have loved
   you with an everlasting love. Open the doors of your heart to Me and
   let Me come into communion with you." It is the voice of Jesus speaking
   to you through your minister and He cries to you, "Come to Me now!
   Trust Me once again and your spiritual strength shall be renewed."

   Then turn to this precious Book and you will hear the voice of your
   Beloved there. In words like these He speaks to you, "Turn, backsliding
   children, says the Lord; for I am married unto you." Hear Him as He
   cries to you, "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the
   lily and cast forth his roots as Lebanon." Hear Him as He cries to you,
   ungodly ones, "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"

   Hear, then, your Beloved's voice and mark, dear Brothers and Sisters,
   if you do not hear the voice of your Beloved in the days of prosperity,
   you will be likely enough to hear it in affliction. If nothing else
   will keep you awake, the rod will. If you will sleep in prosperity, you
   shall have adversity--and sooner than you shall be lost, you shall lose
   everything. If, my Brothers and Sisters, God sees we cannot stand our
   present peace and prosperity, He will send His servant, Death, into our
   families. He will take away our possessions. He will place us in
   adversity. He will wither all our fair flowers and break all our idols
   and dash in pieces everything that stands between our soul and Himself!
   Oh, that we were wise, and would hear His gentle voice! "Be not as the
   horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be
   held in with bit and bridle," but hear what the Lord says to you from
   the watchtower of His ministry and from the witness box of His
   Word--and then you shall escape the rod.

   And perhaps, my Brothers and Sisters, the Beloved may speak to you
   without the ministry and without the Word. If He shall do so, I pray
   you to catch His Words. It may be, while you are sitting here, or when
   you are walking home, or perhaps at the Lord's Table, where some of us
   hope to meet, directly, you will hear Him whisper some kind, assuring
   Word that shall sink your fears again. I have known what it is to
   preach, sometimes, on a Sunday, and I have felt like a butcher who
   stands in his shop cutting out joints of meat for others--they are fed,
   but he, himself, has nothing. Or as a cook who prepares and sends up
   dinners, but cannot so much as get a taste, himself. Then I have gone
   downstairs to the Lord's Table with a dull heart and, perhaps, in a
   second, as though a strange miracle has been worked, my soul has been
   as full of devout joy and holy mirth as ever spirit was out of Heaven!
   And if you ask me how that has been caused, I would say it has been
   caused by some kindly look of my Beloved, some loving glance of His
   eyes, or some sweet Word from His mouth--and my soul has rejoiced with
   unspeakable joy! Why should it not be so with you tonight? That is the
   best thing to waken you up! If your heart is dull and heavy, as soon as
   your Beloved speaks, you will at once awake to spirit and to life!

   My time has gone but I want to say this to you. I am sometimes, no, I
   am often haunted with the fear lest we, as a Church, should fall
   asleep. Oh, how greatly has the Lord blessed us these many years! And
   what favor seems to rest upon every agency! The preaching of the Word
   has been very successful, but still it is open to the conversion of
   many. In our classes how is God honored! Ah, you little know, some of
   you, what others of us see--and even we do not see one-tenth of what
   God is doing in the class conducted by one of our sisters here. And our
   Sunday schools may very well be a delight, for the Lord is working a
   great work in them! But I am always jealous over you, lest you should
   slumber. How easy it is to fall asleep! I often fear that my voice,
   which was once like a trumpet to you, will become like sleep music--
   that you will become so accustomed to it, and I, perhaps, shall become
   so dull and heavy, that the life of God will almost die out among us.
   My soul weeps and cries to God over this matter! My Master knows that I
   would cheerfully resign, that another voice might speak to you, if that
   would keep alive your zeal and enthusiasm. If it is, however, not my
   fault, even a changed ministry would not suffice. When Churches grow to
   a great size, people think they must always continue so,

   and that God will always bless them as He has done. Why, Sirs, as our
   first blessings came in answer to prayers--all future blessings must
   come in the same way!

   I remember well, when we used to meet together in Park Street to have
   holy communion with the Lord, how we used to wrestle with Him in
   prayer, so much so that I have scarcely been able to pronounce the
   benediction, much less give any address, because we all seemed to be
   carried away in the mighty majesty of wrestling prayer! We have now,
   sometimes, very choice seasons, but I am afraid not altogether such as
   we once had. At any rate, if there is any falling off, I thank God
   there is very little, indeed. It is scarcely perceptible as yet, but
   how soon may there be, unless we watch and are jealous with a holy
   jealousy? Let us work with Christian earnestness in prayer. O you who
   have done little for Christ of late, I pray you, do more for Him! You
   who think your time of service is over and that you may retire like
   pensioners, and no more fight, I want you to enlist again! Put on the
   colors once more as if you were but raw recruits! You who once could
   defy persecution and stand up in the street to preach Christ and laugh
   at all your fears, gather up your courage once again! Oh, that you
   would wake up, as a Church, and put on your beautiful array of past
   times when you were despised and persecuted--and the minister's name
   was a byword and a proverb, and you, yourselves, because you were
   linked with him, were thought to be fools and the off-scouring of all
   things! But now I tremble lest we should grow respectable and great,
   and lest men should think we are respectable and depart from us. My
   soul begs and beseeches you to renew your prayers for me, that I may
   preach with greater vigor. What if my ministry should become as dull
   and stupid as the ministry of one-half of my Brothers--what if it
   should become as useless and as unprofitable as the ministry of nine
   out of ten who occupy the pulpit? I had sooner die than live to be such
   a being as many who stand up in the pulpit wholly to waste people's
   time and not to win souls! My spirit pants to have the consuming zeal
   of Baxter and the earnest, passionate enthusiasm of Whitefield--but I
   cannot get it except through your prayers! Or getting it, it cannot be
   maintained without your vehement cries and entreaties before the Lord!

   Perhaps we, as a Church, have been brought to our present state for a
   great purpose which has never dawned upon us. We have already done
   something for God--we are filling the pulpits of our village churches
   with men sound in the faith and earnest for God. We are erecting a
   great barrier against the everyday increasing encroachment of heresy
   and infidelity--but we need to do something more and something looms
   upon us in the future--I scarcely know what-- some high and holy
   purpose which this Church has been brought up to this point to
   accomplish. Shall we draw back? Men of Ephraim, will you draw back in
   the day of battle? Will you be condemned for not coming to the help of
   the Lord against the mighty? Shall the angel pronounce over you the
   sentence, "Ichabod, for the Glory of the Lord has departed from you
   because of your declining to continue earnest in zeal"? If it is so to
   any extent, let us return unto the Lord! Let us take to Christ words of
   repentance and faith and let us beseech Him to make this Church again
   His buckler and two-edged sword and to make His minister once more a
   captain in the midst of the Lord's hosts, for the day of the Lord is
   mighty and the battle of the Lord is terrible--and every man must take
   his place and every soldier must draw his weapon from his thigh--for
   the day of the Lord draws near and the battle of God is to be fought
   now, even now! Let us arise, my Brothers and Sisters! Let us rush like
   lions to the prey, like swift eagles to the chase! And God shall help
   us, God shall help us, and that right early!

   This Church cries tonight, "I sleep." But she can also say, "my heart
   wakes." The heart of the Church is still awake! I think my voice to you
   tonight is an echo of the voice of your Beloved. Sisters, Brothers,
   bestir yourselves! Let us cry mightily unto God! Let us labor for the
   winning of souls! Let us pant and pray for a great increase to our
   membership and God will save sinners, in answer to our prayer, and His
   name shall be glorified forever and ever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: EXODUS 12:1-27.

   Verses 1, 2. And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of
   Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it
   shall be the first month of the year to you. And for this reason that,
   now, as a nation, they were to begin their separate history, separate
   in existence from all the rest of mankind!

   3, 4. Speak you unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the
   tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb,
   according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house: and if the
   household is too little for the

   lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to
   the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make
   your count for the lamb. The separation of the lamb was to take place
   some four days before the time of its slaughter. Probably it was kept
   in the house, according to the Jewish tradition it was so, and they
   would hear it bleating and be reminded of the purpose for which it was
   to be slain.

   5. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: you
   shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. You know what a
   type this is of Christ, "without blemish," offered up for us in the
   very fullness of His strength, in the prime and glory of His Manhood,
   giving Himself up to be our Paschal Lamb, "The Lamb of God."

   6. And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month:
   and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in
   the evening. Just as the sun went down, or just before it set for the
   evening. There is also the marginal reading "between the two evenings."
   The evening before the sun set, was the first, and then the daylight
   after the sun set was the second evening.

   7. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side
   posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat
   it. Not on the threshold, lest it should be trodden upon--and woe be
   unto the man who shall trample upon the blood of Christ! On the two
   side posts and on the lintel was placed the mark indicating that God
   had redeemed the inmates of that house with blood.

   8. 9. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and
   unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it Eat not of it
   raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with
   his legs, and with the innards thereof We are to have a whole Christ,
   with His head of wisdom and His heart of love, the walk and
   conversation of Christ, and all the inward secret life and Grace of
   Christ to be ours.

   10. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that
   which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. Not a
   bone was to be left for the Egyptians to treat with dishonor, but all
   was to be consumed.

   11, 12. And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes
   on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in
   haste: it is the Lord's Passover For I willpass through the land
   ofEgypt this night, and willsmite all the first-born in the land
   ofEgypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods ofEgypt I will
   execute judgment: I am the LORD. All those false gods had been smitten
   in the different plagues and now, inasmuch as the Egyptians regarded
   the first-born in the family with veneration, the last stroke was about
   to be struck--and Pharaoh and all his subjects would stagger under the
   tremendous blow.

   13. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you
   are. Oh that we would all look upon the blood of Jesus as a token--a
   token of Divine Love in giving the Well-Beloved to die for us--a token
   that Justice has had its due--a token that we are perfectly secure
   forever!

   13. And when I see the blood, I willpass over you. It is God's view of
   the blood of Christ, which is the all-important matter! When He looks
   at Christ upon the Cross and is satisfied with the Atonement that He
   there offered, the Lord passes over all those for whom Christ died as a
   Substitute.

   13-15. And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I
   smite the land ofEgypt And this day shall be unto you for a memorial,
   and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations;
   you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever Seven days shall you
   eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away leaven out
   of your houses: for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day
   until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
   Therefore he was no partaker in the redemption purchased by blood. He
   who is not purged from hypocrisy may say what he likes, but the blood
   will not save him unless he repents--there must be the putting away of
   this leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, or else even the
   blood of Atonement will not avail.

   16. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the
   seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you, no manner of
   work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that
   only may be done of you. What rest this brought into the houses of the
   Israelites! There was not only deliverance from the plagues, but there
   was also rest from all manner of work. Herein is the blessedness of the
   blood of the Lamb--when it comes to the home and the heart of the
   Believer, it gives him rest of soul while others are toiling in vain to
   get relief by their own works!

   17-25. And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for in this
   selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land ofEgypt:
   therefore shall you observe the day in your generation, by an ordinance
   forever In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at
   evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of
   the month at evening. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your
   houses: for whoever eats that which is leavened, even that soul shall
   be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger,
   or born in the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your
   habitations shall you eat unleavened bread. Then Moses called for all
   the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb
   according to your families, and kill the Passover And you shall take a
   bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and
   strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the
   basin, and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the
   morning. For the LORD willpass through to smite the Egyptians and when
   He sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD
   willpass over the door, and will not suffer the Destroyer to come in
   unto your houses to smite you. And you shall observe this thing for an
   ordinance to you and to your sons forever And it shall come to pass,
   when you come to the land which the LORD will give you. According as He
   has promised, that you shall keep this service. What? Were they never
   to forget the slaying of the lamb and the sprinkling of the blood? No,
   never! Not when they came to Canaan, to the land that flowed with milk
   and honey, and when God had worked other great marvels for them? No,
   never! And the highest honor that we shall ever have will be this, to
   be able truthfully to sing--

   "A monument of Grace,

   A sinner saved by blood."

   26, 27. And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto
   you, What mean you by this service? That you shall say, It is the
   sacrifice of the LORD'S Passover, who passed over the houses of the
   children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians, and delivered
   our houses. And the people bowed the head and worshipped.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Sermon From a Sick Preacher

   (No. 3014)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, IN
   THE YEAR 1869.

   "Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious." 1 Peter 2:7.

   [Not only was this the first text from which Mr. Spurgeon preached, but
   it was his theme on many subsequent occasions. Two of these discourses
   bear the same title-- CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS although one of them
   is No. 242, Volume 5 in the New Park Street Pulpit and the other is No.
   2137, Volume 36]

   MY Brothers and Sisters, I am quite out of order for addressing you
   tonight. I feel extremely unwell, excessively heavy and exceedingly
   depressed, and yet I could not deny myself the pleasure of trying to
   say a few words to you. I have taken a text upon which I think I could
   preach in my sleep and I believe that if I were dying, and were
   graciously led into the old track, I could, with my last expiring
   breath, pour out a heartfelt of utterance upon the delightful verse
   which I have selected. It happens to be the passage from which I first
   essayed to speak in public when I was but a boy of sixteen years of age
   and I am sure it contains the marrow of what I have always taught in
   the pulpit from that day until now. The words are in the Second Chapter
   of the First Epistle of Peter, and the seventh verse--" Therefore, to
   you who believe, He is precious."

   We might find "ample room and verge enough" if we were to enlarge upon
   the preciousness of Christ in His Person as God and perfect Man, His
   preciousness to His Father, His preciousness to the Holy Spirit, His
   preciousness to angels and glorified men. We might next speak of Him in
   the preciousness of His work, showing His preciousness as the Mediator
   of the New Covenant and at the Incarnate Messenger of that Covenant on
   earth, His preciseness as working out a perfect righteousness and as
   rendering a complete expiation. We might dwell upon His preciousness in
   all His offices, whether as Prophet, Priest, or King, and in all His
   relationships as Friend, Brother, as Bridegroom. Indeed, we have before
   us a subject as inexhaustible as the river of God, and as bright as the
   sapphire Throne! If we should endeavor to show how precious the
   Well-Beloved is in all respects, we would need eternity in which to
   complete the task--

   "Precious is the name of Jesus,

   Who can half its worth unfold?

   Far beyond angelic praises

   Sweetly sung to harps of gold.

   Precious when to Calvary groaning,

   He sustained the cursed tree.

   Precious when His death atoning

   Made an end of sin for me.

   Precious when the bloody scourges

   Caused the sacred drops to roll.

   Precious when of wrath the surges

   Overwhelmed His holy soul!

   Precious in His death victorious,

   He the host of Hell overthrows,

   In His Resurrection glorious,

   Victor crowned over all His foes.

   Precious, Lord! Beyond expressing,

   Are Your beauties all Divine! Glory, honor, power and blessing Be
   henceforth forever Thine."

   The wording of the text binds our thoughts to one point. "Therefore, to
   you who believe, He is precious." It is not so much how precious He is,
   as how precious He is to you! If you are a Believer, the text affirms
   that Jesus Christ is, without any adverb to limit the extent of the
   descriptive word, precious to you!

   I. We shall, first, talk awhile upon the Truth of God that JESUS CHRIST
   IS NOW PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS.

   Notice, attentively, how personally precious Jesus is. There are two
   persons in the text. "Therefore, to you who believe, HE is precious."
   "You" and "He." You are a real person and you feel that you are such.
   To yourself, you must always be the most real of existences. You do not
   think of yourself as a person of whom you have read in history, or
   heard of in discourse, or seen from a window years ago. You have, (to
   use an ugly word, since I do not know any substitute for it), realized
   yourself--you are quite clear about your own existence. Now, in the
   same way, I pray you strive to realize the other Person! "Therefore, to
   you who believe, He is precious." Jesus exists just as really as you do
   and you must not regard Him as a personage who was here 1,869 years
   ago, or one of whom you have heard, and whom you like to think of as a
   poetical conception--but there is a real Christ now existing in spirit,
   existing here--in real flesh and blood now standing at the right hand
   of the Father! And between Him and you, if you are a Believer, there
   exists a bond of unity which, though invisible, is nevertheless most
   matter-of-fact and positive. You believe in Him. He loves you. You love
   Him in return and He sheds abroad in your heart a sense of His love.
   You two are bound together tightly and firmly. There is neither myth,
   nor dream either in Him or in your union to Him. He is and you are--and
   He is in very deed most precious to you.

   Notice, too, that while the text gleams with this vividness of
   Personality to which the most of professors are blind, it is weighted
   with a most solid positiveness--"Therefore, to you who believe, He is
   precious." It does not speak as though He might be or might not be, but
   "He is precious." There are some things about myself as a Christian
   which are frequently matters of question. I may gravely question
   whether I am growing in Grace and under such a doubt I may search my
   heart to see whether I love my Lord better, or whether I have more
   fully conquered my sins. But one thing I do not question, namely, that
   being a Believer in Him, Jesus Christ is unutterably precious to my
   soul! If you doubt your faith, you may doubt whether Christ is precious
   to you, but if your faith is certain, the preciousness of Christ to
   your heart is quite as certain. "He is precious." If the new life is in
   you, you are as sure to love the Savior as fish love the stream, or the
   birds the air, or as brave men love liberty, or as all men love their
   lives! Tolerate no questions here! Allow no debate upon this vital
   point of your religion! Jesus must be precious to you. Cleanse your
   eyes if any dust has dimmed your sight of Jesus' preciousness and be
   not satisfied till, in the language of the spouse, you can say, "My
   Beloved is the chief among ten thousand." "Yes, He is altogether
   lovely."

   Mark, further, the absoluteness of the text--"Therefore, to you who
   believe, He is precious." It is not written how precious He is. The
   text does not attempt, by any form of computation, to measure the price
   which the regenerate soul sets upon her bosom's Lord. There is no hint
   that He is moderately precious. It does not even say positively or
   comparatively precious. I infer, therefore, that I may, if I choose,
   insert the word, "superlatively." And, certainly, if I did so, there
   would be no exaggeration, for more dear than light to the eyes, or life
   to the body, is Jesus to the sanctified heart! Each saint can
   truthfully sing--

   "Yes, You are precious to my soul,

   My transport and my trust!

   Jewels to You are gaudy toys

   And gold is sordid dust"

   Since no sparkling gems or precious metals, no royal regalia, or
   caskets of rare jewels can ever equal the value of Jesus, the
   comparison is vain. We therefore place Him by Himself, alone, and say
   that He is absolutely precious to Believers. Gold is precious, but the
   diamond is more so and, in comparison with the diamond, the gold is of
   small account. The diamond is precious, but give a man a bagful of
   diamonds of the first water and put him down in a desert, or let him be
   out on the wild waste of ocean--he would give all his diamonds for a
   draught of pure water to drink, or a crust of bread to eat--so that, in
   certain cases, even the excellent crystal would lose its value. In
   fact, mineral substances are merely arbitrary signs of value, they have
   but little worth in themselves. Gold in itself is less useful than iron
   and a diamond of

   little more account than a piece of glass. They have no absolute
   intrinsic value which would remain the same under all contingencies.
   But Christ is absolutely precious! That is to say, nothing can ever
   match Him, much less excel Him, and He is precious under all
   circumstances! There never can arrive a time when we shall be compelled
   to confess His lack of value, or lower our estimate of Him. He is
   infinitely precious! O my Soul, do you esteem Him so? My Heart, are you
   sure of this, that unto you He is precious beyond compare? Positively
   precious? Comparatively precious, though Heaven itself were compared?
   Superlatively precious beyond all things that can be dreamed of, or
   imagined? Is He to you essential preciousness, the very standard of all
   value? Thus it should be, for the text means no less--"Therefore, to
   you who believe, He is precious."

   The thought which I desire to bring out into fullest relief is this,
   that Jesus Christ is, today, continually precious to His people. The
   moment a soul believes in Jesus, his sins are forgiven. Well, then, the
   precious blood that washes all sin away, is not that done with? Oh, no!
   Unto you that believe, though you have believed to the saving of your
   soul, He is still precious, for your guilt will return to your
   conscience and you will yet sin, being still in the body, but there is
   a fountain still filled with blood and thus unto you, experimentally,
   the cleansing Atonement is as precious as when you first relied upon
   its expiating power! No, Jesus is more precious to you, now, than when
   first you were washed in His blood and were made white as snow, for you
   know your own needs more fully, have proved more often the adaptation
   of His saving Grace and have received a thousand more gifts at His
   blessed hands! I fear that some Christians imagine that after
   believing, all is done, but my Lord Jesus Christ is no old Almanac,
   used up and of no further service! He is not like the medicine which I
   took months ago, which then healed me of my disease, so that now I can
   afford to put the rest of it on the shelf and laugh at it--oh, no! He
   is still my Divine Medicine! I still need Him and I still have Him. If
   I believe in Him, I feel I need Him more than I ever did and He is
   dearer to me than ever He was. If I needed Him before, as a poor guilty
   sinner, I need Him just as much as a poor needy saint, hanging upon His
   daily bounty, deriving life perpetually from His life, peace from the
   virtue of His precious blood and joy from the flowing out of His love
   to me! Instead of Christ's losing value to the Believer, the pith of
   the text is this--that you, Believer, when you get Christ and get what
   Christ brings to you, instead of esteeming Him as though He were an
   empty vessel out of which you had drained the last drop, prize Him more
   highly than you ever did before! He is not a gold mine worked out and
   exhausted, a field reaped of its harvest, or a vineyard where the grape
   gleaning is done--He still has the dew of His youth, the fullness of
   His strength, the infinity of His wealth, the perfection of His power!

   II. Now, Beloved, just for a minute or two, let us think how CHRIST IS
   PRECIOUS TO YOU TODAY.

   He is precious to you today because His blood, even now, this day, is
   the only thing which keeps you from being a condemned sinner, exposed
   to the wrath of God. There has been enough sin upon your soul, my
   Brother, my Sister, this very day, to cast you into Hell if your Surety
   had not stood between you and God's Justice. You have been into no
   sinful company today. You have been in your Sunday school class and I
   have been in the pulpit, but ah, my pulpit sins would have damned me,
   today, if it had not been for that precious blood! And your Sunday
   school sins would have shut you up in Hell if that dear Mediator had
   not stood between you and God! So, you see, it is not merely the first
   day in which you believe in which He is precious to you, but right on,
   still, as long as you are a sinner, the Intercessor stands and pleads
   for you, evermore putting your sin away, being yesterday, today and
   forever, your Savior, your Shield, and your Defense and, therefore,
   evermore supremely precious!

   Remember, too, He is precious because the only righteousness you have
   is still His perfect righteousness. That which pleads with God for you
   is not what you are, but what HE is! You are accepted at this moment,
   but you are only "accepted in the Beloved." You are not justified
   because you feel in a sweet frame of mind, or because your heart
   rejoices in the name of God. Oh, no! Your acceptance is all in your
   great Surety and if it could be possible that He and the entire system
   of His Grace could be withdrawn and Covenant engagements abrogated, you
   would be as unacceptable as even lost spirits are and, like they,
   forever driven from the face and favor of God! Is He not, then, as your
   accepted Substitute, at this hour most precious to you?

   Moreover, Beloved, Jesus Christ is precious to you at this moment as
   much as ever He was, because from henceforth it is His example which
   you strive to imitate. So far as He is an example to His people, His
   Character has always been most admirable in your esteem--and this day
   you delight to know that in His life, God's Law appears--

   "Drawn out in living characters."

   You aspire to be like Him now--you expect to be perfectly like Him in
   the day of His appearing. Now, because He shows you what you shall be
   and because in Him lies the power to make you what you shall be, is He
   not, therefore, daily precious to you? In proportion as you fight with
   sin. In proportion as you seek for holiness with inward longing and
   sublime partings--in that proportion will Jesus Christ, the Paragon of
   all perfection, be precious in your esteem! Beloved, you are to be
   crucified with Him! Your flesh, with its corruptions and lusts, must
   die upon His Cross as He died. Is He not precious when you believe that
   it will be by virtue of His death that sin will die in you? You are to
   rise in Him! No, I trust you have already risen in Him into newness of
   life. I hope you are panting more and more after the resurrection life,
   that you may no longer regard the dead things of this world, but live
   for eternal things, as those whose "life is hid with Christ in God." If
   so, I know you will prize a risen Savior and your appreciation of Him
   will increase as you drink more deeply into the fellowship of the risen
   life. Forget not, Beloved, that our Redeemer has ascended, and in that
   ascension every saint has his share. I do not say that you all enjoy
   your share yet, but, in proportion as you do so, you will reckon Christ
   to be precious, for He "has raised us up together, and made us sit
   together in heavenly places." "Our conversation is in Heaven from where
   we also look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ," whose Second
   Advent is to be the perfection of our spiritual life, the unveiling of
   the hidden beauties and manifestations of the sons of God! Just in
   proportion as you enter into your royal heritage and live in it, and
   believe in it--in this proportion Jesus Christ will be precious to you.

   Beloved, let me tell you a secret. To many of you there is as much in
   Christ undiscovered as you have already enjoyed. Your faith has only
   yet grasped Christ as saving you from going down to the Pit--Christ is
   precious to you so far--but if your faith could even now comprehend the
   fact that you are one with Christ, members of His body, of His flesh
   and of His bones--that you are heirs of God and joint-heirs with
   Christ, ah, then, how doubly precious would Jesus be! As surely as your
   faith grasps more, becomes more capacious and appropriating, Christ
   will grow in preciousness to you! I am persuaded that there is a
   meaning in these words which none of God's saints have yet been able to
   discover, a deep mysterious preciousness of Jesus only to be known by a
   close and intimate acquaintance with Him such as falls to the lot of
   few. "Therefore, to you who believe"--just in proportion as you
   believe--the larger, the stronger, the deeper, the purer, the more
   sublime, the more full-grown your faith, the more Jesus Christ is
   precious to you. Ask, then, for more faith, that Jesus may be more
   precious to you! And God grant it to you, for His name's sake!

   III. Thus much on that point. Now a few words on another. BECAUSE JESUS
   IS PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS, HE EFFICACIOUSLY OPERATES UPON THEM. The
   preciousness of Christ is, as it were, the leverage of Christ in
   lifting up His saints to holiness and righteousness!

   Let me show you this. The man who trusts Christ values Christ That
   which I value, I hold fast. Hence our valuing Christ helps us to abide
   steadfast in times of temptation. The world says to a Christian,
   "Follow me and I will enrich you." "No," says the Christian, "You
   cannot enrich me. I have Christ and I am rich enough." "Follow me,"
   says the world, "and I will bless you. I will give you the delights of
   the flesh." "No," says the heart, "you cannot bless me, for these
   things are accursed and would bring me sorrow, not pleasure. Jesus
   Christ is my pleasure and to love Him and to do His will is my joy." Do
   you not see that the greater your value of Christ, the greater your
   strength against temptation? Although the devil may tempt you with this
   and that, yet Jesus Christ, being more precious than all else, you say,
   "Get you behind me, Satan. You cannot tempt me while Christ is dear to
   my spirit." Oh, may you set a very high value upon Christ, that thus
   you may be kept firm in the day of temptation!

   Notice further this valuing of Christ helps the Believer to make
   sacrifices. Sacrifice-making contributes a large part of any high
   character. He who never makes a sacrifice in his religion may shrewdly
   suspect that it is not worth more than his own practical valuation of
   it. When a man has a very important document about him, on which
   depends his title to his estates, if a thief should try to take it from
   him, he will allow the thief to tear away his garments, to rob him of
   anything he has except his treasure! That he takes care to hold fast as
   long as he can. Indian messengers, men entrusted with jewels, have been
   known to swallow them to preserve them from robbers--and to allow
   themselves to be stripped naked of every rag they wore--but they would
   not lose the jewel with which their prince had entrusted them. So the
   Christian will say to the world, "Take away my fortune. Take away my
   livelihood. take away my good name, if you will, O lying world! But,
   despite all, I will retain my Savior, for He is precious!" Skin for
   skin, yes, all that a man has will he give for Christ--and he never
   will or can give Christ up if Christ is precious to him.

   See, then, that believing in Jesus makes Him precious and His being
   precious helps us to make sacrifices most cheerfully for His dear sake.

   Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, this valuing of Christ makes us jealous
   against sin. What, I say, does Jesus Christ deign to live under my
   roof? Then, while He lives in my heart, I will give no roosting place
   to any foul bird of sin that might begin hooting in His ear! No, you
   enemies of Christ, begone, begone, begone! My Beloved shall have the
   best chamber of my spirit undefiled by your filthy feet. We are afraid
   lest we should do anything to grieve the heavenly Lover of our souls.
   This makes us keep our garments white and pick our steps through this
   miry world. Hence, a right valuing of Christ promotes directly the
   highest degree of sanctification. He who loves the Redeemer best,
   purifies himself most, even as His Lord is pure.

   Besides, Beloved, high valuing of Christ helps the Christian in the
   selection of his associates in life. If I hold my Divine Lord to be
   precious, how can I have fellowship with those who do not esteem Him?
   You will not find a man of refined habits and cultured spirit happy
   among the lowest and most illiterate. "Birds of a feather flock
   together." Workers and traders unite in companies according to their
   occupations. Lovers of Christ rejoice in lovers of Christ and they
   delight to meet together, for they can talk to each other of things in
   which they are agreed. I would recommend you to choose the church of
   which you would be a member and the pastor whom you would hear by this
   one thing--by how much of Christ there is in that church and how much
   of the savor of Christ there is in that ministry! It is an evil thing
   for a child of God to be enchanted by mere rhetoric. As well might you
   choose a table to feast at merely on account of the knives and forks,
   or the polish of its mahogany! You require food for the soul and there
   is nothing that will long feed a true heart but Jesus Christ who is the
   meat and the drink of His people. Love to Christ soon makes a Christian
   discontented with mere oratory. He cannot be satisfied even with the
   best doctrine apart from Jesus. "They have taken away my Lord," he
   says, "and I know not where they have laid Him." I must hear about
   Jesus and if that silver bell does not ring, then all the rest may
   chime as they may, but my ear is at unrest until I hear that celestial
   sound!

   Thus, a lofty estimate of Christ will be seen, if I had time to track
   it, to operate through the entire history of a Christian!

   Little need is there more fully to particularize, but we must not fail
   to remark that a sense of the Redeemer's preciousness makes the
   Christian useful, for that which is much on the heart will soon creep
   up to the tongue--and the testimony of the heart is a notable method of
   spreading the Gospel. If you love Christ much, you will speak about
   Him. Your restrained speech will almost choke you. Your soul will be
   hot within you while you are silent, till, at last, like a fire in your
   bones which cannot be concealed any longer, it will break out and you
   will say to others, "My Beloved is the fairest and noblest of all
   beloveds! Oh, that you all knew Him and loved Him as I do! If you see
   Him, His face is brighter than the sun in its strength! If you hear
   Him, His voice is sweeter than the chorus of Heaven! If you draw near
   to Him, His garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia! And if you trust
   Him, you will find Him to be faithfulness and truth itself." The words
   may be broken, the sentences may not flow with rhythmical harmony, but
   he who really loves Christ must speak it out somehow or other! Thus,
   proclaiming with a burning heart the things which he has made touching
   the King, others will hear the good news and they will ask, "Who is
   this Precious One?" And they will, by God's good Spirit, be led to seek
   Him and find Him! So the Christian valuing Christ will come to be
   useful to the souls of men! Indeed, as I have said before, it will
   exercise an operating power on the entire Christian and render it
   holiness unto the Lord!

   IV. Christ being thus precious, HIS PRECIOUSNESS BECOMES THE TEST OF
   OUR CHRISTIANITY.

   I shall not prolong this humble talk, but shall, in conclusion, put a
   question to you. Beloved Brother or Sister, you know very well that I
   would be the last person in the world to speak lightly of the value of
   sound doctrine. I wish we were all far more acquainted with the
   Scriptures than we are and that the Doctrines of Grace were more clear
   to our understandings and more imprinted upon our hearts. But there are
   some people who love a certain set of doctrines so much, that if you
   differ a hair's breadth, they will denounce you as rotten to the core!
   They will not associate with any who do say, "Shibboleth," and sound
   the "sh" very harshly, too! They will cut off and condemn all God's
   people who do not precisely agree with them. Now, mark you, it is not
   written, "Unto you that believe a code of doctrines will be precious."
   That is true, but it is not written so in the text. The text is,
   "Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious." It is better to count
   Christ precious than it is to count orthodoxy precious! It is not
   loving a creed, but it is loving Jesus that proves you a Christian! You
   may become such a bigot that it may be only the laws of the land which
   keep you from burning those who differ from you, and yet you may have
   none of the Grace of God in your heart! I love Protestantism, but if
   there is anything in this world that I have a horror of, it is that
   politicalProtestantism which does nothing but sneer and snarl at its
   fellow citizens--but which is as ignorant as a cow about what
   Protestantism truly is. The great truths of Protestantism--not merely
   Protestant ascendancy--and the great secret power of those truths, far
   more than the mere letter of them, is the thing to be prized. You may
   get it into your head that you are a member of the one only true
   church. You may wrap yourself about with any quantity of self-conceit,
   but that does not at all prove you to be a possessor of Grace. It is
   love to Christ that is the root of the matter. I am very sorry, my dear
   Brother, if you should hold unsound views on some points, but I love
   you with all my heart if Jesus is precious to you! I cannot give up
   Believers' Baptism. It is no invention of mine and, therefore, I cannot
   give up my Master's ordinance. I am sure that it is Scriptural. I
   cannot give up the Doctrine of Election--it seems to me so plainly
   taught in the Word. But over the head of all doctrines and ordinances,
   and over everything, my Brother and Sister, I embrace you in my heart
   if you believe in Jesus and if He is precious to you, for that is the
   vital point! These are the matters of heart-work that mark a
   Christian-- nothing else is so true a test. If you cannot say, "Jesus
   is precious to me," I do not care to what church you belong, or what
   creed you are ready to die for, you do not know the Truth of God unless
   the Person of Christ is dear to you!

   This may serve as a test for each one here. My Brother, my Sister, do
   you believe in Him who is the Son of God and yet was born of the Virgin
   here on earth? Do you rely alone on Him who, on the Cross, poured out
   His heart's blood to redeem sinners? Do you depend on Him who now
   stands with His priestly garments on before the Throne of the Infinite
   Majesty, pleading for the unjust that they may live through Him? If you
   do, then answer this question--Do you love Jesus now? Do you love Him
   with your heart and soul? Would you serve Him? Do you serve Him? Will
   you serve Him? Will you subscribe your hand to be His servant from this
   day forth? Do you declare now, if not with lips, yet honestly with your
   soul, "He is precious to me, and I would give up all else sooner than
   give up Him"? Then it is well with you! Be happy and rejoice! Come to
   His Table and feast with Him at the banquet of love!

   If not, you have not built on the Rock. If you are not loving Christ, I
   pray you examine yourself and see where you are, for there is but a
   step between you and Hell. Repent! May God convert you and give you now
   to put your confidence in Jesus and now to be saved, that He may be
   glorified in you, for hitherto He has had no glory from you! Unto you
   that do not believe, Christ is not precious, and you will go your way
   and despise Him. Oh, that you were made wise by the Holy Spirit and
   taught to consider things rightly! Then Christ would, indeed, be
   precious to you. He is the only way for your escape from the wrath to
   come. He is the only hope for you of ever entering the gates of Heaven.
   He must be your only Shelter when the world will be all ablaze, as soon
   it shall--when the stars shall fall, like withered leaves from the
   trees, when all creation shall rock and reel--and His voice shall
   resound in earth, and Heaven, and Hell, "Awake, you dead, and come to
   judgment!" The only hope of a Savior, in that last tremendous day, must
   be found in Jesus. Oh, seek Him now while He may be found! Call upon
   Him now while He is near! Turn not your heels away Him now, lest you
   turn once and for all to Hell! Come to Him now! Believe in Him now! And
   He shall have the glory! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   1 PETER 2.

   Verse 1. Therefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and
   hypocrisies and envies, and all evil speaking. Putting these evil
   things right away from you, having nothing further to do with any of
   them. Notice the repetition of the word "all." "All malice and all
   guile"--everything in the shape of deceit--"and all evil speaking." All
   these are to be put away by all Believers, as rags are put away in the
   rag-bucket, or refuse on the dunghill!

   2. As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may
   grow thereby. Be glad to get simple Truths of God--the "milk of the
   Word." Even if you can digest the strong meat of the Word, never grow
   weary of the milk, for it is always good diet even for a full-grown
   Christian. Do not crave milk and water, but, "desire the unadulterated
   milk of the Word that you may grow thereby." It is not enough for you
   to be spiritually alive--you must grow! And especially while you are
   babes in Grace, your great desire should be that you may grow.

   3. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You begin with
   tasting that the Lord is gracious. You go on to desire the
   unadulterated milk of the Word and so you grow more and more in Grace.

   4. Coming to Him, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but
   chosen of God, and precious. No one figure is sufficient to set forth
   Christ as He really is. A stone is a Scriptural simile and symbol of
   Christ, but we have to make the metaphor somewhat incongruous by
   comparing Him to "a living stone."

   5. You also, as living stones. It is not "lively" stones. It is the
   same word in the original, in both cases--"a living stone" and, "living
   stones." The translators of our Authorized Version have often rendered
   the same Hebrew or Greek word in a different way, which is a pity, as
   it is in this instance. "You also, as living stones."

   5. Are built up a spiritual house. A house that is a living structure
   from the foundation to the topstone.

   5. An holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to
   God by Jesus Christ. He is a living stone, and you, as living stones,
   are built upon Him--and He and you together make up a living spiritual
   house. And in order that the house may have suitable tenants and be
   properly furnished, you also become priests and, as priests, you "offer
   up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."

   6. Therefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in
   Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious: and he that believes on Him
   shall not be confounded. Thus the Apostle quotes from the Prophet
   Isaiah the ancient prophecy concerning Christ.

   7. Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious: but unto them which
   are disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is
   made the head of the corner Here Peter quotes from Psalm 118:22. What
   reverence these Inspired men had for the Inspired Book! The Spirit of
   God could have spoken fresh words if He had pleased, but, as if He
   meant to honor above everything else the Book which He had, Himself,
   Inspired, He "moved" Peter to quote the ancient Prophet and Psalmist in
   confirmation of what He was writing.

   8. And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which
   stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were
   appointed. These are terrible words, but they are true. I cannot fully
   explain them. As Archbishop Leighton says, "It is easier to get into a
   depth over this awful Truth of God than it is to get out again." O God,
   grant that none of us may stumble at Christ! If we do, Christ will not
   move because we kick at Him, or fall over

   Him.

   9. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation,
   a peculiar people. These are wonderful epithets that are here heaped
   upon Believers. May we have the Grace to be able to appropriate them
   and to expound them in our lives!

   9. That you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out
   of darkness into His marvelous light See where you once were, and also
   see to what you have been called by God's Grace--"out of darkness into
   light." That is not all--into His light. Even thatis not all--"into His
   marvelous light." The light of the Gospel is full of wonders. As common
   light is made up of many colors, so the light of God's Grace is made up
   of many marvelous colors--the colors of all the attributes of God!

   10. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of
   God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. What a
   great change, conversion is! And how great a change conversion works!
   How wonderful is the effect of regeneration! We had not obtained mercy,
   but now we have obtained mercy! We were not a people, but now we are
   the people of God!

   11. Dearly Beloved, I beseech you. Peter puts his hands together and
   pleads with intense earnestness.

   11. As strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war
   against the soul Those fleshly lusts belong to this present evil world,
   but you do not belong to it--you are "strangers and pilgrims"
   here--therefore feel an absolute alienation towards such things, an
   utter abhorrence of them! Do not even think of them, much less practice
   them. "Abstain from fleshly lusts," for, while they injure the body,
   that is not the worst thing that they do, for they "war against the
   soul."

   12, 13. Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that when
   they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works,
   which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit
   yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. You are not
   to be disturbers of the peace. You Christian people are to cultivate
   the spirit of conciliation wherever you dwell, submitting yourselves,
   "for the Lord's sake," even to some things which you do not like.

   13. Whether it be to the king, as supreme. In Peter's day, the king was
   a poor creature and something worse than that. Indeed, I might say of
   the bulk of the Emperors of Rome, who were the chief "kings" of that
   day, that they were monsters of iniquity! Yet the office was to be
   respected even when the man who occupied it could not be. Much more
   should it be respected when the occupant is what a true "king" should
   be.

   14-16. Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the
   punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For
   so is the will of God, that with well doing you may put to silence the
   ignorance of foolish men: as free. Free in yourselves, free in your
   conscience, free in your mind and heart.

   16. And not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the
   servants of God. You possess a freedom which others claim, but do not
   know. You feel that you are no man's slave, yet you do not use your
   liberty for evil, or to the injury of others.

   17-19. Honor allmen. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
   Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the
   good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a
   man for conscience toward God endures grief, suffering wrongfully.
   There is no credit in suffering rightfully--the credit is in patiently
   enduring suffering which you do not deserve.

   20- 21. For what glory is it, if, when you are buffeted for your
   faults, you take it patiently? But if when you do well, and suffer for
   it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even
   hereunto were you called. It is part of a true Christian's calling to
   bear what is put upon him wrongfully.

   21- 23. Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example,
   that you should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile
   found in His mouth: who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He
   suffered, He threatened not: but committed Himself to Him that judges
   righteously. This leads Peter to make the following glorious
   declaration concerning the atoning Sacrifice of Christ.

   24. Who His own Self bore our sins in His own body on the tree. There
   was a transference of sin from sinners to Christ. This is no fiction.
   He, "His own Self," bore that sin "in His own body on the tree." 24.
   That we, being dead to sins. Because He died for us and we died in Him.

   24. Should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.
   By His sufferings, you were cured of sin! His death not only removed
   from you the penalty of sin, but what is far better, it also removed
   from you the dread disease itself!

   25. For you were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the
   Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. God grant that this may be true
   concerning everyone of us, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

   --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.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Two Debtors

   (No. 3015)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
   14, 1867.

   "There was a certain creditor who had two debtors: the one owed one
   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?" Luke 7:41,42.

   [Other Sermons on various parts of this Parable, are as follows: No.
   2,768, Volume 48--DEBTORS AND DEBTORS; No. 1,739, Volume 29--BANKRUPT
   DEBTORS DISCHARGED and No. 2,127, Volume 36--LOVE'S COMPETITION]

   IT is not wise to compare ourselves with our fellow men. It is
   comparing one incorrect standard with another and is very apt to
   mislead. Still, as men will do this, as they will sail upon this tack,
   we will, for the moment, do the same with the view of correcting some
   of their mistakes.

   I. The very brief Parable before us suggests four thoughts upon which
   we will dwell for a few minutes. The first is that THERE ARE DIFFERENT
   DEGREES IN OUR SINNERSHIP--some owe five hundred pence and others only
   fifty.

   It would be very incorrect to say of all men, that they are alike
   sinful. That they are all guilty is true, but that they are all equally
   guilty is not true. There are persons who would contend very earnestly
   for this distinction because they claim to be among the better sort of
   sinners. They claim that they are not one tithe as guilty as many whom
   they know and that, in comparison with more grossly vicious persons,
   they are all but innocent! We will admit that, my excellent Friend. We
   will admit--not all, perhaps, that you would like us to admit--but we
   will at once allow that you are not so guilty as others. We will also
   admit that all sins are not alike degrading. There are vices,
   especially those which pollute the body, which manifestly lower men to
   the level of beasts, or worse than that, and we would not, for a
   moment, insinuate that our young friends who have been educated in the
   midst of godliness and have been preserved from any taint of vice, are
   so degraded by sin as drunks and revelers, the profane and the
   debauched.

   Moreover, we are persuaded that the penalties of sin will differ and
   that, albeit all the wicked shall be cast into Hell, yet there will be
   degrees in the anguish of that lost state. Our Master has Himself told
   us, "That servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself,
   neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
   But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be
   beaten with few stripes. For unto whomever much is given, of him shall
   be much required." There are great criminals whose punishment shall be
   more intolerable than that of others--and there are others, who have
   not sinned to the same extent, who, though justly punished with God's
   wrath-- shall not endure it to the same extent as those who have
   plunged more deeply into iniquity.

   Thus we are prepared to admit that there are differences in sin,
   differences in the consequent degradation of sinners, and differences
   in the punishment due to sin. Our own conscience, common sense and
   right judgment teach us this, yet notwithstanding the admissions, I
   want to put a few plain questions to you, dear Friends, who think that
   you are among the fifty-pence debtors and who look down with some sort
   of disdain upon those who owe five hundred pence! And, first, let me
   ask you this question--Are you quite sure that you are the lesser
   sinners. Are you certain that you are to be reckoned among the
   fifty-pence debtors? Remember that we must always judge sin not merely
   by its outward appearance, but by the motives and character of the
   person committing it--and also by the circumstances under which the
   offense was perpetrated.

   Will you not all admit that a sin committed against light and knowledge
   is far worse than a sin of ignorance. If a man should offend against
   the law of the land, not knowing it to be the law, his offense would
   not be as gross as that of

   another man who, understanding what the law is, deliberately sets
   himself in opposition to it. It may be that some of those upon whom you
   have looked down as owing God five hundred pence may have been without
   the light that you have had. Probably the most of them never had the
   privileges that you have enjoyed. Did not your godly mother pray over
   you from your very birth? Did not your anxious father diligently
   instruct you in the way of salvation? You have read the Bible, you have
   a tolerably clear notion what is right and what is wrong, so you have
   sinned in the light--you have sinned knowing it to be sin. May not,
   therefore, your little sins, as you think them to be, really be more
   heinous in the sight of God than those apparently greater sins which
   others have committed without the same degree of light and knowledge
   that you have had?

   Further, must not sin also be measured by the violence which a man has
   to do to his conscience in order to commit it. To some persons, no
   doubt, from their early habits and even from their very constitution, I
   will not say that sin becomes inevitable, but certainly they glide into
   it almost by nature and without being conscious of any restraint--or
   the restraint is so little that they scarcely feel it. I know that
   there are some of you who, happily, had to pull and tug against the bit
   and bridle before you could live as sinners. Conscience has so sharply
   pricked you and made you so uneasy in your course of life, that you
   have had to wrestle with your own conscience as a man struggles with
   his adversary. You have had to clutch conscience by the throat and try
   to throttle it and if you could have done so, you would have stifled,
   once and for all, that warning cry which became a constant nuisance to
   you. You could not sin with such pleasure as others could because your
   conscience would not keep silent, so, may not those minor offenses of
   yours which have been committed, notwithstanding the alarms of your
   outraged conscience, have had in them a heinousness which does not
   apply to the sins of others who have not had to contend against this
   inward monitor when plunging into sin?

   Yet again, dear Friends, may not example sometimes have a great deal to
   do with sinl When I see some of our young people inclining to be
   drunks, I am very sorry and I blame them. But can I wonder at their
   conduct when I see how many parents train up their children as if they
   really intended to make drunks of them--tempting them to drink and
   giving them their first taste of that which becomes a cause of
   stumbling to them? I do not see how, if it were the objective of some
   parents to make their boys drunks, they could act otherwise than as
   they now do! I have heard a workingman say to his son, when he has
   passed him a jug of ale, "Take a drink, my lad," and he has looked
   quite pleased when the boy has taken a deep draught. And then he has
   taken him to the gin palace and let him mingle freely with the evil
   company usually found in such a place! So, is there any wonder that the
   boy becomes a drunk? Can a father blame his son for swearing when he
   is, himself, a blasphemer? No. And I say that people who have thus been
   in the midst of sin from their very childhood, may not, after all, be
   such great sinners as others who have had the very opposite example set
   before them--and yet have committed these sins contrary to all the
   training of their early childhood. Some of us cannot recollect a fault
   on the part of our parents. Honestly looking back upon the private life
   of my father and mother, I cannot recall anything in their example
   which it would have been unsafe for me to imitate. Well then, if I have
   sinned, I have sinned against a parental example which I ought to have
   followed and, therefore, there must be more guilt in my fifty-pence sin
   than in the five-hundred-pence sin of others who have not had such an
   example as I had!

   Do you not think, too, that circumstances greatly affect the
   comparative enormity of sin?? If a thief steals a loaf because he has
   starving children crying at home, would you give him the same
   punishment as you would award to another man who steals what he really
   does not need and who seriously injures the man he robs merely for the
   greed of gain? You all make distinctions as to the motives which prompt
   to various actions--if you find that the motive, in one case, although
   not right, was more excusable than in the case of another--you judge
   the first one the more leniently. How do you know, my dear Hearers who
   resisted the calls of Divine Grace last Lord's-Day, that you were not
   more guilty than that man who was not here but who reeled home that
   same night, intoxicated? You came into direct contact with God's mercy
   and you resisted it--and that is more than the poor drunk did! And as
   to some of you seat-holders who are constantly here, yet still remain
   unconverted though we have entreated you to lay hold on Christ--I will
   not say it, but I almost think that your resistance of those continued
   invitations of Grace may have in it more of moral guilt, in the sight
   of God, than some of those offenses for which men are shut up in prison
   and are execrated by their fellows! Many people do not regard sins
   against God as being so heinous as crimes against men, yet they are
   even more so! And it is one of the marks of our common moral conduct
   that while a man may not be greatly offended if you call him a sinner,
   he

   would be very angry if you called him a criminal! That is to say such a
   man thinks there is not much amiss in having offended God, but he
   thinks it would be a dreadful thing to have broken the laws of his
   fellow men!

   If you think these things over seriously, I should not wonder if anyone
   of you who at first said, "I am a fifty-pence debtor. I thank God that
   there are differences between sinners and that I am not so degraded as
   other men are"--should have to say, "It makes very little difference to
   me after all. It is true that I have never been a thief, I have never
   committed an act of unchastity, I have been an honest, upright,
   respectable member of society, yet, as I have not believed in Jesus
   Christ and turned from sin, I may be among those who were apparently
   first, who shall be last, while some who seemed to be last, shall stand
   far before me." I shall notbe sorry, dear Hearer, if that is the point
   to which you come. Indeed, I shall rather be glad, for it will be a
   more hopeful position for you to occupy than that which you once felt
   was your right place!

   II. Having thus shown you that there are degrees in sin, I shall now
   pass on to show you that THERE IS AN EQUALITY IN THE BANKRUPTCY OF BOTH
   THE GREAT AND THE LITTLE SINNERS.

   Neither of the debtors in the Parable had anything with which to pay
   his debt. And when God means to save a soul, He makes it realize that
   it has nothing with which it can discharge its debt to God. If any of
   you think that you can do anythingtowards saving yourselves, go and do
   it! But Christ will have nothing to do with you on those terms! You
   must be brought to feel that you are helpless, hopeless, lost, ruined
   and undone--and that you cannot lift even a finger to save
   yourself--but that the Grace of God must do everything for you, from
   the first to the last! And unless you are thus emptied, and humbled,
   and laid low in the dust before God, I see no sign that His Spirit is
   effectually working in you--

   "While we can call one mite our own, We get no full discharge."

   Both these debtors knew that "they had nothing to pay." There are some
   men who are conscious of a great deal of guilt who offer to discharge
   their liability by their repentance. "Oh," says such a man, "I am very
   sorry for my sin and that sorrow will surely make up for it. My tears
   shall flow freely and I will deprive myself of this pleasure and that!
   Surely that is all that is needed." But the man whom God means to save
   knows that his repentance cannot atone for his past guilt. If I get
   into debt, it is no use for me to be sorry--that sorrow will not pay my
   debt! And as I am immeasurably indebted to God, my tears of repentance
   will not discharge that debt--

   "Could my tears forever flow," they would not atone for sin! I hope you
   all realize the Truth of what I am saying, for if you do, it is a token
   for good in your case.

   Some others, though they cannot pay the full amount of their debt, hope
   to make a compromise. They will do their best and leave the Lord Jesus
   Christ to make up the rest. They cannot offer to God perfect obedience,
   so they offer such obedience as they can--and they trust that will
   satisfy Him. But a soul that has been truly awakened by the Holy Spirit
   knows that "compromise" is quite out of the question. The Divine
   declaration is, "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things
   which are written in the Book of the Law, to do them." There is not a
   word about some things which are required and other things which may be
   excused. My dear Hearer, I trust you are convinced that no
   half-obedience can ever be accepted by God! If you are to be saved by
   your own works, you must be absolutely perfect in thought, word and
   deed from the moment of your birth to the hour of your death! One crack
   in the crystal vase of perfection spoils it--and you all know that the
   vase was not only cracked, but smashed to atoms long ago. Do not trust
   in your own righteousness, but confess before God that you have
   "nothing to pay" off that terrible debt which you have incurred through
   sin.

   Some men give their note of hand and promise to pay their debt. They
   hope they will be better in the future than they have been in the past.
   But suppose they are? They will then be no better than they are always
   bound to be--and how can that improvement discharge their past debts?
   Try that plan on one of your tradesmen. You owe him, shall I say fifty
   pounds? Well, then, go to him and say, "I cannot pay what I owe you,
   but I will never get into your debt again." Will that promise take your
   name off his ledger? You know that it will not! And so, even if you
   could serve God perfectly in the future, that would not put away your
   sins in the past! The fact is, these promises of yours are just like
   the paper money which represents no real security and so leads to
   bankruptcy. You may build up a nice-looking structure with

   promises of good works which you will do in the future, but it will all
   come tumbling down one of these days--and great will be the fall
   thereof.

   This is the only safe declaration for a man to make--"O God, I am
   deeply in Your debt and have nothing to pay! If You would save me
   through my repenting, even then, if You did not enable me to repent, I
   could not repent, for my heart is hard as a stone! Lord, will You not
   take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh? And, Lord, if
   I am to be holy in the future, it must be Your Grace which will make me
   so. I know that if I am ever to enter Heaven, I must be holy. And I
   also know that holiness must be worked in me by Your Holy Spirit.
   Consequently, it cannot be any credit to me-- You must have the credit
   of it all. As for me, I am like the two debtors, I have 'nothing to
   pay'--nothing whatever! If You send the sheriff's officer to take me
   and put me in prison, and tell me that I shall never come out until I
   have paid the uttermost farthing, I must lie there forever and ever,
   for I know that it is not in my power to meet even one in ten thousand
   of Your just demands. If you should lay judgment to the line and
   righteousness to the plummet, my building for eternity must be found
   wanting. Pull it down, Lord, and then build me up as You would have
   me!"

   We are all equal here--"there is no difference." You respectable ladies
   and gentlemen are on a level with the worst villains in the land! My
   Lord, you are no better off, in this respect, than a chimney-sweeper!
   Your Majesty, even you have no preference, in this matter, over the
   poorest woman in your dominions! If you are to be saved--high and low,
   rich and poor, you great and mighty ones, and you despised and
   abandoned ones--so must all bow together here as you will have to lie
   in earth's common grave! So must you bow down in one common lowliness
   of mind before your God, whose debtors you all are, confessing that you
   have "nothing to pay"--not a single rusty farthing of goodness in the
   whole human race! Jew and Gentile must bow together before God, crying,
   "Guilty, guilty, GUILTY! We are guilty, everyone of us and we have
   nothing to plead in answer to the demands of Your righteous Law. And
   even this confession, itself, is forced from our lips because we cannot
   help feeling that it is, alas, but too true." We are all equal here.

   III. Passing on to the next point, we observe that when Sovereign Mercy
   dealt with these two debtors--the fifty-pence man and the
   five-hundred-pence man--IT PUT THEM ON A LEVEL, AGAIN, for their
   creditor "frankly forgave them both."

   The man who owed the five hundred pence could turn to the other debtor
   and say, "I am out of debt, my Brother!" And the other one could say to
   him, "Give me your hand! I cannot say any more than you can, but, glory
   be to God, I cannot say any less, for I, also, am out of debt! I could
   not pay my fifty pence, so I could have been shut up in the debtors
   prison--and you could not pay your five hundred pence, so you, also,
   could have been kept in prison. And though I did not owe as much as you
   did, yet I owed more than I could ever have paid, so let us together
   bless the name of the Lord who has frankly forgiven us both because His
   only-begotten and well-beloved Son has redeemed us from going down to
   the Pit by paying all our debt on Calvary's Cross."

   There is one word that I want you to especially notice--"He
   franklyforgave them both." By that I understand that he forgave them
   altogether because he willed to do so and not because of any reason in
   them why he should do so. Once and for all, he fully cancelled all
   their debts. And now, just as if they had never been in debt at all, he
   could not arrest them for debt and they had no cause to be afraid that
   he would do so, for he had no legal claim against them for he had,
   himself, by an act of Grace, forgiven them all that they owed--and they
   were, therefore, clear. Ah, my dear Hearers, your hearts must leap for
   joy if you know that God has forgiven all your past sin! Sometimes,
   when we get to talking about the perfect pardon which we have received
   from God, some people say, "How egotistical, how presumptuous you are!"
   Well, we will be egotistical and presumptuous in that sense--and the
   more we are so, the better will it be! Anyone who has believed in Jesus
   is wholly forgiven! Against me, if I believe in Jesus and against you,
   if you believe in Jesus, there is no sin recorded in God's Book of
   Remembrance! It is all blotted out! If you could turn the pages over,
   you would not find a single entry of the sin of a Believer. In God's
   sight, if I have trusted in Christ, I am as pure as though I had never
   sinned, for I have been so washed in Christ's precious blood that not a
   spot or wrinkle remains upon me! And you, too, Believer, are not
   half-pardoned. Christ is not half a Savior to us, but a whole Savior!
   And the pardon which God gives to us is a full and final pardon. He
   does not forgive us upon condition that we do not go back to the world.
   He makes no such condition and He will not let us go back. He forgives
   us outright, and puts the whole of our sin away forever. He receives
   the prodigal back into His bosom and bids him sit at the table and
   feast while the music and the dancing make glad his heart!

   Do you know, dear Hearer, that you are forgiven? "Oh," says one, "I
   would give all I have to know that." You may know it. If you trust the
   Lord Jesus Christ, that is a sure proof that you are pardoned. And you
   may live and you ought to live in a constant realization of perfect
   pardon through the precious blood of Jesus. There may have come into
   this place one who would not like his name to be known, or his
   character to be described. He has gone very, very far into everything
   that is evil. But he is now standing at the foot of the Cross and he is
   looking up to the Crucified Christ and he can say, "My trust is in
   Jesus only." There is probably also here a young man whose life, from
   his youth up, has been most excellent--nobody could ever detect a flaw
   in his moral character. He, too, is looking upon the wounds of Jesus,
   and he also can say, "My trust is in Him alone." Now, these two persons
   are equally pardoned! That great sinner has no more against him in
   God's Book than that excellent youth who is also forgiven--"He frankly
   forgave them both"--nor forgave one of them fully and the other only
   partially, but, "He frankly forgave them both."

   My eyes glance here and there upon some of my Brothers and Sisters in
   Christ whose life stories remind me of the differences there are
   between them--and also of the likeness which Divine Grace has worked in
   them. There are some here whose tongues were used in blasphemy not long
   ago. The drunkard's cup was often at their lips and the drunkard's
   language was their usual speech. But they are washed, cleansed and
   sanctified! And now there is no difference between them and those who
   were preserved from wandering out of the path of morality. "No
   difference," did I say? Sometimes I think that there is this
   difference--that those who have sinned much and have had much forgiven,
   are the warmest-hearted among us, the most faithful and the most
   earnest. So that if we, in our earlier days, seemed to excel them, they
   now excel us and we almost envy them their holy joy and earnest love to
   the Lord who has washed them from their many sins! Still, there is an
   equality between these two classes. They are both alike pardoned, both
   washed in the same precious blood, both clothed in the same spotless
   righteousness, both equally adopted into the family of God, both
   equally secured by the Everlasting Covenant and both equally have the
   indwelling of the Holy Spirit! And they shall both equally stand at the
   right hand of Christ, wearing the white robes, waving the palm
   branches, and they shall equally share His victory as they sing, "Unto
   Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and
   has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father--to Him be glory
   and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

   IV. Now, lastly, THERE IS ANOTHER POINT OF DIFFERENCE--"Which of them
   will love him more?"

   It is quite certain that there are some Christians who love the Lord
   Jesus Christ more than others do. Some who love Him much while others
   only love Him a little. Shall I describe those who love Christ only a
   little? If I do, some of you will be able to recognize your own
   portraits. They come to the place of worship pretty regularly. They
   sing, but not too loudly, for they are afraid of being too
   enthusiastic. They seldom come to a Prayer Meeting and only
   occasionally to the week-night service. They take just sufficient
   spiritual nourishment to keep them alive! I suppose they are afraid of
   taking too much, lest their spiritual nature should become too
   vigorous. They do have family prayer--sometimes. They do pray
   regularly, but it is very short. It may be sweet, but it is certainly
   very short. They do some good in the world--at least, we hope they do.
   They could count on one hand all the souls they have ever brought to
   Christ and all the good works they have ever done for the Lord Jesus
   Christ might be recorded on a very small scrap of paper. Some of them
   are wealthy and they heard a man ask them to give a tithe of their
   income to Christ. They thought he was a fanatic--they never dreamed of
   doing such a thing as he urged, though they do, sometimes, give a
   sixpence to the collection! They like other people to be earnest. They
   do not object to that unless those people ask them, also, to be
   earnest. These little-loved people have believed in Jesus, so they will
   go to Heaven--but such a change will have taken place in them that we
   shall scarcely know them.

   I have seen whole congregations of this sort of people! I have preached
   to them--that was terrible work, I can assure you. I have gone home
   with the deacon and he has been a person of the same sort. He didn't
   care to know how the cause was getting on in London. Indeed, he didn't
   care much whether it was getting on or not. As for revivals, if you
   only mention the word in the presence of such Brethren, they say, "No
   good ever comes of them." These people have had little forgiven, so
   they only love a little. They were never very great sinners and never
   had any deep repentance so, in their own estimation, they never owed
   Jesus Christ very much--they are a sort of superficial Christians who
   will be "saved, yet so as by fire."

   You hardly need that I should describe those who love Christ
   much--those who delight to praise Him, to pray in His name and to do
   all in their power to make Him known to others--those who give to God's
   cause at no ordinary rate,

   and help us to fight Satan in no ordinary way and to spread the Gospel
   of Christ in no common fashion! Last week some of us were at a meeting
   at which there was present a dear Brother in the ministry, the very
   flame of whose eyes seemed to set us all on fire--and when we have
   heard him speak from this platform, the very place has seemed to shake
   under the power of his fervent proclamation of the Truth of God and his
   impassioned prayers! A man who is thus all soul and all heart cannot
   preach lifeless, heavy, drugging sermons--and cannot bear to be with
   people who are dull, cold and heavy of heart. He feels that he has had
   much forgiven and, therefore, he loves much. I could also tell you of
   some godly Sisters who have given almost all their living to the cause
   of God and of others who give all their time to God's service, having
   sacrificed everything else that they may devote themselves to the cause
   of Christ. These are they who love much.

   We have differences even in the ministry. We have some Brothers who
   preach twice in the week, and they get so weary that they have to go
   away for a long holiday. But there are others who can preach 10 times
   in the week, or who, if they are not preaching, are visiting their
   people from door to door--and yet they do not die, but bless God that
   they have the strength thus to serve Him! As it is in the pulpit, so is
   it in the Sunday school, and so is it with all classes of Christians--
   there is a difference. Some seem to be all heart and others seem to
   have no heart at all. There are some who serve the Lord with their
   whole soul and others who give Him just the odds and ends of their time
   and strength. I pray God to raise up among us many Brothers and Sisters
   who shall be eminent for their Grace and consecration to Christ!

   What is the best way to reach this point? Not to be great sinners, but
   to feelthat you are great sinners! To have a deep sense of your own
   sinfulness. If you have never plunged into open vice, be thankful that
   you have not done so, but regard your sin in the light in which I tried
   to put it in the earlier part of this sermon. Set a clear view of it
   till you are humbled, broken down and crushed under its ponderous
   weight. Then go to Jesus Christ with this load of sin and, trusting in
   Him, know that you are forgiven through His atoning Sacrifice. And then
   there will be a potent motive within you which will give strength to
   your entire life and put muscle, nerve, sinew and bone into your
   Christianity! Then will you sing--

   "Love I much?I've more forgiven! I'm a miracle of Grace!"

   God bless this message to those poor trembling souls who are deeply in
   debt through sin--that they may see God's way of forgiving them through
   the merits and death of His dear Son, Jesus Christ. And may those who
   are forgiven much love Jesus much, and may God bless you all, for
   Jesus' sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 7:36-50.

   Verse 36. 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 It was
   usually a suspicious circumstance when a Pharisee desired to be
   familiar with Christ. It might generally be suspected that he wished to
   entrap Him. Yet, on this occasion, if there was no real friendliness to
   Christ, there was at least the appearance of it. We see what our Savior
   did when the Pharisee gave Him an invitation-- "He went into the
   Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat." The Lord saw there an
   opportunity for usefulness. He knew that He would have a good reason
   for speaking personally to this Pharisee, who, perhaps, was one of the
   better sort. At all events, our Lord felt that it was right for Him to
   go into that house, even if they did watch Him and try to catch Him in
   His talk. If there was hypocrisy there, there was the more need for His
   Presence, as Jesus Himself said concerning His eating with publicans
   and sinners, "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that
   are sick."

   37, 38. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, 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 hair
   of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
   She was not a sinner in the ordinary sense of the word, but she was "a
   sinner" by trade, "a sinner" by profession. It always seems to me that
   in this description of her, every word is emphatic. There is much
   meaning in every separate action of the woman and, even in her little
   mannerisms, there is something that is instructive to us. Our Lord was
   reclining at His meal and His feet were turned towards the door, so
   that she had not to come far into the house before she reached His
   feet. And there she stood "at His feet." Those are blessed words, "at
   His feet" That is where we, also, should stand and weep. That

   is where we should sit and learn. That is where we should wait and
   serve. That is where we hope to live and reign forever--"at His feet."

   This woman "stood at His feet behind Him"--as if she were unworthy to
   be looked upon by Him, but found it honor enough to be behind Him, so
   long as she was but near Him--"at His feet behind Him, weeping"--with
   sorrow for her sin, with joy for her pardon, with delight in her Lord's
   Presence, perhaps with grief at the prospect of what yet awaited Him.
   And she "began to wash His feet with tears." O sweet repentance which
   fills the basin better than the purest streams of earth could ever do!
   Then she unbound her tresses--those nets in which she had, perhaps,
   caught many a man when she had hunted for the precious life after her
   former sinful manner. But now she uses those tresses for something
   better, she makes a towel of her hair. That which was her pride shall
   now fill that humble office and even be honored thereby. "And kissed
   His feet." Oh, the tenderness of her love and the strength of her
   passion--a sacred one, not born of earth at all--for that dear Lord of
   hers! She kissed His feet and then she poured upon them the precious
   perfumed ointment which had cost so much.

   39. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden Him saw it, he spoke within
   himself saying. Well, what did he say? I think that if some of us,
   taught of God, and let into the secret of eternal love, had been there,
   we would have whispered to one another, "What a change has been worked
   in that woman! There she is, weeping and washing the Savior's feet,
   when, but the other day, she was standing at the corners of the
   streets, in the attire of a harlot, plying her accursed trade." How
   greatly we would have rejoiced to see her! But it is only Divine Grace
   that teaches us to rejoice over even one sinner that repents and Simon
   the Pharisee appeared to know little or nothing of Divine Grace! He
   had, however, the good manners not to say aloud what he thought, but,
   "he spoke within himself, saying."

   39. This Man, if He were a Prophet, would have known who and what
   manner of woman this is that touches Him: for she is a sinner Yet "this
   Man" was a Prophet and He didknow "who and what manner of woman" that
   was who touched Him! More than that, He knew what manner of woman His
   Divine Grace had made her and how true, how pure was the love which she
   was then manifesting to Him! And He knew how deep was her repentance,
   how changed her heart, how renewed her entire life was. He knew all
   about her, but poor Simon could not know "this woman" as Christ knew
   her.

   40. And Jesus, answering, said unto him, Simon, I have something to say
   unto you. And he said, Master, say on. Christ often answers people who
   do not speak audibly. He answers those who only speak in their hearts.
   So you who are silently praying may take comfort. If Jesus answers a
   Pharisee who speaks in his heart against Him, much more readily will He
   answer His own people when they are speaking in their hearts to Him! It
   was a hopeful sign that Simon used a respectful title in speaking to
   Christ and that he was willing to listen.

   41-43. 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. Now,
   dear Friends, I hope that those of us who have had much forgiven are
   proving, by the warmth of our love, how right was this judgment on the
   part of Simon. If you have had much forgiven, be well to the front in
   every struggle on behalf of the cause of Christ! Be well to the front,
   also, with your gifts for Him--bring your alabaster box and break it
   for Him. Wait not for anyone to ask you, much less to press you, to
   give to Him who gave His all for you, but, spontaneously, out of the
   love you bear to Him who has loved you so much as to die for you, prove
   that you love Him most of all.

   44. And He turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, See you this
   womanl Christ knew that Simon did see her, and that he had just been
   sneering at her in his heart. "See you this woman?"

   44. I entered into your house, you gave Me no water for My feet: but
   she has washed My feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her
   head. "I became your guest and, therefore, as My host, the first thing
   you should have done was to give the ordinary Oriental hospitality of
   washing My feet. 'You gave Me no water for My feet; but she has washed
   my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.'" What a
   changing of places there is now! The Lord has made the first to be last
   and the last to be first! Simon thought himself far in advance of this
   woman, but now that Christ had explained their true positions, I should
   think he began to see that the woman was far ahead of him.

   45. You gave Me no kiss. Yet that was the Eastern custom in welcoming
   an honored guest.

   45. But this woman since thee time I came in has not ceased to kiss My
   feet. "At best, you would only have kissed Me once, but this woman,
   since I came in, has never left off kissing My feet. With a sacred
   audacity of love, she has lifted My feet to her lips and kissed them
   again and again." So, see here again how the first is last, and the
   last first.

   46. My head with oil you did not anoint: but this woman has anointed My
   feet with ointment. "That is a common custom in the case of a guest of
   honorable estate, but you did not observe it. Yet this woman has poured
   upon My feet the most precious form of perfume that could be procured
   anywhere."

   47. 48. Therefore I say unto you, Her sins, which are many, are
   forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same
   loves little. And He said unto her, Your sins are forgiven. There I see
   the clear run of the argument-- that she is a woman who has had much
   forgiven by Christ and that is the reason why she loves Him so much.
   But often, when an inference is very natural and plain, the Savior
   leaves men to draw that one for themselves, while He draws another. He
   puts the same Truth in another shape--"Her sins, which are many, are
   forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same
   loves little." I am afraid that there are many professed Christians who
   must have had very little forgiven them, for they love Christ very
   little. This seems to be the age of little love to Christ. There are
   some few who love the Master intensely, but oh, how few they are! Some
   persons think they are only very little sinners and we are told,
   nowadays, what a little thing sin is, and what a little place Hell is,
   and what a very short time the punishment of sin will last! Everything
   is according to scale and it must be so in religion! As you diminish
   the guilt of sin and the punishment of sin, you also diminish the sense
   of obligation in being saved from sin. Consequently, you diminish our
   love to Christ and we shall gradually get less and less, I fear, unto
   the old scale, the old balance! The old shekel of the sanctuary shall
   once again be used by us.

   49. And they that sat at meat with Him began to say within themselves,
   Who is this that also forgive sins "Who is this who can thus absolve
   from guilt?

   50. And He said to the woman, Your faith has saved you; go in peace.
   "Go home, good Woman, do not stay here and be bothered by these
   people." And oftentimes that is the best advice that we can give to new
   converts. There is a theological controversy raging and the jargon of
   the different schools of thought is being used by one and another, but,
   do go home, good Soul. You need not trouble about controversial
   matters. Your sins are forgiven you. Your faith has saved you. If you
   know that, you know as much as you need to know just now. Go home and
   be quiet and happy. "Go in peace."
     __________________________________________________________________

Good Cheer From Forgiven Sin

   (No. 3016)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And, behold they brought to Him a man sick ofthe palsy lying on a bed:
   and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be
   of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." Matthew 9:2.

   "And they come unto Him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was
   borne of four. And when they could not come near unto Him for the
   press, they uncovered the roof where He was: and when they had broken
   it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When
   Jesus saw their faith, He said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, your
   sins are forgiven you."

   Mark2:3-5.

   "And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy:
   and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before Him. And
   when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of
   the multitude, they went upon the housetop and let him down through the
   tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. And when He saw
   their faith, He said unto Him, Son, your sins are forgiven you." Luke
   5:18-20.

   [Other sermons upon this miracle are as follows--No. 2,337, Volume 39,
   THE PHYSICIAN PARDONS HIS PALSIED PATIENT and No. 2,417, Volume 41,
   FIRST FORGIVENESS, THEN HEALING]

   THIS man was paralyzed in body, but he was very far from being
   paralyzed in mind. From the little we know of him, he would appear to
   have been earnest, resolute, energetic and persevering. You very seldom
   find persons attempting more for you than you, yourself, desire--and if
   the four men who carried this paralytic person were so zealous in
   getting him under the Lord's notice, we may be morally certain that he,
   himself, was even more set upon it. His bearers would never have gone
   the length of breaking up the roof and letting him down upon the heads
   of the crowd unless he had urged them to do so. He was something more
   than passive under such heroic treatment! If he did not suggest the
   plan, he evidently entered into it most willingly.

   Suppose it to be your own case, my dear Hearer. Are you not persuaded
   that if, broken in spirit, you were to say to your friends, "let me
   alone, my case is hopeless," few would dream of exciting themselves to
   desperate efforts on your behalf, but would let you lie in your apathy,
   according to your request? It is a rule that you must, yourself, be
   energetic if you are to make other people energetic on your behalf and,
   therefore, it seems to me that this man had a resolute and intense
   spirit--and had such influence over his friends that he inspired them
   by his eagerness, having first won them by his importunity. He besought
   them to aid him in what had become a necessity of life--he must see
   Jesus. He must be brought before the great Healing One, somehow or
   other, and because of his personal eagerness and pressing importunity,
   his friends made up their minds to help him.

   We may yet discover a little more about this palsied man and it will
   not be mere conjecture, for, by certain rules established by
   observation and experience, we may often learn much of a character from
   very small circumstances. Our Lord Jesus was accustomed to address the
   persons who came to Him very much according to their mental condition.
   When one poor man, half imbecile in spirit, was brought to him, He
   asked him, "Will you be made whole?" He was so listless as barely to
   have the will to be restored and Christ's saying, "Will you be made
   whole?" is evidence to us that even the poor creature's wishes had
   begun to slumber. Take it as a general rule that while Christ regarded
   the onlookers and

   spoke with some view to them, yet, in the main, His first thoughts were
   concerning His patient and He generally spoke with an eye to that
   patient's case. I gather, therefore, from the fact that Jesus said to
   this man, "Son, be of good cheer," that he was very greatly depressed
   in spirit and unhappy--and when He added not, "Your palsy shall be
   removed," but "Your sins are forgiven you," we are quite safe in
   concluding that the cause of the man's sadness was his sin, for which
   beyond all things else he desired pardon! Our Lord went straight to the
   root of the mischief--the man was sad, and so He cheered him. The man
   was sad about his sin and so He granted him forgiveness. His palsy
   would, secondarily, be a fountain of bitter grief to the sick man and,
   therefore, the Savior dealt with it in the second place. But first and
   foremost, over and above all grief for his infirmity, was his painful
   sense of unforgiven sin. It is not likely that he told his bearers
   about that, for they might not have been able to sympathize with such a
   spiritual necessity--to them he spoke of his affliction, not of his
   repentance, for while they would pity him for his palsy, they might
   have ridiculed him for his guilty conscience. The Lord, however, knew
   the heart's grief without telling--He read it in the sufferer's looks.
   The great Sin-Forgiver knew right well that earnest gaze which meant,
   "Be merciful to me, a sinner," and He met that wistful glance with a
   smile and the cheering words, "Son, your sins are forgiven you."

   I suppose that the patient was a young man, for the word, "Son," would
   hardly have been spoken by our Lord to a man older than Himself. I
   gather that he was a man of childlike faith, for Jesus did not call
   people His "sons and daughters" unless there was something of the
   childlike spirit about them. He was evidently a man of simple-hearted
   faith who fully believed that Christ could forgive his sin and so it
   happened to him, after the rule of the Kingdom, "According to your
   faith, be it unto you."

   The case stood thus--The paralyzed man was burdened with sin, weighed
   down and oppressed in conscience. This urged him to seek the Savior. "I
   must see the Christ," he said. His passionate earnestness extracts a
   promise from the neighbors that they will take him to Jesus. He begs
   them to do it now. But the Lord could not be reached, for a dense crowd
   shut Him in. "I must see Jesus," cries the man. His friends reply, "You
   cannot rise from your bed." "Carry me upon it," cries he. "But we
   cannot get in." "Try," he says. They reached the door and they cried,
   "Make room. Here is a man sick of the palsy who must see Jesus." They
   are gruffly answered, "Plenty of other poor men want to see Him. Why
   should everybody give place to you? What is the use of pushing? There
   is no room for that bed here! What folly to drag a sick man into all
   this pressure and heat! The Prophet is speaking--you will interrupt
   Him. Away with you!" The bearers cannot enter. They plead and they
   push, but all in vain.

   "Then," cries the resolute man, "take me up the back stairs. Get me to
   the top of the verandah and let down the bed through the ceiling. Run
   any risk for I must get to Jesus." Possibly his friends object and
   state the difficulties of the procedure suggested. "Why," says one,
   "you will be hanging over the people's heads, for there will be no room
   for you when we let you down." "Try it," he cries. "If I am let down
   from the top, there will be no fear of my not reaching the ground! They
   cannot push me up again, or keep me on their heads! They must make room
   for me." His earnestness having been ingenious, now becomes infectious!
   His bearers smile at his eagerness and enter into it with zest. He will
   give them no rest till his desire is accomplished--and so they break up
   the tiling, and let him down before Jesus, with the glad result
   described in the Gospel, "Jesus said to him, Son, be of good cheer;
   your sins are forgiven you."

   We have before us, first, a doctrine--the doctrine that it is one of
   the grandest comforts in the world to have your sins forgiven you!
   "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." Secondly, we have
   before us a question. May everyone of you have the honesty to ask it
   and to answer it in your own case. The question--Have I had my sins
   forgiven me? For, if so, I have a right to be of good cheer and to be
   as merry as the birds in spring. But if not, I am destitute of the
   greatest comfort which Christ, Himself, can speak to a sinner's heart.

   I. Dear Hearer, let us give our hearts at once to THE DOCTRINE. It is
   plainly taught us here that the pardon of sin is one of the richest
   comforts which the Lord can give to a man.

   It is so, first, because the pardon of sin removes the heaviest sorrow
   which a man can feel Some know little about this grief. May the Lord
   cause them to mourn with broken hearts or they will perish in their
   sins! Those of us who have known the burden of sin can tell you that it
   is a crushing load. Thoughtful persons who have seen things in their
   true light--honest persons who refuse to be flattered, pure-minded
   people who long to be right with God--all these will tell you that a
   sense of sin is, of all miseries, the most sharp and disquieting. To
   know that you have sinned against light and

   knowledge with special aggravations is as a hot iron to the flesh and
   as a serpent's venom in the blood. There is no rest day or night to a
   soul which carries this Hell within it--

   "Sin, like a venomous disease

   Infests our vital blood!

   The only balm is Sovereign Grace,

   And the Physician God."

   I speak what I know from personal experience and I only say what many a
   hearer knows, too, within his own soul. Once let conviction flash in
   upon the soul and the world loses its fascinations--the music hall, the
   ballroom and the theater are robbed of their enchantments--even
   business wearies and domestic joys are deprived of sweetness. A sense
   of sin spoils all. Guilt on the conscience hangs over everything like a
   funeral pall. It drowns all music with its prophetic knell and withers
   every green herb beneath its burning feet.

   Sin, sin--what direr ill than you are, can even Satan, himself, beget?
   A man infected with a deadly disease is never at ease. Whatever
   garments he may put on, or at whatever tables he may feast, he is still
   unhappy because he has the arrows of death sticking in him! Such is a
   man conscious of sin. Nothing can please him. Nothing can ease him till
   his sin is removed. But when sin is gone--when he knows that he is
   pardoned, he is as a bird set free from its cage!

   A great fire raged one night in a village and a large thatched mansion,
   in which a man of God resided, caught fire. It blazed furiously, but he
   and his wife and the most of his children escaped. Judge of their
   horror when they counted them over, to discover that one little one was
   missing. Nothing would content them while that dear child was in the
   burning house. "Mr. Wesley," his neighbor might say, "we have saved
   your chest of drawers. We have saved your valuable books from the
   house." "Ah, but," the good man would have said, "my boy is in danger."
   What his wife thought of it, when she recollected that little John
   would be burned to death, I need not tell you. But when, at last, he
   was lifted out of the window and brought to his parents' arms--then be
   sure that the good man would gather his whole family about him and
   bless the Lord, even though all his substance was consumed. Now, when a
   sensible man's soul is in danger, nothing can content him. He prospers
   in business, his happy children play around him--but what of these
   while his soul remains in deadly peril? When once, through pardoned
   sin, his soul becomes like a brand plucked from the burning, then his
   daily troubles lose all their weight and his heart is full ofjoyful
   song! It is clear to every experienced man that the pardon of sin is an
   immense comfort because it removes the bitterest cause of distress and
   alarm.

   Next, forgiveness of sin is a comfort of the first order, for, indeed,
   it is altogether indispensable. You may possess every luxury, but you
   cannot be solidly happy until sin is forgiven. "Why!" says one, "I am
   really happy and yet I am not pardoned." Yes, but it is a remarkable
   thing that happy people of your kind are never pleased while they are
   quiet. They must get up an excitement and dance, or fiddle, or drink,
   or play the fool in some sort--or they are not happy. I call that real
   happiness which I can enjoy by the hour together in my room, alone,
   calmly looking into things and feeling content. I call that real joy
   which I feel when I wake up at night and, though full of pain, can lie
   still and bless God for His goodness. It was said of old, "Philosophers
   can be merry without music" and so can the saints of God! But the
   ungodly, as a rule, cannot enjoy themselves without external objects to
   raise their spirits. The truly happy man is satisfied from himself. A
   spring within him of Living Water quenches his thirst so that he never
   feels the drought.

   A man cannot be really happy till his sin is pardoned, because sin
   brings, more or less, a sense of condemnation. Picture a man in the
   condemned cell. Try to make him comfortable. We provide him with a
   dainty supper, we sing him gladsome glee, we exhibit fine pictures to
   him--but he is condemned to die tomorrow and he loathes our feast and
   our fineries. Bring in a thousand pounds and make him a present of it.
   He looks at the golden sovereigns and he says, "What is the use of
   these to me?" Tell him that a rich man has left him heir to a wide
   estate. "Yes," he says, "but how can I enjoy it? I am condemned to
   die." He is always in his dreams hearing his death-knell and picturing
   to himself the dreary scene when he is to be launched into eternity. If
   you could only whisper in his ear, "Her Majesty has granted you a free
   pardon," he would say, "You may take away the feast, I feel too happy
   to eat! All the gold in the world could not make me more delighted than
   I am now, as a pardoned man." When men have come out of prison, after
   they have been shut up for years, everything has been a joy to them.
   Though they went home, perhaps, and found everybody dead whom they once
   knew, and saw their own hair turned gray through having lain so long in
   a moldy den, yet the sweets of liberty made the stones of the streets
   shine as if they were made of gold and the fields seemed like fairyland
   to them! Such is the

   joy of pardon when it comes from our God. A man must have forgiveness,
   or else everything will be emptiness to him-- but when he is absolved,
   he goes forth with joy and is led forth with peace!

   Pardon of sins makes all our sorrows light If a condemned man is
   permitted to live, he will not ask whether he is to live like a
   gentleman or like a peasant. When some kind-hearted men struggle to get
   the life of a condemned criminal spared, the man's friends think of
   nothing but his life. When a judge sentences a man to penal servitude
   for life, it may be thought a hard sentence, but you never hear of
   complaints when a condemned criminal has his life spared--if we find
   that he is to be kept a prisoner as long as he lives. The heaviest
   punishment seems nothing if life is spared. You heave a sigh of relief
   to think that the gallows will bear one less sad fruit and you forget
   all about the servitude or the imprisonment which the convict will have
   to endure. So, depend upon it, if you get sin pardoned and so are saved
   from the eternal wrath of God, you will make no bargain with God
   whether you have meat to eat and raiment to put on, or are left hungry
   and naked! No, Lord, I will shiver in a beggar's rags with full content
   if I am but pardoned. I will dwell in prison with a dry crust for my
   food if I am but delivered from Your wrath! Thus it is clear that the
   blotting out of sin takes the sting from every other sorrow.

   Let me add that it makes death, itself, light! I remember the story of
   a felon, in those days when they used to hang people for very little,
   indeed. A poor man, who had committed some offense, was condemned to
   die. While he lay waiting for the sentence, the Lord sent a choice
   minister of the Gospel to him and his heart was enlightened so that he
   found Christ. As he was on the way to the gallows, what, do you think,
   was this man's cry? He was overwhelmed with joy and, lifting up his
   hands, he said many times, "Oh, He is a great Forgiver! He is a great
   Forgiver!" Death was no terror now that he had found forgiveness
   through Jesus Christ! Poverty repines not when sin is removed! Sickness
   frets no longer when conscience is at ease! It may cost you many a pang
   to feel yourself melting away in consumption, but what does it matter,
   now that your transgression is forgiven? Every breath may be a labor,
   every pulse may be a pang, but when sin is forgiven, the Lord has
   created such a spring ofjoy within the heart that the soul can never
   faint!

   Yet again, dear Friend, remember that the pardon of sin is the
   guarantee of every other blessing. When Christ said, "Your sins are
   forgiven you," was there any question at all as to whether that
   paralytic man would be healed? Certainly not, for the love which had
   forgiven the sufferer's sin was there to prompt the Savior to say
   afterwards, "Arise, take up your bed, and go unto your house." So, dear
   Friend, if your sin is pardoned, it is true concerning you that no good
   thing will God withhold from you who walk uprightly, and that all
   things work together for good to you who love God, to you who are the
   called according to His purpose. Everything between here and Heaven is
   secured by the Covenant of Grace for your best benefit. And you can
   sing--

   "If sin is pardoned, I'm secure! Death has no sting beside-- The Law
   gives sin its damning power But Christ, my Ransom, died." You shall
   never have a need but God will assuredly supply it since He has already
   bestowed on you the major blessing-- the all-comprehending blessing of
   forgiveness! Covenant mercies follow each other like the links of a
   chain--"Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases;
   who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with loving
   kindness and tender mercies; who satisfies your mouth with good things,
   so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." Do you think that God
   forgives men their sins and then leaves them to perish? Such cruel
   "mercy" would be more worthy of a demon than of the Deity! Pardon is
   the pledge of everlasting love and the pledge will never be forfeited!

   "Alas," cries one, "perhaps, after the Lord has forgiven me, He may yet
   turn again and punish me!" Listen--"The gifts and calling of God are
   without repentance." That is, God never repents of what He does in the
   way of Grace. If He forgives, He forgives once and for all and forever!
   It would be blasphemy to represent God as making a transient truce with
   men instead of an eternal peace! The Lord casts the iniquities of His
   people into the depths of the sea and their transgressions He remembers
   against them no more forever. Is not this a blessed act of Grace? It
   secures the removal of all the evil results of sin and is the guarantee
   of all that will be needed this side of Heaven, yes, and of Glory,
   forever! If you do but hear Jesus say, "Your sins are forgiven you,"
   you may also hear Him say, "Be of good cheer," for there is everything
   in the fact of pardon to make your heart dance for joy!

   We will not linger longer upon the doctrine, but make our meditation
   personally practical by pressing home the work of self-examination.

   II. So, now, let us consider THE QUESTION, Are you forgiven?

   Has God, for Christ's sake, forgiven you? "Ah," cries one, "do not
   judge us!" I shall not attempt to do so, but I would beg you to judge
   yourselves. "We cannot be sure of our salvation," answers another. Can
   you not? Then you ought to never be happy, for a man who is in doubt
   about a matter so vital as this, which involves his all, ought never to
   enjoy a moment's peace! How can we rest in fear of Hell, in danger of
   eternal wrath? Do you not long for certainties? A great novelist began
   a favorite story with the sentence, "What I need is facts." In that
   short sentence, he expressed the longing of many a thoughtful
   soul--many of us feel that we need indisputable facts. Our proverb has
   it, "Fast bind, fast find." Prudent men will take double care about
   this weightiest of all concerns and will not be content till they are
   infallibly cured. I will help you to answer this question by remarking
   that there is a way by which we may know if we are not forgiven.

   We may know that we are not forgiven if we have never felt that we need
   forgiveness. Where guilt has never been perceived, it has never been
   removed. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
   truth is not in us." If I feel that I am as good as most people and,
   perhaps, a little better. If I try to justify myself and think of
   gaining Heaven by my own endeavors, then I am under condemnation! God
   has never healed the man who was never wounded, nor has He made the man
   alive who was never dead. If you have never been humbled before God so
   as to acknowledge your sinnership, then you are still abiding under His
   wrath. Think of that, I pray you, you who are at ease, wrapping
   yourself about in the garments of your own merits! "Because you say, I
   am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," you may
   be sure that, in God's sight, "you are wretched, and miserable, and
   poor, and blind, and naked." Dear Friend, I hope it is not so with you.

   Again, he has never been forgiven who does not at this moment hate sin.
   Jesus never came to save us in our sins, but to save us from our
   sins--and wherever He takes away the guilt of sin, He also kills the
   love of it. Sin never seems so black as when we see it put away by
   Jesus' blood. At the sight of the Cross, we grow angry with ourselves
   for having slain our Lord by our transgressions. Never dream that you
   can be pardoned and then be allowed to live as you did before-- the
   very wish to do so would show that you were still under condemnation.

   Again, you are not forgiven if you have never sought Christ and His
   atoning blood. If you have labored by other means to procure mercy, you
   have not found it, for no one else can give it but the one appointed
   Mediator. Can your "priest" grant you pardon? Did you offend the
   priest? Then the priest can forgive you for offending him, but he
   cannot forgive you for offending God! None but God in Christ Jesus can
   blot out sin and you must go to Him--and if you do not, you are not
   forgiven, whatever you may dream.

   Once more, have you forgiven everybody else This is a home question to
   some minds, but remember how necessary it is to answer it. If you do
   not forgive everyone his brother his trespasses, neither will your
   Heavenly Father forgive you. There it stands, "Forgive us our sins, for
   we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us." If you cannot pardon
   everyone, no matter how grievous the offense, neither has God pardoned
   you. A malicious heart is an unrenewed heart. A revengeful spirit is
   clean contrary to the Spirit of God who passes by transgression,
   iniquity and sin. This Truth of God may be little preached, but Holy
   Scripture makes it very prominent and you will be most unwise if in any
   measure you ignore it. You are not forgiven if you cannot forgive!

   Let me now help you, by some positive test, to see whether you are
   forgiven. Only one is needed--you are pardoned if you are a true
   Believer in Jesus Christ. It is written, "Jesus seeing their
   faith"--that is, the faith of the four bearers, and the faith of the
   man who lay upon the bed--said unto him, "Your sins are forgiven you."
   The poor palsied man so believed in Jesus that his very face beamed
   with confidence when he came into Christ's Presence and so Jesus,
   seeing his faith, said to him, "Your sins are forgiven you. "Do
   youbelieve in Jesus? I know that you believe that Jesus Christ is God
   and a great Savior, but is this a mere matter of doctrine to you, or do
   you really believe in him? You know what it is to believe in a man so
   that you can trust him and leave your affairs in his hands--do you
   believe in Jesus in this way? That is the faith which saves. When a man
   believes in Christ so as to commit himself to Christ for salvation, he
   believes rightly, for believing is but another word for trusting,
   relying, depending upon!

   Do not trifle with this question. It is my hope that you can answer,
   "Yes, unless I am awfully deceived, I am trusting the blood and merits
   of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I am so trusting Him that I endeavor to
   follow in His footsteps and to copy His example." Then you are saved,
   for "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ
   Jesus."

   Dwell on that word, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace
   with God." If you really trust Christ, though you have only done so
   during the last hour, your transgressions are put away and your
   iniquity is covered, for He immediately pardons them who come to Him.
   "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
   sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." If you have
   confessed your sin to Him and trusted in Him, you are most assuredly
   cleansed by His blood!

   Now for my last word. It is this. Jesus said, "Be of good cheer; your
   sins are forgiven you." Come, then, let us be of good cheer for our
   sins are forgiven. Let us be happy. Let us be merry in the Lord. Let us
   begin to sing for very joy of hearts because our sins are forgiven us
   for Christ's sake! We are very poor, but our sin is forgiven us. We are
   very weak, but our sin is forgiven us. We are, perhaps, getting very
   old, and near to our end, but our sin is forgiven us. We are full of
   infirmity and vexed with temptations, but our sin is forgiven us for
   His name's sake! "Son, be of good cheer," said the Savior, and shall we
   be otherwise? What if our room is a very small one--what does it
   matter--if our sin is forgiven? "Ah, but there is a sick one at home!"
   "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." You know how the
   Master, when the disciples found another source of joy, turned them
   back to this, "Notwithstanding in this, rejoice not that the spirits
   are subject unto you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in
   Heaven." And so, when you find a multitude of troubles, follow the same
   good advice!

   Does someone say, "I am head over heels in trouble, for I am in great
   straits"? Let me lay my hand upon your shoulder and say, "Brother, be
   of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." "Oh, but I have very little
   to live upon!" True, but you have this comforting message, "Your sins
   are forgiven you." Be of good cheer--your Lord bids you to be so, for
   your sins are forgiven you!

   If you are not happy, it will be disobedience to Christ, for He
   commands you to "be of good cheer." It will look as if you did not
   value the blessing that cost Him His blood. "Your sins are forgiven
   you." It cost Him His life to buy you this redemption--are you going to
   groan when you get it? No doubt you are pleased to give good things to
   poor persons and, if so, you like to see their gratitude. I gave
   something, not many days ago, to a man and he just put it in his pocket
   and walked off without a word, as if he would say, "I thought you would
   have given me at least ten times as much." I thought, "If I had seen
   the way you would take it, my Man, I would not have been in such a
   hurry with your gift." When you give your children a little treat, you
   like to see them pleased and thankful. But if they sit down and fret
   over your kindness, you are disappointed and are in no great haste to
   indulge them again! Our Heavenly Father's gifts must be valued and
   delighted in--if He has forgiven us our sins, let us be happy!

   "Son, be of good cheer." Have some regard to the outside world, for, if
   they are pardoned men and women with gruesome countenances, they will
   infer that there is not much comfort in the Grace of God, after all.
   "My wife," says one, "declares that her sins are forgiven her, yet I am
   sure when there is a little trouble in the house she is more
   downhearted than I am." "There," cries a woman, "my husband tells me
   that his sins are washed away, but he grumbles and murmurs till we are
   all made miserable by him!" Do not let it be so. If you have a cross to
   carry, let us bear it joyfully for Christ's sake. If we have work to do
   for Christ, let us do it with delight. Let us live to music. Let us
   march to Heaven to a gladsome tune, rejoicing in the Lord because our
   sins are forgiven! And let each one of us say--

   "All that remains for me Is but to love and sing And wait until the
   angels come To bear me to the King!"

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MARK 2.

   Verse 10. And again He entered into Capernaum after some days; and it
   was heard that He was in the house. And straightaway many were gathered
   together, so that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as
   about the door: and He preached the word unto them. It is a very
   singular fact that although man, in his natural state of heart, is
   opposed to the Gospel, yet he is drawn to hear it. Even though he
   abhors it, yet oftentimes he cannot help listening to it. Wherever
   Jesus Christ is, whether He is present in Person, or in the preaching
   of the Word, it will be certain to be heard

   abroad and multitudes will come to hear. The grandest attraction either
   in or out of Heaven is still the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ!

   3-5. And they came unto Him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was
   borne of four. And then they could not come near unto Him for the
   press, they uncovered the roof where He was: and when they had broken
   it up, they let down the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay. When
   Jesus saw their faith, He said unto the sick of thepalsy Son, your sins
   are forgiven you. In Luke's account of this gathering, we read that
   "the power of the Lord was present to heal them," and when we ask, "Why
   was that power so remarkably present?" we think that one reason was
   because there were persons present who were anxious about the good of
   others. And, today, wherever four persons come together praying for
   some poor soul, you may rest assured that the power of the Lord will
   there be present to heal. I do not think that so much of the success of
   sermons depends upon the preacher as upon those model hearers who are
   all the while praying for a blessing and who are making other members
   of the congregation--those who are converted--the constant subject of
   their supplication. Christ blessed this man because of the faith of the
   four who carried him and, possibly, because of his own faith.

   Notice that our Lord did not at first say to the sick man, "You are
   healed of your palsy," but He said, "Your sins are forgiven you." This
   was laying the axe at the root, because sin is at the bottom of
   sorrow--and where sin is pardoned, even the effects of sin will be
   removed.

   6-9. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning
   in their hearts. Why does this Man thus speak blasphemies? Who can
   forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in His
   spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, He said unto them, Why
   reason you these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the
   sick of the palsy, Your sins are forgiven you; or to say, Arise, and
   take up your bed, and walk? Whichever is spoken, Omnipotence is
   implied. The Presence and Power of God, alone, could give efficacy to
   either sentence, but to Him, the one is as easy as the other.

   10-14. But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to
   forgive sins, (He said to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto you,
   Arise, and take up your bed, and go your way into your house. And
   immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all,
   so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying they never saw
   anything like this before. And He went forth again by the sea side; and
   all the multitude resorted unto Him, and He taught them. And as He
   passed by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the receipt of
   customs, and said unto him, Follow Me. And he arose and followed him.
   There is a change in the method of displaying Christ's power, but His
   power is always the same. To the palsied man, He said "Arise, and take
   up your bed, and walk." But to the man engaged in a calling which
   degraded him, Christ said, "Follow Me" and, "he arose and followed
   Him." Blessed be God, we still have in our midst the living Lord who is
   as able to work miracles of mercy today as when He was upon the earth!
   And we have not merely to exhort, to persuade and to entreat, though we
   have to do all that, but we have also to speak with authority in the
   name of this glorious Son of God and to command men to repent and
   believe in Him! He is with us, by His Spirit, to make His Word mighty,
   so that, to this day, palsied men do arise and walk--and sinful men are
   led to turn from evil and to follow Christ.

   15-17. And it came to pass, that as Jesus sat at meat in Levi's house,
   many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and His
   disciples: for there were many, and they followed Him. And when the
   scribes and Pharisees saw Him eat with publicans and sinners, they said
   unto Jesus' disciples, How is it that He eats and drinks with publicans
   and sinners? When Jesus heard it, He said unto them, They that are
   whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not
   to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. For ordinary
   Christians to associate with those who are like the publicans and
   sinners of Christ's day might be dangerous, for, "evil communications
   corrupt good manners," and Christians should be careful as to the
   company in which they are found. But for Christians to go among such
   people to try to do them good is Christlike! The Church of Christ
   always fails in her duty when she looks upon any class of persons as
   being beneath her observation, or too far gone for her to reach. Our
   Lord's mission was to find out and to supply the needs of mankind--and
   He seems to have paid particular attention to the very worst of men
   because they needed Him the most. And His Church should always be
   guided in her choice of work by the necessity of the objects that need
   her care. And Brothers, you and I who are in the ministry will do well
   to choose not that sphere in which we may be most happy and
   comfortable, but that one in which we are most needed. If I were a lamp
   and had my choice of where I

   would be hung, I should prefer to be hung up in the darkest place in
   London where I could be of most service. And I think that everyone of
   us would make just such a choice if we judged rightly and desired to be
   where we were needed and to do as the Savior did when He was on the
   earth.

   18-20. And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and
   they come and said unto Him, why do the disciples of John and of the
   Pharisees fast, but Your disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them,
   Can the children of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with
   them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast
   But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from
   them, and then shall they fast in those days. While Christ was with His
   people in Person, they could not help having joy and gladness. But when
   He was gone from them, they must lament His absence.

   21, 22. No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the
   new piece that filled it up takes away from the old and the tear is
   made worse. And no man puts new wine into old bottles: else the new
   wine does burst the bottles and the wine is spilled, and the bottles
   will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles. The bottles
   were made of skin and the wine put into them must be of a suitable
   port. To prescribe fasting to His disciples while He was making them
   glad with His personal Presence would have been incongruous and absurd.
   And there are some things that we ought not to expect from young
   Christians--and other things that we ought not to expect from old and
   mature Christians. We should not expect to find new wine in old
   bottles, nor old wine in new bottles. "A place for everything, and
   everything in its place," is not only a rule for the home and the
   merchant's counting house, but it is also a rule which should be
   observed in the Church of Christ, for God, as a God of order, always
   puts things in their proper places and in due order.

   23. And it came to pass, that He went through the corn fields on the
   Sabbath; and the disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of
   corn. They had offended the Pharisees by not fasting and now they were
   offending them again in a similar way, though with reference to a
   different matter!

   24. And the Pharisees said unto Him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath
   that which is not lawful According to some Rabbis, you might pick an
   ear of wheat on the Sabbath, but if you rubbed it between your hands,
   they said that was a sort of thieving which was a kind of labor that
   must not be performed on the Sabbath. They made all sorts of ingenious
   restrictions, too ridiculous for us to quote. These disciples were,
   therefore, according to them, chargeable with sin because they had
   plucked ears of corn and had performed the operation of threshing them
   on the Sabbath. And we have some of that sort of folk living now who
   take the smallest matter, which is altogether insignificant, and in
   which there is neither good nor harm, and magnify and distort it--and
   then make a man a grave offender all for next to nothing. We have
   learned not to be very much troubled by anything that they choose to
   say.

   25-28. And He said unto them, have you ever read what David did, when
   he had fled, and was hungry? He and they that were with him? How he
   went into the House of God in the days of Abiather the high priest, and
   did eat the showbread, which is not lawful to eat but for thepriests,
   andgave also to them which were with him? And He said unto them, The
   Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: therefore the
   Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. He has made it to be no longer
   a day of bondage, but a day of blessed rest and holy service for God!
   Works of necessity, works of piety and works of mercy are not only
   allowed to be done, but are commanded to be done upon the Sabbath.
     __________________________________________________________________

Seeing God's Goodness Here

   (No. 3017)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
   1, 1876.

   "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord
   in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13.

   WE were favored with very much of God's goodness last Sabbath evening,
   when we considered the rule of Grace in guiding a Believer's life,
   namely, that instead of seeing in order to believe, he has learned to
   believe in order to see. [Sermon

   No. 766, Volume 13--BELIEVING TO SEE] "Unless I had believed to see,"

   says the Psalmist, "I had fainted." And we should never have known true
   refreshment, nor enjoyed the comforts of the Lord, but should have been
   full of doubts and distracted with fears if we had not learned the
   sacred art of believing although we did not see, or even believing in
   spite of what we did see, or believing in order that we might
   see--fully expecting that sight would inevitably follow if our faith
   were but simple and true!

   Those of you who were present last Sabbath evening will remember that I
   restricted my remarks, for the most part, to the one matter of our
   salvation. I tried to show to seekers that instead of first looking for
   evidences of salvation and then believing in Christ, they were to
   believe in Christ in order to obtain those evidences--that, instead of
   looking to their repentance and then having confidence in Christ, their
   repentance sprang from their confidence in Christ--that instead of
   saying, "We are not fully sanctified and, therefore, we fear we are not
   saved," they were to remember that the certainty of their being saved
   by Grace, through faith, would be to their minds and hearts, the great
   motive power by which they would be enabled to obtain that
   sanctification which cannot be theirs as long as they remain in legal
   bondage and have doubts about being "accepted in the Beloved." There
   were some set at liberty last Sabbath evening who had really known the
   Lord for years but were afraid to say definitely that they had trusted
   in Christ and that, therefore, they were saved. May God grant that all
   of us may not only come to Christ, but may we also exercise a simple,
   childlike faith which takes God's Word as it stands in this blessed
   Book, believes it, receives it, lives upon it, asks no questions
   concerning it and will allow none to be asked by others!

   On this occasion I propose to make a particular application of the
   general principle of our text. David was a man of many troubles.
   Especially in the latter part of his life, he was incessantly in the
   furnace and he says that he would have "fainted" under those many
   troubles if he had not "believed to see," in the particular matter of
   his trials, "the goodness of the Lord" in that land which is the
   special sphere of trouble. David believed to see the goodness of the
   Lord, not only in the Glory Land yonder, but also in this land here
   below. He believed to see the goodness of the Lord, not merely when he
   emerged from the furnace, but also while he was in it! As a pilgrim and
   a stranger, he believed to see the goodness of the Lord during the days
   of his pilgrimage. He did not always see it, but he believed to see
   it--he believed in it and anticipated it and, by believing in it--he
   did actually come to see it with the eyes of his mind and to rejoice in
   it!

   We all know that this world is a very unpromising field for faith.
   According to our varied experiences, we must all subscribe to the
   declaration that this earth is, more or less, a valley of tears, that
   it is not our rest, for it is polluted. There are too many thorns in
   this nest for us to abide comfortably in it. This world is under the
   curse, so it still brings forth thorns and thistles and, in the sweat
   of our brows do we eat our bread until we return to the earth out of
   which man was at first taken. Were this world really to be our home, it
   would be a terrible fate for us! If we were always to live in this huge
   penal settlement, it would be sad, indeed, for us to know that we had
   continually to dwell where the shadow of the curse always lingers and
   where we have only the shadow of the Cross to sustain us under it. But
   faith comes into this unpromising field and believes that she shall see
   the goodness of the Lord even here! She rushes into the fiercest fight

   that ever rages, fully believing that she shall see the banner of the
   Lord's mercy and Truth waving even there. She bears the burden and heat
   of the earthly toil and expects to experience the loving kindness of
   the Lord beneath it all. She knows that she will see more of her God in
   the land beyond the flood, but still, she believes to see the goodness
   of the Lord even in this land of the living which is so distracted and
   disturbed with sorrows, cares and trials and tribulations!

   I want to show you, first, that faith is infallibly persuaded of God's
   goodness here. Secondly, that she expects clearly to see that goodness
   here. And thirdly, that it is this expectation and belief which sustain
   the soul of the tried Believer.

   I. First, then, FAITH IS INFALLIBLY ASSURED OF THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD
   IN THIS TIME STATE.

   She is persuaded of this from what she knows of God, Himself She could
   not believe that He could be otherwise than good. She reads the
   promises recorded in His Word and she believes that they are all true
   and reliable. She can detect nothing that is unkind or ungenerous in
   any of them--they are all couched in the softest, gentlest and most
   consoling words. The language used seems to her to have been selected
   on purpose to meet her case and to make the promise suitable and sweet
   to her sorrowing heart. She feels sure that God could not be unkind.
   With the Psalmist, she cries, "Truly God is good to Israel, even to
   such as are of a clean heart." And though, like the Psalmist, she may
   have to write afterwards, "But as for me, my feet were almost gone, my
   steps had well near slipped," yet she stands fast to her first
   declaration, "Truly God is good to Israel," however much surrounding
   circumstances may seem to prove the contrary! She knows that from the
   necessity of the Divine Nature, God must be good to His people both
   here and hereafter.

   When faith turns to the Bible and reads the history of the Lord's
   people, she sees that God has been good to them. And, knowing that He
   is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," she draws the cheering
   inference that He will also be good to her. Inasmuch as she can
   distinctly see that the trials and difficulties of the saints in the
   olden times always worked their lasting good, she is convinced, beyond
   a shadow of a doubt, that her trials and troubles, overruled by the
   same loving Lord who cared for them, will work to her lasting good and
   that God will bless her, now, as He blessed His saints in the olden
   time.

   Perhaps some of you have faith, but yet possibly through lack of
   thought, you have not exercised it upon this particular point. If you
   are given to murmuring against God, you will often think thoughts which
   you would not like to hear or to see in spoken or written language. If
   someone should say to you, "God has been very unkind to you. I am sure
   that you cannot see the goodness of God displayed in your life," you
   would at once turn round upon such a slanderer and defend the Character
   of your God from such an unjust accusation! Although you often murmur
   against the Lord in your spirit, yet, if another person should say in
   words what you have felt in your heart, you would then see the
   wickedness of your murmuring and you would also see that in the depths
   of your soul, there is a firm confidence in the goodness of God to you.
   You need to stir up that holy fire and set it blazing, so that you may
   get comfort from its warmth, for it is true and it must be true, that
   God is now good and always good, and good to the highest possible
   degree of goodness to all His children in their worst calamities and
   their darkest seasons of sorrow.

   But there are some conditions of life in which it is really a trial to
   faith to believe in the goodness of the Lord, as, for instance, that of
   long-continued, dire poverty. Some of God's choicest saints are so poor
   that they not only lack luxuries, but they even lack the very
   necessaries of life. As a rule, possibly without exception, God does
   give His people bread and water, but sometimes the bread is only a very
   small portion and the cup of water--a very tiny one. I have known a
   child of God, who has said to me, "I have struggled hard against
   poverty. I have undertaken first, this, and then that, but, in every
   case, I have failed. My little vessel has tried to enter the harbor of
   prosperity, but the cruel winds have always driven it back again into
   the rough sea of adversity. If I had been a spendthrift. If I had been
   wasteful in the days of my prosperity, or if I had not used my
   substance for the cause of God, I could understand my failures. If God
   would again entrust me with ample means, I would cheerfully give to His
   cause, as I used to do, but, alas, I have not anything left after my
   daily needs are supplied." Unbelief asks, "can this be the goodness of
   the Lord?" But Faith answers, "Yes, it is, and it must be. I would
   faint in this poverty. I would give up in despair if, under all my
   trials and hardships, I were not sure of the goodness of God to me! If
   I were even starving to death, God would still have a good word out of
   my dying mouth. Even if He should let me die of starvation, it must be
   right--and He must be good!"

   There are others of God's children whose trials come from constant
   sickness. And some forms of illness are so trying that we are apt to
   ask ourselves why we should be subjected to them. I talked, this
   morning, with an aged Sister in Christ who, years ago, met with a
   Providence by which her head was so severely injured that every other
   day her pain is almost

   unbearable. She can never go up to the House of God because the sound
   of the preacher's voice, or of the singing of the congregation would be
   more than she could endure. When we talked together, gently and softly,
   concerning the things of God, she quoted to me Psalm 119:75--"I know, O
   Lord, that Your judgments are right and that You in faithfulness have
   afflicted me." If anyone asks, "Can it be the goodness of the Lord thus
   to keep away one who really loves His House and prizes His ordinances,
   to send her such sore sickness?" We must reply, "Yes, it must be right.
   We cannot see how God's goodness can thus be manifested, but we are to
   believe that it is." I may be addressing some others who are subject to
   peculiarly trying infirmities, which keep you from the work you love
   and the field of service where you have long been so happy and useful.
   Well, dear Friends, in such a case as that, you must believe to see the
   goodness of the Lord in the land of the living in thus making your life
   to be one of sickness, weariness and pain!

   The same rule also applies to our bereavements. How mysterious are the
   dispositions of Providence in this matter! Many whom we cannot afford
   to lose are taken away from us--while others who seem to do no
   good--continue to live. Death appears to spare the hemlock and to cut
   down the oak and the cedar! Where there is a man who only cumbers the
   ground, he is often allowed to remain, while others who are like
   pillars of Christ's Church are taken away. I know a little village
   where there were but a few poor inhabitants and one man of substance
   whom I very greatly esteemed. Towards the small salary of the pastor in
   that village, my friend contributed three-fourths, if not nine-tenths.
   He was the mainstay of that little Christian community. When I found
   him, last week, very ill with fever, and joined with other friends in
   earnest prayer that his life might be spared, it seemed to us
   absolutely essential to the welfare of that village church that he
   should be kept here at least a little longer. But now that the Lord has
   taken him Home to Himself, what can we say? We must not begin to cavil
   at what God has done, but say to Him, We are sure that whatever You do
   is right. It cannot be wrong, it cannot be unkind! It must be the
   kindest thing that could have happened, the very thing which we would
   have wished to happen if we could have known what You know and if we
   could have formed our judgment upon the same principle as swayed Your
   Infallible Judgment."

   We sometimes fancy that we should like to make a slight alteration in
   some of the arrangements of Divine Providence. We would not interfere
   with the great wheels that are always revolving, but just here and
   there, where a small cog rather inconveniently touches our personal
   interests, we would like to have it so altered as to let us alone. But,
   remorselessly, as we sometimes imagine, the great wheels grind on--our
   comforts are taken from us and our joy is destroyed. What then? Why,
   let us still say, "Lord, not our will, but Yours be done." And let us
   kiss the hand that wields the rod as much as the one that bestows
   choice gifts upon us! It is far easier for me to say this than it is
   for yon poor widow to carry it out. It is easier for me to say it than
   it is for that weeping mother who has seen all her children taken
   before her to the silent tomb. But, my Sisters, my Brothers, if it is
   harder for you, then so much the more earnestly would I urge you to say
   it, for the very difficulty of the submission, when you have rendered
   it, would prove the sincerity of your confidence in your God and bring
   more Glory to Him! So, as we take our friends and relatives to the tomb
   and commit the precious dust to the earth, let us still believe to see
   the goodness of the Lord even there! If we do not look at our sorrows
   in that light, we shall faint under our repeated losses and
   bereavements. But if that is the light in which we view them, we shall
   see a Glory gilding even the graves that cover the bodies of our
   departed loved ones--and we shall rejoice in the full assurance of the
   goodness of the Lord to us, and even more to those who have gone to be
   "forever with the Lord."

   Another matter may, perhaps, have greatly troubled some of you, namely,
   your unanswered prayers. You have been praying for certain people for a
   long time, but so far you have received no answer to your
   supplications. There is a Brother here who has prayed for years for the
   conversion of his wife--yet she is still unconverted. If he yields to
   unbelief, he will have many difficult questions to answer. God has
   said, "Ask, and you shall receive." You have asked for a thing which,
   apparently, is for God's Glory, yet you have not received it. And this
   will sometimes be a staggering blow to the earnest pleader. Some of you
   have prayed, as I have done, for the life of a friend, or you have
   sought some other favor from the hands of God, but He has not granted
   it. I believe there is a Brother here who has carried an unanswered
   prayer about with him for ten or a dozen years. I have known cases of
   Believers praying for 30 years and yet not obtaining what they asked
   for. And some of them, like the worthies of old, have "died in faith,
   not having received the promises." They have not lived to see one of
   their children converted, yet their children have been converted, and
   saved through their prayers, too, long after the parents slept in their
   graves!

   In the cases of unanswered prayers, there is always the temptation to
   believe that God has not been faithful to His promises, that this
   bitter draught of unbelief is an addition to the sorrow which you feel
   at your failures at the Mercy Seat. This is the time when you will
   faint unless you believe to see the goodness of the Lord even now and
   here! You must feel that, in any case, God's will must be done. You
   must still continue to pray, for you do not know what God's will is,
   but you must pray with resignation, after your Savior's perfect model
   in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Nevertheless not as I will, but as You
   will." You will be comforted and helped if you can look upon your
   unanswered prayers in that light.

   And, dear Brothers and Sisters, there is another thing that will
   sometimes press upon you very heavily, namely, the desertions which
   occasionally fall to the lot of the Believer as to his communion with
   God. Sometimes we are left in the dark. Whether you are, or not, I know
   that I have been where I could not see sun, or moon, or stars, or even
   get so much as a look from my Master to cheer my sad heart, or a word
   from His mouth to make my spirit glad. At such times we must remember
   that ancient message, "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys
   the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let
   him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." If you
   cannot see, you must believe to see. And if your heart feels like a
   stone, still believe that Christ is your life. And if, instead of holy
   meditations, your soul is racked with blasphemous temptations and evil
   thoughts, still hold on to Jesus, sink or swim! If, instead of clear
   evidences of salvation, you are half afraid that the Lord has forsaken
   you, and given you up--and you fall into an unbelieving frame of
   mind--go again to the Fountain filled with blood, that this sin, like
   all others, may be washed away! Trust Christ all the more "when the
   enemy shall come in like a flood," for then, "the Spirit of the Lord
   shall lift up a standard against him." Those must be strange Christians
   who never have any conflict raging within their souls. If that is true
   Christian experience, I wish I could get it--to be always at peace and
   at rest and never again have to wrestle with sins, doubts and fears!
   But, Beloved, if we cannot attain to that position--and I believe that
   the most of us cannot--let us still walk by faith, for, so we shall
   walk triumphantly even under the discouragements of our inward
   spiritual conflicts!

   One other point I must mention, and then I will leave this part of the
   subject. To many Believers, the sharpest trials they ever have to
   endure arise from troubles connected with the Church of Christ. What a
   grief it is to the godly when any portion of the Church of Christ does
   not prosper--when bickering arises among the members, when one Brother
   or Sister is jealous of another and when all our attempts to mend the
   split only make it worse. It must be very trying for some of you to
   have to go on the Lord's-Day to listen to a minister who does not edify
   you, but rather provokes you to wrath! Or to attend church meetings, as
   I know that some do, and find them anything but a means of Grace. Or to
   have to meet with professors who, in their common conduct and
   conversation, instead of leading you onward and upward, do you as much
   mischief as if they were men of the world! It is sad to see even one of
   God's ministers sound asleep and to see other professing Christians
   careless and worldly, and to see the whole ship of the Church like the
   vessel described by the Ancient Mariner--

   "As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean"

   when there was no motion, no advance. When--

   "The very deep did rot."

   It is a dreadful thing when there is such a horrid deathlike calm as
   this! Yet, even amidst such trials as these, we must believe to see the
   goodness of the Lord. We must still believe that the great Head of the
   Church has not forgotten her, that in her darkest times He still wears
   her name upon His heart and that He will yet return to her in mercy,
   cast out all her enemies, repair her broken walls and cause the banner
   of His love to float again over her citadel.

   II. Now, secondly, and very briefly, FAITH NOT ONLY BELIEVES IN THE
   GOODNESS OF THE LORD, BUT SHE EXPECTS TO SEE IT EVEN HERE

   Sometimes, she sees it very soon. God does not guarantee to let His
   people see here the reason for all His Providential dealings with them,
   but He does occasionally do so. There is many a Believer who has lived
   to see the goodness of God to him. Bernard Gilpin's case was a very
   clear one. As he was on his way to London to be burned at the stake,
   his leg was broken and he had to stop on the road. He said it was all
   for the best, and so it was, for, when he reached London, the bells
   were ringing, for Queen Mary was dead and Queen Elizabeth had come to
   the throne--so he was not burned! The breaking of his leg had saved his
   life! Some of us have also seen the goodness of the Lord displayed
   under very strange

   circumstances. It was so in connection with that terrible calamity at
   the Surrey Gardens Music Hall. Notwithstanding all the sorrow and
   suffering that it brought upon us, as we now look back upon it, we see
   how God, by means of that calamity, called public attention to the
   preaching of His Word--and I have no doubt, that for every life that
   was then lost, a thousand souls have since been saved from going down
   to the Pit--so let God's name be praised for that gracious overruling
   of a terrible crime! You may not have to wait even a day before you
   will distinctly see the goodness of the Lord! But you must believe it
   before you see it. It must be a matter of duty to you to now believe it
   and then, by-and-by, it may be a matter of privilege to you to see it!

   But faith does not always expect to see the goodness of Godhere at
   once. She knows that this is the land of mist and fog, and she is glad
   if she can see even one step before her. Yes, and she is quite
   satisfied to go on even if she cannot see a step before her. She puts
   her foot down on what seems to be a thick cloud, but she finds the
   ground solid beneath her. Without seeing where she is going, she takes
   the next step, relying upon the faithfulness of God--and again she is
   safe-- and so she pursues her way in the thick darkness and with
   greater joy than those who see far ahead and compliment themselves upon
   their shrewdness! She knows that the day has not yet dawned, for the
   shadows have not yet fled away, so, while she is in this mortal state,
   she walks by faith, not by sight.

   Faith understands, too, that man is not endowed with that degree of
   judgment which might enable him, at present, even if the light were
   clearer, to distinctly see the goodness of the Lord. With such an
   intellect as he now has, a child is not likely to see the wisdom of his
   father in the use of the rod. Even if he is a well-instructed child, he
   may still scarcely be able to see it. The father is the better
   judge--he has seen more of life, he knows what the child does not know
   and foresees what the child does not even dream of! How can I, who can
   only see a little pool in front of me, judge as to how the Lord should
   manage the great ocean? Here I am sailing my tiny toy boat upon a
   pond--am I to lay down rules of navigation for God in steering the
   leviathans of the deep across the shoreless seas? Here I am, an ant of
   an hour, creeping about upon the little anthill which I call my
   home--am I to judge as to how God manages all the affairs of time and
   eternity? Down, foolish pride! What do you know? You are wise only when
   you know that you are a fool! But you are such a fool that you do not
   even know thatuntil God teaches it to you! Lie down, then, and
   trustwhere you cannot understand.

   Faith also knows that, at present, she cannot see the whole plan and
   procedure of God's Providential dealings with men. We cannot fairly
   judge the working of Providence by gazing at a part of it. There is an
   old joke about a student who took one brick to the market in order to
   show the people what kind of house he had to sell. But who could
   rightly judge of a house by looking at a single brick? Yet this would
   be less foolish than trying to judge as to the goodness of the Lord by
   the transactions of an hour! If, instead of trying to measure with a
   ruler the distance between Sirius and the Pleiades, we would just
   believe that God has measured that vast distance to an inch and leave
   such measurements to the Almighty Mind which can take in the whole
   universe at one sweep, how much wiser it would be on our part! God sees
   the end from the beginning and when the great drama of time shall be
   complete, then will the splendor as well as the goodness of the Lord be
   seen! When the whole painting shall be unrolled in one vast panorama,
   then shall we see its matchless beauty and appreciate the inimitable
   skill of the Divine Artist. But here we only look at one little patch
   of shade, or one tiny touch of color and it appears to us to be rough
   or coarse. It may be that we shall be permitted, in eternity, to see
   the whole of the picture, but meanwhile, let us firmly believe that He
   who is painting it knows how to do it and that He who orders all things
   according to the counsel of His own will, cannot fail to do that which
   is best for the creatures whom He has made and preserved in being!

   III. So finally THERE IS A WONDERFULLY SUSTAINING INFLUENCE ABOUT THIS
   PRACTICAL BELIEF IN THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD.

   There is a man lying upon the surgeon's operating table and the
   skillful surgeon has to cut deeply. Why does the man endure that
   operation? Because he believes it is for his lasting good. He believes
   that the surgeon will not cause him an atom of pain more than is
   necessary and, therefore, he lies quietly and endures it all. But
   imagine that any of us were there and that we fancied that the surgeon
   meant to do us harm instead of good! Then we would rebel! But the
   conviction that it is all right helps us to play the man and to bear
   the pain with patience. That should be your attitude towards God, my
   dear Friend. May your belief in His goodness enable you to bear the
   sharp cuts of the knife which He is using upon you!

   He must have been a bold man who was the first to plow the ground, all
   to bury bushels of good, golden wheat in the earth! But nowadays, our
   farmers do it as a matter of course. They go to the granary, take out
   that which is very valuable, go off to where they have made the death
   trench ready to receive it and cast it in there, knowing that unless it
   is cast in there to die, it will not bring forth fruit. And they
   believe they will see the fruit that will spring from it! Every farmer,
   when he sows his wheat, has the golden sheaves before his mind's eye
   and the shouts of the harvest home ring in anticipation in his ear!
   And, therefore, he parts with his treasured store of wheat and parts
   with it cheerfully. So, dear Friends, let us part with our friends, and
   part with our health, and part with our comforts, and part with life,
   itself, if that is necessary, believing that "our light affliction,
   which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and
   eternal weight of glory."

   Let me just add that if there is such sustaining power about believing
   to see the goodness of the Lord even here, what must result from the
   still higher belief of seeing the goodness of the Lord in another and
   better world than this The expectation of that bliss may well bear us
   up on its wings far above all the trials and troubles of this present
   life. So let us entreat the Holy Spirit to administer to us this
   heavenly cordial. Then, in the strength of the Lord, let us go forth to
   serve Him with body, soul and spirit, to the highest degree that is
   possible to us!

   If there are any of you who have never believed, let me just tell you
   what is necessary before I close my discourse. The way of salvation is
   this--Believe God's Word. Believe that your Maker cannot lie. Trust His
   Son, whom He has given to be the Savior of all who trust Him. And rely
   upon what His Word has declared--"He that believes on the Son has
   everlasting life." If you trust in Christ, even if you have not a
   fraction of other evidence of your salvation, you are a saved soul on
   that evidence alone! Cast yourself upon Him and you shall find that
   declaration to be true to you, "He that believes on the Son has
   everlasting life." But if you believe not, remember that this
   declaration is equally true, "He that believes not the Son shall not
   see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." May God save all of you
   from that awful doom, for His dear Son's sake! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:

   PSALM 27.

   David is in the darkness of sorrow. His enemies are many and mighty and
   they make a dead set against him and seek to utterly destroy him. But
   he finds his comfort where every true Believer must always seek his
   solace, that is, in his God. Thus sweetly does the Psalmist sing.

   Verse 1. The LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall Jfear? The
   LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid David leaves
   the broken cisterns of the earth which can hold no water, and goes
   directly to the Divine Fountainhead. He does not say, "Ahithophel is my
   light, Uzzia, the Ashterathite, is my friend and my joy. He says,
   "Jehovah is my light." Candles soon burn out, but the sun shines on
   and, eventually, "the sun shall be turned into darkness," but Jehovah,
   our God, is "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
   neither shadow of turning." David does not say, "Joab is the strength
   of my life. Benaiah and the Cherethites are my bodyguard." He says,
   "Jehovah is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?" It is
   the height of Christian faith to find everything good in God. And it is
   an evil hour for us when we begin to trust anywhere but in Him. Build
   your foundation for eternity on a firm and unyielding soil, O Believer,
   and let every stone that is laid thereon be quarried from the Rock of
   Ages.

   2. When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up
   my flesh, they stumbled and fell. If we are on the Lord's side,
   discomfiture of our enemies shall be total and final--they shall fall
   to the ground. They may be very many, and very varied, so as to be
   described under two names--enemies and foes. They may be very
   ferocious, so that, like the wild beasts of the forest, they are ready
   to tear the flesh of their prey and devour it. And they may be able to
   make such attacks as actually come upon us--but just at the moment when
   they think they shall be able to swallow us, our God will interpose for
   our deliverance! It is marvelous how near to the edge of the precipice
   of ruin the Lord sometimes lets His people go, yet He always delivers
   them just at the right moment--and causes their enemies to stumble and
   fall.

   3. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear:
   though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. True
   and simple faith in God alone always begets courage. It is the man who
   is trusting to the creature

   who is the coward. He who truly trusts in the Creator becomes a hero.
   Faith is the food upon which God would have His children fed. So, if
   you would do deeds of daring, lean only upon God--and then you shall
   have your heart's desire.

   4. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after A true
   Christian is a man of one idea, but that one idea is the noblest that
   ever possessed the human mind, or influenced the human heart. This idea
   is one which not only finds a lodging in his brain, but he carries it
   on in the practice of his daily life--"One thing have I desired of the
   Lord, that will I seek after." And what is that one thing?

   4. That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
   to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in His Temple. That
   is, to gaze upon the mystery of God in Christ, for is not Christ "the
   beauty of the Lord?" He is rightly called "the brightness of His
   Father's Glory, and the express image of His Person." So all that we
   need on earth, or in Heaven, is a perpetual vision of Jesus Christ! "To
   behold the beauty of the Lord," and constantly to be enabled to present
   our petitions in His Temple, and to receive gracious answers of peace
   to our supplications. "Father, my soul would gladly abide within Your
   Temple, near Your side. But if my feet must depart from there, still
   keep Your dwelling in my heart."

   5. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion. The
   pavilion was the many-colored tent of the king, embroidered with
   needlework and richly furnished. It was always placed in the center of
   the encampment, so that if there were a night attack, the enemy must
   first break through the ranks of the armed men before reaching the
   royal pavilion. So the Christian is put into the very center of the
   Lord's host! God's Sovereignty encloses him and God's angels surround
   him--and the enemy must first break through the angelic guard and
   overcome all the heavenly powers--before any Believer can be destroyed.

   5. In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me. "The secret of His
   tabernacle" was the Holy of Holies, into which no man but the high
   priest ever entered--and even he only entered it once a year! But now
   the Christian is admitted into the holiest place of all, through the
   Sacrifice of Christ, and Christ's Atonement and the Sovereignty of God
   conjoin to make the Christian's position absolutely safe forever!

   5. He shall set me up upon a Rock The Rock of ages is immovable. It
   stirs not in the fiercest storm that ever rages. God is Immutable. He
   abides the same forever, so that we have three firm grounds of
   confidence--God's Sovereignty, Christ's Sacrifice and God's
   Immutability.

   6. And now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies aroundme:
   therefore willIoffer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy: I will sing,
   yes, I will sing praises unto the LORD. As David's trust was in his
   Lord, all his praise was to his Lord. And where we place our
   confidence, there let us also display our gratitude. If we trust in
   men, it is not surprising if we worship and praise men. But if we trust
   alone in God, our homage and gratitude will be laid at His feet.

   7. 8. Hear, O LORD, When I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me,
   and answer me. When You said, Seek you my face; my heart said unto You,
   Your face, Lord, will I seek. Happy is the man who has a tender
   conscience--whose heart is like the waves of the sea which are easily
   moved by the breath of Heaven--so that when God breathes upon him by
   His Holy Spirit, his soul is moved and controlled by that Spirit.

   9. Hide not Your face far from me; put not Your servant away in anger.
   The sharpest trial a Christian can know is to be forsaken of his God.
   As the very pith of the agony of Christ upon the Cross lay in His being
   deserted by His Father, so the extremity of a Believer's anguish is
   found when he, also, has to cry, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
   me?" Send us any trial that You will, O Lord, but let us never lose the
   light of Your Countenance! We are rich in poverty, we are strong in
   weakness, we are healthful in sickness, we are living even in death
   while we have our God with us--but if our Lord shall once hide His face
   from us, we are in trouble, indeed!

   9. You have been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my
   salvation. Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, use your past
   experience to encourage you for the present. Draw arguments from your
   past experience to use with God in prayer, even as David did--"You have
   been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
   When my soul was burdened with sin, You were my Helper. You did enable
   me to look to Christ when I lost friend after friend, when I passed
   through fierce conflicts with the devil, when I was sick, and health
   and strength failed me, You were my Helper." Many of you can thus look
   back upon a long life and say to God of it all, "You have been my
   Helper." And this gives you a foothold in your wrestling with the great
   Angel of the Covenant--so mind that you grasp Him firmly and say,
   "Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation!"

   10. When my father and my mother forsake me. They are not likely to do
   that, yet, if they should do so, what then?

   10, 11. Then the LORD will take me up. Teach me Your way, OLORD,
   andleadme in aplainpath, because of my enemies. This is a prayer which
   all Christians have good need to pray, for there are so many enemies
   who will, if they can, cause us to stumble. So many who watch for our
   halting that we need to pray, "Lead me in a plain path, because of my
   enemies." Yet let me also say to you that it matters not how carefully
   and warily you may walk, nor how holy you may be--you will be sure to
   be slandered--yes, and sometimes by Christian people, too! There are
   always some to tell the lie, and others to repeat it, and some to
   believe in it, and even to rejoice in it. It would be a mercy if some
   people had no tongues, for, if they had none, they would commit far
   less sin than they now do!

   12. Deliver me not over unto the will of my enemies: for false
   witnesses have risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.
   David found enemies, as will you--and the holier you are, the more
   shall you have of them. Birds pick the ripest fruit. The highest towers
   cast the longest shadows and so is it that the highest holiness is
   generally the object of the most cruel attacks. Well, what are they to
   do who are passing through this trial? Do? Why go to their God about it
   as well as about everything else!

   13. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the
   LORD in the land of the living. With troubles without, and fears
   within, and slanderers and enemies of all sorts around him, the
   Christian had almost fainted; but faith puts the Divine smelling salts
   to his nose and as soon as ever the nostrils perceive the sweet perfume
   of God's faithfulness, the man is revived! "I had fainted, unless I had
   believed." So you see that you must do either the one or the other--you
   must either believe or faint, for, by unbelief and sin, a spiritual
   fainting fit will soon come on.

   14. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your
   heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. Wait on no one else! Wait only on Him
   and then you shall not be discouraged or faint-hearted. Therefore,
   "wait, I say, on the

   Lord."

   --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.
     __________________________________________________________________

The True Lineage

   (No. 3018)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, IN THE YEAR 1864.

   "And it came to pass, as He spoke these things, a certain woman of the
   company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb
   that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You. But He said, More than
   that, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it." Luke
   11:27,28.

   Was this a loving-hearted woman who had been moved by the dear Savior's
   discourse? Many, doubtless, had listened to the same gracious
   words--some of them with wrath and others with stern complacency--but
   it may be that her soul began to swell with holy wonder at the
   marvelous things which proceeded out of His mouth and her soul felt
   such an affection for the Man from whom so much of Grace proceeded that
   she cried, "Blessed is the womb that bore You!" Was it so? Perhaps it
   was an ignorant but passionate love breaking through all restraint.
   Sometimes, among our Primitive Methodist friends, we hear the same kind
   of thing--they get so carried away by the power of the Truth of God
   which has just been stated that they cannot refrain from crying out,
   "Glory!" or, "Hallelujah!" Throughout all Wales, this custom, which I
   am far from condemning, prevails through the whole sermon, often very
   much to the comfort of the speaker, enlivening him and cheering him
   on--and making him rise to greater flights than otherwise he might have
   taken. Perhaps we may look at this interruption of the affectionate
   woman in that light.

   Possibly, however, there was bold, blank ignorance rather than intense
   affection. Hers may have been a sort of vacant wonder at what she had
   heard and, involuntarily, she betrayed it with her tongue. So have I
   noticed, sometimes, when I have been preaching the Word among our
   Primitive Methodist friends that they have not always put the "Glory!"
   in at the right place, or the observation with which they have favored
   us has been as inappropriate as it well could be! Though I have been
   glad, at times, to hear some emotional response when it seemed to come
   from true sensibility and was compatible with common sense, I have not
   been quite so gratified when ignorance has been the prompter. Perhaps
   it was so with this woman. Such, at least, is the opinion of many sound
   expositors--and Jesus does not appear to commend her at all. She was a
   poor ignorant soul who, perhaps, had never listened to any preaching
   before--and certainly had never listened to such preaching as that of
   Jesus Christ--and so she cried out, in a sort of stupid wonder,
   "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You."

   Anyhow, whichever it might be, this woman was but a specimen of very
   many in her own age and a representative of many millions in successive
   ages. She turned her admiration, you perceive, from the Person of
   Christ to the person of His mother. There was some sort of tendency of
   this kind on other occasions in Christ's life--and he rebuked it as He
   did here--for, you will observe, though He says nothing disrespectful
   of His mother, yet He at once puts the extinguisher upon everything
   like blessing her as though she were so highly favored above all other
   Believers in Himself. On the occasion of the marriage in Cana of
   Galilee, Jesus answered His mother--I will not say roughly--that was
   not possible for Him--but somewhat sternly when He said, "Woman, what
   have I to do with you? My hour is not yet come." He purposely
   discouraged what He must have perceived was the natural tendency of
   people's minds to reverence His mother unduly. And it does seem
   marvelous to any thinking man that after such words as these of my
   text, Mariolatry should have prevailed in the Church of Rome to so
   frightful an extent as it has done and as it still does! Why, for every
   prayer offered to Jesus Christ, I believe there are fifty, at the
   present moment, offered to the Virgin Mary. At all events, in the
   Romanist's rosary, there are nine beads for the "Hail Mary" to every
   one for, "Our Father."

   Observe that she is to be held in profound respect, she is "blessed
   among women." There should never come from the lips of any Christian a
   single word of disrespect to her--she was highly favored, she was a
   sort of second Eve, as Eve brought forth sin, this woman, this second
   Eve, brought forth the Lord who is our Salvation. She does stand in a
   very high position, but still, in no respect is she to be an object of
   worship! By no means is she to be lifted up and extolled as though she
   were immaculately conceived and afterwards lived without sin and was
   taken up, as the Papists declare, by a marvelous assumption into
   Heaven--an assumption, indeed, on their part, and nothing better than
   an assumption, without any foundation whatever in fact! No, Brothers
   and Sisters, the Virgin Mary was a sinner, saved by Grace, as you and I
   are! That Savior whom she brought forth, was a Savior to her as much as
   to us. She had to be washed from sin, both original and contracted, in
   the precious blood of her own Child, "the Son of the Highest." Neither
   could she have entered Heaven unless He had pronounced her absolution
   and she had been, as we are, "accepted in the Beloved." Yet I do not
   wonder that there was a tendency to exalt her unduly--however, I do
   marvel much that, after Christ has spoken so plainly and so expressly,
   men should have had the impudence, and the devil should have had the
   audacity to delude millions of professing Christians into a worship of
   her, who is to be reverenced, but never to be adored.

   If you look at the text, you will see that there is something very
   beautiful about it. This woman pronounced a benediction upon the Virgin
   Mary--Christ lifts that off and puts it on all His people. She said,
   "Blessed is the woman who brought You forth." "Yes," said Jesus, "she
   is blessed, but (in the very same sense) they are blessed who hear the
   Word of God, and keep it." Thus, my Brothers and Sisters, whatever
   blessings pertain to Mary, pertain to you and pertain to me if we hear
   the Word of God and keep it! Whatever we may suppose to have been the
   mercies comprehended in Mary being so highly favored a person, those
   very same mercies are yours and mine if, hearing the Word of God, we
   truly keep it.

   I. It is supposed by many and very naturally, that it would have been a
   delightful thing to have been the mother of

   our Lord, BECAUSE THEN WE WOULD HAVE HAD THE HONOR OF THE CLOSEST
   ASSOCIATION WITH HIM.

   To have seen that Infant in His cradle and nursed Him upon one's knees.
   To have marked the ripening years of the Holy Child, to have observed
   His gracious words, His holy piety, His complete obedience to His
   parents. To have remained with Him the 30 years which, doubtless,
   Joseph and Mary spent with their honored, glorious Son, must have been
   no small blessing! The same spirit, you know, comes out in Mrs. Luke's
   pretty hymn, such a favorite with our dear children, which we all of us
   love to sing--

   "I think, when I read that sweet story of old,

   When Jesus was here among men--

   How He called little children as lambs to His fold,

   I should like to have been with them then.

   I wish that His hands had been placed on my head,

   That His arms had been thrown around me--

   And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,

   'Let the little ones come unto Me.'" Yes, many a mother might feel that
   to be kissed with those little lips, to have had her neck surrounded by
   those blessed arms, to have had her eyes looked into with the
   love-flashing eyes of such a Child as that would have been a gift to be
   craved for every day! Well, so it looks, Beloved, and yet, if we come
   to think rightly of it, the illusion is quickly dispelled. It was a
   high privilege to be associated with Christ, but, unless spiritually
   sanctified, it was a solemn responsibility sinking the soul deeper in
   guilt, rather than raising it higher in sanctification! Let me venture
   to remind you of one who had the very closest intimacy with Christ in
   the days of His public ministry. He was so trusted by the Savior that
   he kept the little treasury in which Christ put, when there were any,
   the excessive gifts of charity. He was the treasurer of the little
   company--you know him--Judas. He had been with Jesus almost everywhere.
   He had been His familiar friend and acquaintance and when He dipped the
   bread with Him in the bowl, it was but an indication of the close
   association which had been preserved between the Divine Master and a
   vile creature who was utterly unworthy of such a privilege! There was
   never such another "son of perdition" as Judas, the friend and
   acquaintance of Jesus Christ. Never has any other man sunk so low in
   the depths of Divine Wrath, with so huge a millstone about his neck, as
   this man

   with whom Christ took such sweet counsel and went to the House of God
   in company! The same sun ripens the corn and the poppies. This man was
   ripened in guilt by the same external process that ripened others in
   holiness.

   It is not, then, after all, so great a gift, looked at as a natural
   blessing. But, whatever the blessing may be, it is open to every
   Christian spiritually. Beloved you may have an acquaintance with Christ
   if you are His people! Quite as near and far more enduring than any
   acquaintance which His mother could have gained by merely dandling Him
   on her knees, or supplying His needs from her breasts! Today you may
   talk with Jesus, you heirs of Heaven! Your Divine Elder Brother's
   company is free to you--you have but to go to Him and He will bring you
   into His banqueting house and His banner over you shall be love. Still
   is His left hand under the head of His saints, and His right hand does
   embrace them. There are dearer things than ever the Infant Christ could
   give to His mother! There are kisses of His lips more sweet, more
   spiritual than any which Mary received. You have but to long for them
   and to pine after them and, when you get them, you have but to prize
   them and you shall have them every day! I trust, Beloved, some of us
   need not cry with the spouse in the Song, "O that you were as my
   brother that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find you
   without, I would kiss you," for we can say, "My Beloved is mine, and I
   am His...Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of
   love." I say, then, that all the honor of associating with Christ may
   be had, at the present moment, by His people! The sweetest of
   fellowship can be enjoyed by us in the highest and purest sense, so
   that the blessing which Mary had is ours and we may say, with Christ,
   "Yes, rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it."

   II. Again, it is naturally supposed, by some, that it must have been a
   sweet thing to be the mother of our Lord BECAUSE THEN WE WOULD HAVE
   BEEN BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH HIM AND HAVE KNOWN MORE OF HIS HEART.

   If He had any secrets, surely He would confide them to His mother!
   There must have oozed out, in His private life, some things which men
   did not see in public. Perhaps there may have been something which He
   could not very well unveil to the gaze of the millions which would be
   perceived by Joseph and by His admiring mother. She was behind the
   scenes. She had the benefit of looking into His very heart in a way in
   which we cannot do. Well, there may be something in that, but I do not
   think there is much. I do not know that Mary knew more than
   others--what she did know, she did well to lay up in her heart--but she
   does not appear, from anything you read in the Gospels, to have been a
   better instructed Believer than any other of Christ's disciples. And we
   have no indication of her having made any extraordinary advances in the
   spiritual instruction which her Son had given.

   But certain is it that, whatever Mary may have found out, you and I may
   find out now--not naturally, but spiritually. Do you wonder that I
   should say so? Here is a text to prove it--"The secret of the Lord is
   with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant." I
   remember also the Master's words where He said, "Henceforth I call you
   not servants, for the servant knows not what his lord does; but I have
   called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father, I
   have made known unto you." No, so blessedly does this Divine Revealer
   of secrets tell us what is in His heart that He keeps back nothing
   which is profitable to us--and can say to us as He said to His
   disciples--"If it were not so, I would have told you." Christ keeps
   nothing back from His chosen. Between the heart of a true saint and
   Christ there are no secrets! We pour our hearts into His heart and He
   pours back His heart into ours. Does He not, this day, manifest Himself
   unto us as He does not unto the world? You know that He does! And
   therefore you will not ignorantly cry out, as this woman did, "Blessed
   is the womb that bore You," but you will intelligently bless God that,
   having heard the Word, and kept it, you have, first of all, as true a
   communion with the Savior as the Virgin had, and you have, in the
   second place, as true an acquaintance with the secrets of His heart as
   she can be supposed to have obtained!

   III. Further, perhaps a more common remark is this, "I wish that I had
   been Christ's mother, so that I MIGHT

   HAVE NURSED HIM AND SUPPORTED HIS NEEDS, watched Him in His weakness,
   put Him to His rest and heard

   the first lisps when He began to speak. Oh, it would have been
   something to have said, when I was in Heaven, that I had nursed the One
   who is now exalted far above all principalities and powers, that I
   listened to the cry of His Infancy and relieved His needs."

   Well, that would be something, but let me say to you that you may have
   it, Beloved--every child of God may have it! Christ is still on
   earth--not as to His bodily Person, but as to His mystical Person--and
   you may still nurse that mystical Person. We, ministers of God, are we
   not nursing fathers unto the Church of God? And you, each of you, in
   your sphere, as you teach the ignorant, guide the wandering and comfort
   those that are bowed down, are hearing the

   plaintive cry of a suffering Savior! And you are, with the breast of
   your consolation, supplying the needs of His yet infant Church. Perhaps
   it is better, and far nobler, to have the honor of nursing Christ's
   mystical body than it was to care for His corporeal frame because there
   is a much wider range here. It was but a little cup He needed. If was
   but a morsel and a drop the Savior sometimes needed. But now His great
   body, stretched as it is from Japan to America--His great body, found
   as it is in every part of this world--His great body, found in yonder
   sick one, in yonder poverty-stricken ones, requires vastly more and,
   therefore, of your substance you may give more, yes, your whole
   strength you may offer up, that you may feed Him and supply His
   spiritual needs! Whatever honor, then, the Virgin had in this respect,
   Christ's pure virgins may still have if they will wait upon His Church
   and minister to it of their heart's substance--

   "Jesus, poorest of the poor

   Man ofSorrows! Child of grief

   Happy they whose bounteous store

   Ministered to Your relief

   Jesus, though Your head is crowned,

   Crowned with loftiest majesty,

   In Your members You are found,

   Plunged in deepest poverty.

   They who feed Your sick and faint

   For YOURSELF a banquet find!

   They who clothe the naked saint

   Round YOUR loins the raiment bind." IV. It may be very possible that
   some others have looked at it in another way. They have said, "Blessed
   is the womb that bore Him, and the paps that gave Him suck, for had it
   been our lot to be His mother, then we believe HE WOULD HAVE BEEN READY
   TO HEAR OUR CRY, for a son cannot surely resist the prayer of His own
   mother. And when a mother says, 'My Son, help me, I am sinful. I
   believe in You, help me. When she cries out to Him whom she had
   conceived, 'Help me, blot out my sins,' why surely Jesus would heed,
   with ready ear, and say, ' Mother, your sins are forgiven you.'"

   But, Beloved, this is only our fancy, for Christ is just as ready to
   save anysinner in this place as He was to save His mother, for it is
   His greatest delight to see a sinner, with tears in his eyes, crying,
   "God be merciful to me, a sinner." If I had power to pardon you, I
   think you know how cheerfully I would do it. Oh, could I break your
   hearts and bind them up again, God knows that I would not let this
   night pass without doing it! And do you think that my Lord and Master
   is less loving than I am? You feel, if He were here tonight, and you
   were His mother, that He would be sure to hear your cry and answer you.
   But Jesus Christ said, on one occasion, as He looked upon the crowd
   gathered together, when someone said to Him, "Your mother and Your
   brethren stand outside, desiring to speak with You"--what did He say?
   "Who is My mother? And who are My brethren?" And then He stretched
   forth His hand toward His disciples and said, "Behold My mother and My
   brethren! For whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in Heaven,
   the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." And you, if you put
   your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, shall not stand second to His
   mother! No, shall I not say it? You shall even have the preference!
   Christ was preaching and they said, "Here is your mother." Did He stop
   to attend to His mother? No, but first He would feed His disciples!
   First He would teach them! And so, Sinner, you shall not be second to
   the mother of the Savior! Do but cry to Him now! Oh, that the Holy
   Spirit might show you your lost state, reveal to you your need, and put
   a penitent cry into your mouth for, when you can cry, "Jesus, pity me
   and save me," you may cry to Him with the greatest confidence, for--

   "He is able, He is willing, Doubt no more!"

   You need not seek to move His heart with many cries, for His heart is
   moved already! He loves the sons of men. His delights are with them.
   You cannot do Him a greater service than by letting Him save you.
   Submit yourself, with all your emptiness, to the fullness of His
   unspeakable compassion! Is there not a thought here that might woo
   some--I am holding it now like a loadstone--is there no metal here that
   will be attracted by it? The love of Christ to His people, to poor
   sinners who seek Him, is as great as any love He ever had to His
   mother--and even greater! You may come with boldness to Him, though you
   never sought His face before!

   V. Again, I think some have thought that if they had been His mother,
   THEY COULD HAVE COME TO HIM

   WITH GREATER EASE.

   "It is so easy to speak to one whom we know. We are not at all afraid
   to tell our needs to one who has been so near to us as Christ was to
   His mother." Yet I would have you remember that Christ, as the Son of
   God, was not the Son of Mary. Christ, the Divine Savior, was no nearer
   to Mary than He is to us. Christ was merely the Man Christ that was
   conceived in her womb, or that sucked at her breasts and, therefore, in
   His Divine Person, He towers as much above her as He does above us! And
   then, though He was born of the substance of His mother, yet was He of
   our substance, too, for He is bone of our bone and flesh of our
   flesh--a Man, such as we are. If He were an angel, being of a different
   kind, we might be afraid to come to Him, but He is a Man, He has a
   man's emotions, a man's heart, a man's compassion, a man's love and we
   need not be afraid to come to Him! What though He was not born of us,
   yet is He of us. Though we are not His mother, yet, we are His brothers
   and sisters. So let us come boldly to Him. Sinner, you have as much
   right to come as Mary had. She had none except what Divine Grace gave
   her--you have the same. Did Christ ever cast away one sinner who came
   to Him? No. Did He ever reject one that was ever brought to Him? There
   was a woman taken in adultery and she did not come willingly, but they
   brought her to Him, thinking, "Surely, Christ will condemn her." What
   was the result? After driving all her adversaries away, He said to her,
   "Go, and sin no more," And so will He say to you if your doubts and
   trembling and fears should bring you to Him. When He casts one soul
   away, then let other souls be afraid to come to Him, but while my
   blessed Master stands with open arms and takes the foulest, and vilest,
   and poorest to minister unto His love, I pray you stand not back
   through shame or fear! As much as if you were His mother and He your
   Child, come to Him, for He invites you to come, saying, "Come unto Me,
   all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." With
   tearful eyes He entreats you to come to Him-- and if you will not, He
   does but relieve His heart by crying, "How often would I have gathered
   your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her
   wings, but you would not!"

   VI. Perhaps, if you will think this over, you will see much more that
   is beautiful. I am sure there is no topic more

   consolatory than that which my text contains. THE VERY BLESSING WHICH
   BELONGED TO THE VIRGIN

   MOTHER OF JESUS BELONGS TO EVERY SOUL THAT HEARS GOD'S WORD AND KEEPS
   IT.

   Now you hear it. Do you hear it with your inside ears--with the ears of
   your heart? And when you hear it, do you keep it in your memory? Do you
   keep it in your faith? Do you try to keep it in your obedience? And are
   you daily testifying to its truth? If so, all these blessings are yours
   and let me say to any trembling, awakened, convicted sinner-- all these
   blessings may be yours if you hear the Word of God and keep it tonight!
   Here are one or two words of God that I want you to keep--"Come now,
   and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are
   scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like
   crimson, they shall be as wool." Will you not come and reason with God
   and talk this matter over? You have heard the Word, I pray you to keep
   it, that is, to obeyit. Here is another message from the Word of
   God--"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
   Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." You have heard
   that--keep it! Believe that although you are a sinner, He came to save
   you. Rest in it, trust in it. Here is one more, and I pray you, as you
   hear it, keep it--"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."
   You have heard it--now keep it. To believe is to trust. Trust Christ
   now! I pray God to constrain you to do it before you pass those doors.
   Fall flat on your face upon Christ's promise! As for your own
   righteousness, away with it to the dogs! No prayer, no tears, no vows,
   no sighs of yours can do anything in the matter! Trust Jesus Christ
   wholly, now! And then if you have heard that Word and shall thus keep
   it, go your way, and let Satan say what he will and let the flesh make
   what noise it pleases--Christ has blessed you and you are blessed! He
   has said to you, sinners as you are, "Blessed are they that hear the
   Word of God and keep it." When you and I get to Heaven, may we find it
   to be so! May we glory there and sing as loud a song as even Mary did
   when she said, "My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has
   rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the low estate of His
   handmaiden"--for all generations may call that one blessed who has
   sought and found the Savior! O Beloved, even in Heaven, that song of
   Mary shall make a sweet song for us all! May we begin to sing it here
   and Christ shall have the praise! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: Luke 11:14-54.

   www.spurgeongems.org

   Verses 14, 15. And He was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it
   came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spoke and the
   people wondered. But some of them said, He casts out devils through
   Beelzebub the chief of the devils. One would hardly have thought that
   they could have gone to such a length as that--but when men hate
   Christ, there is nothing they will not say against Him. It is no
   subject of surprise when great heresies arise, for they are the natural
   outcome of human enmity against Christ and His Truth. People in such a
   state of heart will say anything. They will give utterance to thoughts
   that you could not have imagined would have entered any human brain--it
   is the enmity of the heart to Christ that produces this blasphemy of
   the tongue!

   16. And others, tempting Him, sought of Him a sign from Heaven. "You
   are working this work from beneath," they said, "now do something that
   is really from above." They must have known that the casting out of the
   devil was from Heaven, for Satan would never cast out Satan!

   17, 18. But He, knowing their thought, said unto them, Every Kingdom
   divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided
   against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how
   shall his kingdom stand? Because you say that I cast out devils through
   Beelzebub. That was a very good and sufficient answer to these
   cavilers. It is a comfort to us to know that any error is very
   vulnerable--there is always a weak point about it. In this case, Christ
   permitted it to turn its sting upon itself.

   19. AndifI, by Beelzebub, cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast
   them out? Therefore shall they be your judges. For some of these men
   had sons who either did really cast out devils, being disciples of
   Christ, or else professed to do so, being exorcists, pretending to a
   power they did not possess. In either case, the argument was good as
   against the objectors.

   20-22. But if I, with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the
   Kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keeps his
   palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come
   upon him and overcome him, he takes from him all his armor wherein he
   trusted, and divides his spoils. This is how Christ drives out the
   devil by sheer force of arms--He overcomes him and drives him out. He
   does not cajole him, invite him, or persuade him to go, but He fights
   with him, puts forth His Omnipotent Power against him, overthrows him,
   takes away his armor and divides the spoil. Were you ever conscious of
   such a fight as that? If not, be afraid of your so-called reformation,
   for there is no true reformation and no true conversion in which there
   is no conflict between Christ and Satan!

   23. 24. He that is not with Me is against Me: and he that gathers not
   with Me scatters. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man. This is
   the kind of "conversion" which is not genuine--"when the unclean spirit
   is gone out of a man"--"gone out" on his own accord--and he may do
   that. He may leave a man, for a while, with the evil purpose of getting
   him more completely into his power afterwards. "When the unclean spirit
   is gone out of a man."

   24. He walks through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he
   says, I will return unto my house from where I came out. It was his
   house all the while! He left it voluntarily--he was not driven out by
   force--he simply left it for a time in order that he might return to it
   and retain it the more completely. Now he goes back to it.

   25. And when he comes, he finds it swept and garnished. There has been
   a reformation of a sort--the man has given up drunkenness, left off
   swearing and become, in certain respects, a better man. The house is
   swept and garnished, but there is no new tenant of Mansoul--there is no
   Christ come to take possession of Heart Castle.

   26. Then he goes, and takes to him seven other spirits more wicked than
   himself, and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that
   man is worse than the first. It often happens that when men make a
   profession of reformation and then relapse into their former state,
   they become far worse than they were before. The so-called
   "reformation" is all of their own doing--or rather, the greater part of
   it is the devil's doing. The demon within the man voluntarily went away
   and now that he is back, he brings with him "seven other spirits more
   wicked than himself." And so the man is more than eight times worse
   than he was before the demon left him for a while!

   27. 28. And it came to pass, as He spoke these things, a certain woman
   of the company lifted up her voice and said unto Him, Blessed is the
   womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You. But He said, more
   than that, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it The
   enthusiastic woman was so carried away with admiration for Christ that
   she thought His mother was a highly-favored woman and she called her,
   "blessed." "Yes," said Christ, "she is

   blessed, but still more blessed are they who have the Word of God in
   their hearts, who regard it as their own, and keep it as a great
   prize."

   29. And when the people were gathered thick together, He began to say,
   This is an evil generation: they seek a sign. Look back to the 16th
   verse--"Others, tempting Him, sought of Him a sign from Heaven." Christ
   had answered those who imputed His miraculous works to Satanic
   agency--now He answers these others.

   29, 30. And there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonah the
   Prophet For as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the
   Son of Man be to this generation. Jonah rose, as it were, from the
   dead, for he was buried in the deep, in the belly of the whale! And
   Christ was buried in Joseph's tomb, yet He came back from the grave on
   the third day.

   31, 32. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the
   men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost
   part of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater
   than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment
   with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the
   preaching of Jonah and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The
   Resurrection would make Christ the most conspicuous sign of God's
   Presence among the people! It would be the testimony of God to His Son
   that He was, indeed, the Messiah.

   33-35. No man, when he has lighted a candle, puts it in a secret place,
   neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they that come in
   may see the light The light of the body is the eye: therefore when your
   eye is good, your whole body also is full oflight, but when your eye is
   bad, your body is full ofdarkness. Take heed therefore that the light
   which is in you is not darkness. If your religion is irreligion, if
   your hope is a false one, if your highest aspirations are untrue, what
   is your position in the sight of God? Where are you?

   36, 37. May your whole body therefore be full oflight, having no part
   dark, the whole shall be full oflight, as when the bright shining of a
   candle does give you light And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee besought
   Him to dine with him: and He went in, and sat down to meat. It was
   often a matter of marvel to the onlookers that Christ went among
   publicans and sinners--but is it not a greater wonder that He went
   among Pharisees? If they asked Him to their houses, it was usually
   because they hoped to entangle Him in His talk, yet the condescension
   of our Master is so great that again and again, "He went in, and sat
   down to meat."

   38. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that He had not just
   washed before dinner. Not because Christ's hands needed washing, but
   because it was the custom of the Pharisees to wash before eating, and
   our Lord broke through the customs as He was known to do, for He cared
   nothing for their inventions!

   39, 40. And the Lord said unto Him, Now do you Pharisees make clean the
   outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of
   ravening and wickedness. You fool, did not He who made the outside make
   the inside, also? "One needs washing as much as the other. You are so
   careful of your hands--will you not be more careful of your hearts?"

   41. But rather give alms of such things as you have; and, behold, all
   things are clean unto you. "When you are full of love to your fellow
   men, and make a practice of helping them, you have cleansed your heart
   from selfishness and have really washed yourself."

   42. But woe unto you, Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all
   manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God; these
   ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone. How many, in
   these days, are very particular about very little things, but very
   careless about great things? They would not violate the law of their
   sect or party for the world, but the Law of God is of small account to
   them.

   43. Woe unto you, Pharisees! For you love the uppermost seats in the
   synagogues, and greetings in the markets. They loved to be called
   Rabbi, Learned Doctors of the Law. Any title that made them appear
   great was very sweet to them.

   44. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are as
   graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware
   of them. Nobody but Christ knew how base they were. They were fair to
   look upon, but He knew that they were villainously hypocritical and He,
   therefore, denounced them. Ah, dear Friends, the great matter is to
   have Grace in the heart--to have the Divine Light within in the
   soul--but if we have not this, vain is a fair profession, vain is
   everything that comes from man! If we are to be saved, we must have the
   Grace that comes from God alone.

   45. Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto Him, Master, thus
   saying you reproach us also. There was no great difference between the
   scribes and Pharisees and the lawyers, as this man evidently perceived,
   and as our Lord also soon confirmed by pronouncing upon them the same
   kind of, "Woe," that He had pronounced upon the other false teachers!

   46. And He said, Woe unto you also, you lawyers! For you load men with
   burdens grievous to be borne, and you yourselves touch not the burdens
   with one of your fingers. Their regulations as to moral and ceremonial
   observances were like huge bundles of firewood or crushing burdens
   bound together and made into a weight intolerable for any man to carry!
   Many of these rules, by themselves, were grievous enough--but all
   together they formed a yoke that neither the people nor their fathers
   could bear. The scribes, Pharisees and lawyers piled the great load
   upon them--but none helped them to sustain it, nor offered to relieve
   them of any portion of it. "You load men with burdens grievous to be
   borne, and you yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your
   fingers."

   47. 48. Woe unto you! For you build the sepulchers of the Prophets and
   your fathers killed them. Truly you bear witness that you approve the
   deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and you build their
   sepulchers. They pretended to have such regard for the holy men of the
   past that, being unable to honor them in person, they would set up
   monuments to their memory and adorn their resting places with tokens of
   respect.

   Out of their own mouths our Lord condemned these hypocrites--"Truly you
   bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers." In effect,
   Jesus said to them, "You confess that you are the sons of the murderers
   of the Prophets. That admission carries with it far more than you
   imagine. You are their sons, not only by birth, but also by
   resemblance--you are veritable children of those who killed the
   Prophets. If you had lived in their day, you would have committed the
   crimes you pretend to condemn."

   49-51. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them Prophets
   and Apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute, that the
   blood of all the Prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the
   world, may be required of this generation. From the blood of Abel unto
   the blood of Zachariah, which perished between the altar and the
   Temple: verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation.
   The destruction of Jerusalem was more terrible than anything that the
   world has ever witnessed, either before or since. Even Titus seemed to
   see in his cruel work the hand of an avenging God. Truly, the blood of
   the martyrs was amply avenged when the whole city became a veritable
   Aceldama, or field of blood. It was before that generation had passed
   away that Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed. There was a sufficient
   interval for the full proclamation of the Gospel by the Apostles and
   evangelists of the early Christian Church-- and for the gathering out
   of those who recognized the Crucified Christ as their true Messiah.
   Then came the awful ending which the Savior foresaw and foretold.

   51. Woe unto you, lawyers! For you have taken away the key of
   knowledge: you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering
   in, you hindered. This "Woe" is similar to that pronounced upon the
   hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, and it was a terrible charge to be
   brought against them by Him who could read their hearts and who could
   truthfully say to them, "You have taken away the key of knowledge: you
   did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in, you
   hindered." They ought to have helped men into the Kingdom. Instead of
   doing so, they hindered those who were entering. Are there not false
   teachers, nowadays, who put stumbling stones instead of steppingstones
   in the way of those who are entering the Kingdom of Heaven?

   53, 54. And as He said these things unto them, the scribes and
   Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak
   of many things: laying wait for Him and seeking to catch something out
   of His mouth that they might accuse Him. Thus they proved the truth of
   the accusations that He had brought against them! But all their plots
   and traps were in vain until the hour appointed for His great Sacrifice
   to be offered on Calvary.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Hungry Filled, the Rich Emptied

   (No. 3019)

   A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1906.

   DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
   FEBRUARY 26, 1869.

   "He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hats sent
   away empty." Luke 1:53.

   Divine Providence is like a wheel and as the wheel revolves, that spoke
   which was highest becomes the lowest, and that which was lowest is
   elevated to the highest place. It seems to be one of the works in which
   God delights to cast down the lofty and to lift up the lowly. He hurls
   down princes from their thrones and lifts up beggars from the dunghill!
   "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be
   made low." Like the woodman with his axe, the Providence of God is
   cutting down the high and goodly cedars while making trees that were
   dry and withered, fruitful. That which is full, God empties. And that
   which is empty, God fills. That which is something, He makes to be
   nothing, and that which is nothing, He makes to be something. That
   which is reckoned the wisdom of this world, God makes to be utter
   folly, but base things of the world, and things which are despised, has
   God chosen that He may elevate them and crown them with His Glory.

   I am going to take our text as one instance of the general Providence
   of God and to use it, first, in reference to sinners. Then in reference
   to saints and, lastly, in reference to saints in their capacity as
   workers for Christ.

   I. First, then, WITH REFERENCE TO SINNERS it is true that, "He has
   filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He has sent away
   empty."

   " The hungry" are the poorest of the poor. When a man is homeless, he
   is poor, but he may still have something in his purse with which to
   supply his present necessities. When a man is penniless, he is
   certainly poor, yet he may have just satisfied the cravings of his
   hunger and before the time shall come for another meal, he may be able
   to procure it. But when the hour has passed in which the man should
   have refreshed himself and he is liberally hungry, yet has no means of
   getting food, then he is one of the poorest of the poor! There are
   thousands in London who are very poor, but still, they are not actually
   hungry. They are brought down to poverty, but yet, by some means or
   other, they are able to get their daily needs supplied. The hungry man
   is worse off and he represents the lowest degree of spiritual'poverty.
   When a man has lost all his former treasures of self-righteousness,
   when he has no merits, no strength, no might whatever--when he is
   entirely empty and his soul craves for what it cannot find in itself,
   nor earn of itself, nor by any possibility procure by its own merit or
   power--then is the man in the lowest state of spiritual destitution.
   And when he is brought to that state, then may he expect, in his
   experience, the fulfillment of the first part of our text, "He has
   filled the hungry with good things."

   More than that, the man who is hungry is not only abjectly poor, but he
   feels his poverty in a way that does not permit him to forget it. The
   man who has but few clothes upon his back may, by reason of the genial
   weather, scarcely realize that he is wearing the garb of poverty. A man
   who sleeps in a miserable hut may seldom have been better housed and,
   therefore, may scarcely recognize that he is dwelling among the very
   poor. But he that is hungry has internal evidence that will not allow
   him to deny, nor even for a moment to forget, his destitution! So is it
   with certain sinners. They have within them an insatiable hunger which
   causes a desperate unrest. There is no peace for them--neither by day
   nor by night can they be at ease. Their sins haunt them and the fear of
   punishment dogs their heels. They long to find mercy, but know not how
   to seek it rightly. They would be thankful, indeed, to be saved from
   the wrath to come, but they wonder whether salvation is possible for
   them. They know they are guilty in the sight of God yet, possibly, they
   feel grieved to think that they do not feel as much grieved as they
   should--and are vexed to think that they are not more

   vexed on account of their sins! All this shows very clearly how utterly
   destitute they must be, and how truly they may write themselves down
   among the spiritually "hungry."

   I hope I am now addressing some who are in this condition. Dear
   Friends, you are well aware that there is no good thing in you, yet you
   wish there were. Sometimes you fear that you have not even the desire
   to be right. To be able to confess your sins with a proper tenderness
   of conscience seems to be a task beyond your powers. You say that you
   wish you could repent and could believe--but I think you arerepenting
   and believing all the while! But even if you are not, this only proves
   how abjectly poor you are spiritually and how far you have gone astray
   from God--and how lost, how undone you are! And then comes in this
   blessed message of our text, "He has filled the hungry"--that is, such
   sinners as you are, so full of needs--"He has filled the hungry with
   good things."

   How is it that the hungry get filled while the rich are sent away
   empty? I think it is, partly, because the hungry are not to be
   satisfied with anything but bread. There are many in the world who
   spend their money for that which is not bread--and they are content
   with an unsubstantial diet. But a really hungry soul knows that it
   needs bread and will not be put off with anything else. When a soul
   really feels the pressure of sin, it needs to have it pardoned, and it
   will not be content with anything less than pardon. It needs peace with
   God, and it will never rest till it gets it. The soul that once hungers
   after God, the living God, will not be put off with ceremonies and
   so-called "sacraments." It needs Christ, Himself! It needs to hear Him
   say, "Your sins, which are many, are all forgiven; go in peace." You
   can pacify those whose desires are only whims, but when men's desires
   are based on such voracious appetites as the hungry have, you cannot
   satisfy them by the clatter of plates and dishes, or the rattling of
   knives and forks, or even with the sight of food. They must have it to
   eat--they will not be put off without it! They cry until they get it
   and, therefore, they get it, for God hears their cry and grants their
   request. If a man's prayer is of such a character that only Sovereign
   Grace, real pardon and true salvation will content his soul, then he
   shall not be put off with anything else, but he shall have that for
   which his soul craves. Such a man prays with one of our hymn-writers--

   "Gracious Lord, incline Your ear,

   My requests vouchsafe to hear.

   Hear my never-ceasing cry,

   Give me Christ, or else I die!

   Lord, deny me what You will,

   Only ease me of my guilt!

   Suppliant at Your feet I lie,

   Give me Christ or else I die!

   You have promised to forgive

   All who in Your Son believe--

   Lord, I know You cannot lie.

   Give me Christ, or else I die!" How vain a thing it is for a man to
   boast of the privileges he enjoys rather than of the use which he has
   made of them! How many say, like the Jews of old, "The temple of the
   Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord are these,"
   because they think they belong to an orthodox denomination or they are
   members of a church which is correct in its creed, or they attend a
   ministry which God has greatly blessed to the salvation of souls. Ah,
   Sirs! But if the Creed is not believed in your heart, and if the
   ministry is not blessed to you, your boasting is as vain as that of one
   who was clothed in rags, died in poverty, but who boasted of the wealth
   of London! Or of the man who shut his eyes, but who, nevertheless,
   boasted of the light that shone upon his countenance. Unless you
   useyour privileges. Unless you get through the external husks into the
   very spirit and kernel of them, instead of boasting, you have reason to
   be ashamed and to hide your heads! But the truly hungry soul is not
   satisfied with privileges and opportunities--he wants Christ! To sit in
   a place of worship to hear a Gospel sermon, he counts to be a favor,
   for he is very humble, but it is a favor that cannot content him. His
   soul cries, "Lord, give me Christ! Give me salvation! Give me assurance
   to know that my many iniquities are cast behind Your back, to be
   remembered against me no more forever!" He cannot be content with
   anything short of a full Christ for his poor empty spirit!

   Further, a hungry soul is likely to get the blessing it craves because
   it is an importunate soul You know that our Lord Jesus Christ, in His
   parable of the widow and the unjust judge, set forth the prevalence of
   importunate pleading

   with God. And, on another occasion our Lord used the figure of one who,
   though not himself hungry, was able to satisfy the hunger of a friend
   who had unexpectedly called upon him when he had nothing to set before
   him. But, by his importunity, he obtained for his friend the food that
   he needed. Yes, and let a man really have the fear of Hell before his
   eyes and a sincere desire for reconciliation with God--let his soul be
   really hungering after peace with God through Jesus Christ--and he will
   be at Mercy's door both night and day! He will hammer away at the
   knocker and give God no rest until He puts forth His hand and gives the
   Bread of Life to that poor starving suppliant. Yes, it is holy
   importunity that wins the day--and the spiritually hungry man gets the
   blessing because his importunity gives success to his pleading with
   God!

   I feel sure that there are some in this place who, knowing their
   need--being painfully conscious that they have no good thing of their
   own--are hungering after eternal life. I trust that this hunger will
   grow into a craving that will never be satisfied until you get what
   your spirit wants. I pray God that you may never be comforted till
   Christ comforts you--never get peace till He becomes your peace, never
   feel that you are safe till you get into the very heart of Christ-- and
   never suppose that you are clean till you are washed in the Fountain
   filled with His blood! Beware of getting peace apart from Christ!
   Always be afraid of a hope that is not grounded upon Him, for it is far
   better to continue to hunger and to thirst than to be satisfied with
   the dust and ashes of this world's religion, or this world's pleasures!
   O you hungry ones, hear the words of the text and be encouraged--"He
   has filled the hungry." Look at that blessed word, "filled." He has not
   merely given them a little refreshment, or administered some temporary
   consolation to them, but, "He has filled the hungry"--given them all
   that they can wish for, all that their souls really need! Turn to this
   blessed Book of God and see what promises are there for needy souls. Do
   they need pardon? There is plenteous forgiveness! Do they need
   adoption? "They shall be My sons and my daughters, says the Lord
   Almighty." Do they need comfort? There is the Holy Spirit, Himself, to
   be their Comforter. Do they need anything on earth or in Heaven? Then
   it shall not be denied to them, seeing that, in giving Christ to them,
   God has given them all things! "He has flledthe hungry."

   It is a blessed thing to see the man who was once spiritually hungry,
   after he has had his soul filled by God. How he rejoices! He dances
   like David did before the Ark--no, more than that--his soul seems as
   though it would dance into Heaven itself with glorious leaps of
   overwhelming joy! As Christ is mine and Christ is All, I have in Christ
   all that I can ever desire! It is a blessed fullness, a Divine satiety,
   a heavenly satisfaction which the Lord gives to us when He makes our
   youth to be renewed like the eagles by filling our mouth with good
   things!

   We must notice one other word in the text. "He has filled the hungry
   with good things." I shall not be altering the text, but only giving
   its true sense if I say that He fills the hungry soul with the best of
   things. They are positively good and they are comparatively
   good--better than all the good things of the world. And they are
   superlatively good, for even Heaven, itself, has no better things than
   God gives to poor hungry souls when they come to Him by faith in Jesus.
   We are apt to think that if men are starving, the most common kind of
   food will do for them as long as they are able to keep away from
   death's door--but it is not thus that God deals with the spiritually
   hungry. He spreads the table bounteously, royally, with the best of
   food and fills the hungry with good things--not simply with a good
   thing, but the word is in the plural, "with good things." Their needs
   are many, so the mercies given to them shall also be many! Their needs
   seem to be as many as their moments, but the mercies of God exceed
   their utmost needs! All their capacious souls can wish, they shall find
   in Jesus Christ, who shall be their All-in-All.

   The text, you observe, refers to the past, but it may be taken for
   granted that what God did yesterday, He will do today--and what He does
   today, He will do forever, so far as it is necessary and right. And as
   He is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," all the blessings
   that He gives to His people shall be continued to them as long as they
   need them. Some of us can say that we were filled with these good
   things 20 years ago, and we have never again hungered as we hungered
   then. The Lord has satisfied our souls by giving us Christ--and we are
   fully content with Him! His own word is true to us, "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." God is still filling the hungry with good things.
   There are many in this house who can testify that in answer to prayer,
   they have had their griefs relieved and heavenly comforts granted to
   them and, poor Sinner, God is willing to do the same for you! If you
   are hungering and thirsting, come unto Him, for there is as much Grace
   in Him today as there ever was! So come, just as you are, and trust
   Him--rely upon Him and you, too, shall be filled with good things!

   The other half of the text, in its reference to sinners, I shall touch
   upon very briefly--"The rich He has sent away empty." Oh, how many
   sinners there are who think themselves rich! According to their own
   valuation, they are rich in merit, but the Gospel has nothing to do
   with merit! It only deals with misery and, therefore, it sends them
   away empty because it does not conduct its business on the lines that
   they approve. There are many sinners who are so rich in their own
   estimation that they will not take Christ and His Cross for nothing.
   David knew enough to say to the Lord, "With the froward You will show
   Yourself froward. For You will save the afflicted people, but will
   bring down high looks." If a man thinks that he is so good that he does
   not need the Gospel, God regards him as so vile that the Gospel brings
   no message of mercy to him until he humbles himself and repents. Jesus
   said, "They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that
   are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

   Of all the sins that can happen to us, perhaps the deadliest of all is
   that of not being conscious of having any sin. A good old Scotchman
   used to say that there was no devil in the world so bad as having no
   devil at all, and that not to be tempted was the worst sort of
   temptation. I agree, and not to be conscious of any sin is, perhaps, to
   be at the furthest point from God to which any human being can go, for,
   the nearer we are to God, the more conscious we are of our own
   shortcomings and the more earnestly do we struggle to overcome every
   atom of sin which we discover to be within our souls.

   "The rich" are those who are far from being hungry--they have enough,
   and to spare. Instead of going down upon their knees, like beggars, to
   ask mercy from God as a charity, they talk proudly about what they
   deserve, what good deeds they have done and what they mean to do in the
   future and, therefore, they thank God that they are not as other men
   are.

   Now, what becomes of these sinners who think themselves so rich that
   they have no need of the good things with which God fills the hungry?
   The text does not simply say that they are not fed. It does not say
   that the door of Mercy is shut in their faces, but it says that they
   are sent right away from Mercy's door because they have no right to
   stand there! Why should a man be allowed to pray when he has nothing to
   pray for? These rich people are sent away from Mercy's table because
   they do not want to feed on Mercy's fare. Why should they sit there and
   uselessly occupy places where hungry ones might sit and feast? So they
   are sent away.

   And, mark you, it is an awful thing to be sent away from the Gospel.
   And it is a remarkable thing that the only people who are sent away
   from the Gospel are those who consider themselves spiritually rich. You
   who think yourselves so excellent, moral and amiable. You who cannot
   see any fault in yourselves. You who think you are going to Heaven
   because of your good deeds--the Gospel not only does not open its door
   to you, but it even sends you away from its door! And how does it send
   you away? The text says, "The rich he has sent away empty." Empty even
   of what you once thought you had! I only hope that the gracious meaning
   of the text may be fulfilled to some of you and that while listening to
   the Gospel, you may be made to feel that, after all, you are not
   spiritually rich, but that you are "wretched, and miserable, and poor,
   and blind, and naked." It will be the best day's work that was ever
   done for you if you are brought to realize your true position and come
   to Christ confessing your abject poverty! For, as Joseph Hartwell
   says--

   "'Tis perfect poverty alone

   That sets the soul at large.

   While we can call one mite our own,

   We have no full discharge."

   We know what happened to the two debtors. [See sermon Number 3015,
   Volume 52--THE TWO DEBTORS] "When they had nothing to pay, he frankly
   forgave them both." But if they had had anything with which they could
   pay, there would have been no forgiveness vouchsafed to them. Oh, for
   such an emptying that you may afterwards be filled with good things!

   But there are some who are sent away from hearing the Gospel with the
   same conceit of fullness as they had before-- and they are allowed to
   remain empty without discovering their true condition. This is a
   dreadful state for anyone to be in--to go on deceiving one's self and
   thinking all is well for time and eternity--and only to find out one's
   fatal mistake where the discovery will come too late! "Woe is me,"
   cries the self-righteous professor, when he wakes up in the world to
   come and finds that he is shut out of Heaven--"Woe is me that I should
   ever have fancied that I had a sufficient store of good things for
   eternity, yet now I have not so much as a drop of water to coat my
   tongue and I am tormented in this

   flame! Woe is me that I am banished forever from the Presence of God,
   and from the glory of His power--'sent away

   empty!'"

   O my dear Hearers, may this text be fulfilled to you in a gracious
   sense, and not in this sense of terrible justice! One of the two it
   must be, for if you are "rich" as the text uses that term, you must be
   "sent away empty" in one sense or the other. I pray that instead, you
   may be filled with good things because the Spirit of the Lord has
   caused you to hunger and thirst after righteousness!

   II. I shall now briefly use the text WITH REFERENCE TO SAINTS.

   Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if your experience at all
   tallies with mine, I think you will have found that the first clause of
   this portion of Mary's song is most true to you in your spiritual
   experiences. I find that whenever I am hungry--that is to say,
   conscious of my utter unworthiness, weakness, insignificance--then it
   is that Christ is most precious to me. The promises are peculiarly
   sweet, the Covenant of Grace is a dainty morsel and the assembling of
   myself with the Lord's people brings me to the King's banqueting table!
   Is it so with you? When you are hungry, do you get filled with good
   things? You remember when you were under the Lord's chastening hand and
   much broken in spirit through bodily pain, how precious that promise
   was, "You will make all his bed in his sickness"? You were laid aside
   both from the means of Grace and the cares of business life--and your
   soul had time for thought and meditation--and in its hunger, the Lord
   was made very sweet to you. You remember when you were poor, some years
   ago, when you had to live from hand to mouth, what blessed times you
   had with your Lord and Master?

   You are supposed to be better off now, but you are really worse off if
   you do not have so much of Christ as you had then! You used to, then,
   take the promise, "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure"
   in a more literal fashion than you do now. A message which came to your
   soul with quickening power was this, "Man shall not live by bread
   alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." You
   were hungry then, so your Lord filled you with good things. Every now
   and then the pangs of this hunger seize us--our spirits sink, our
   confidence grows dim through the smoke of our sin and we get such a
   sense of our sinnership as we have not had, perhaps for months. We feel
   as if we ought never to have made a profession of religion. We are so
   ashamed of ourselves that if we could ship with Jonah to go to
   Tarshish, we would be glad to flee from the Presence of the Lord and
   from the presence of His people, too! At such a time as that, if we
   hear a Gospel sermon preached to the very chief of sinners, if the
   preacher opens his mouth wide concerning Sovereign Grace, and forgiving
   mercy, and the cleansing power of the precious blood of Jesus, oh, how
   welcome the message is to us! We go to the sanctuary, not to criticize
   the preacher, but to seek spiritual food for our souls--and if the
   preacher does the work which God gave him to do, we are filled with
   good things!

   But, on the other hand, those who reckon themselves to be spiritually
   rich are "sent away empty." Yes, "sent away empty" from a full Gospel!
   How many people there are who have such peculiar tastes--they call them
   such refined tastes--that there are only one or two ministers whom they
   can hear in a radius of twenty miles! It is a sure sign of a bad
   spiritual appetite when you must always have little dainties all to
   yourself, or, in other words, when the old-fashioned Truths of God
   become distasteful to your palate. There are two things that I always
   like to see on the table--whether at breakfast, dinner, or tea--they
   are never out of place. And those two things are bread and salt. And
   the old-fashioned Gospel, like bread and salt on the table, ought to be
   in every sermon! And those whose souls are in a right spiritual
   condition will always want to hear it. There are some who crave fancy
   cookery--this dish must be prepared after the Plymouth fashion and that
   dish must be spiced according to some other mode. And if it is not made
   according to the last new fashion in theology, there are some who
   cannot feed thereon. Oh, to be brought down from such richness as that
   and to be made spiritually poor! I am sure that our Bibles would be a
   hundred times richer to us than they are now if we were a hundred times
   poorer than we are--by which I mean that the Bible would be more truly
   to us what it really is if we had a truer sense of what we really are.
   As we went down in our own esteem, it would go up, and the Doctrines of
   the Bible, the Promises of the Bible--yes, and even the Precepts of the
   Bible--would possess a wonderful sweetness to us if we had a greater
   spiritual hunger. Solomon said, "The full soul loathes honeycomb; but
   to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." There is such a thing
   as getting full of our own graces, full of our own prayers, full of our
   own sermons, full of our own good works, full of ourselves--and what
   state can be worse than this? It is being blown out almost to bursting.
   Then, Soul, empty yourself of yourself! And when you think of yourself
   as you ought to think, you will abhor yourself. You will see no good in
   yourself whatever, but you will see the black fingerprints of your
   fallen nature even upon the bright alabaster works of Divine Grace
   within your soul--and you will mourn over even your best things because
   you have defiled them. When we become thus empty, God will fill us with
   good things.

   III. Now, lastly, I believe, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, that our
   text is true WITH REFERENCE TO CHRISTIANS IN THEIR CAPACITY AS WORKERS
   FOR CHRIST.

   Give me hungry dogs to hunt with and give me really hungry workers to
   work with for the Lord Jesus Christ! I mean, men and women who are
   dissatisfied with the present spiritual condition of the nominal
   Christian Church, dissatisfied with the progress that is being made,
   earnestly longing for something better, determinately set on doing
   something that shall be for God's Glory and the good of the
   people--crying and sighing for the conversion of souls, not satisfied
   with ones and twos, but wanting to see the Kingdom of Christ come in
   all its power and the will of God done on earth as it is done in
   Heaven! Give me men who will not slumber although the professing Church
   of God slumbers! Men who cannot rest because sinners do not find rest
   in Christ! Men who have no peace because Christ has not become the
   sinner's peace! Give me such men, for they will be filled with good
   things. A Church that longs for the blessing and will not be content
   without it, will get it, but, on the other hand, the "rich" church
   which says, "We have got the blessing. We are doing very well. We
   cannot see anything in which we could improve--we preach the Gospel, we
   have all the usual agencies, they are all conducted with propriety and
   with a measure of success. Everything goes on exceedingly well. On the
   whole, we, perhaps, are ahead of the rest of the churches--we ought to
   let well enough alone and not try to get up excitement, or be seeking
   after what is not attainable and attempting such great things that we
   are pretty sure to fail in our attempts." Such "rich" people will be
   "sent away empty."

   Self-satisfaction is the death of progress. Contentment with worldly
   goods is a blessing, but contentment in spiritual things is a curse and
   a sin. What did Paul say? "Not as though I had already attained." Some
   of us think, "If we could get as far as Paul did, we would be
   satisfied." But Paul said, "Not as though I had already attained," and
   then he added, "Forgetting those things which are behind"--why, some of
   us wish we had such things to remember! But he wished to forget all
   that he had done and to think only of what remained to be
   done--"Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth
   unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the
   prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Oh, for this sacred
   forgetfulness, by way of contentment, of all successes and achievements
   so as still to be pressing forward! I would that every Believer had,
   for the Glory of God, that spirit which is never satisfied, but always
   cries for more! I would have the hearts of Christians insatiable as
   death and the grave, for how can we stand that men should be forever
   lost? How can we be quiet while Hell is being filled and souls are
   perishing day and night? How can we be at ease while God is blasphemed,
   while Christ is unknown in a great part of the world, and where He is
   known, He is not loved? How can we be contented while the black Prince
   of Hell seeks to steal the crown rights of King Jesus? Contented and
   satisfied? Never! Until all over this, our highly-favored land, Christ
   shall reign as Sovereign Lord! No, not then, nor till in every
   continent and island the nations of the whole world shall have heard
   the Gospel and vast multitudes have prostrated themselves at Messiah's
   feet in loyal and loving adoration!

   Up, saints of God, from your resting places of inglorious sloth and
   begin to cry aloud, and spare not! Come to God's Throne with a sacred
   spiritual hunger, for thus shall the Church of God be filled with good
   things! May God, in His Infinite Mercy, bless this message and HIS
   shall be the praise and Glory forever! Amen.

   EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE 1:26-56.

   Verses 26, 27. And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from
   God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a
   man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name
   was Mary. It was by the temptation of an evil angel that man fell and
   Paradise was lost. It was, therefore, most appropriate that good angels
   should be sent to announce the coming of the Restorer, through whom
   Paradise is regained. "Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of
   Galilee, named Nazareth." Christ's coming to earth must be announced in
   the lowliest of cities and He must be born in the small Judean town of
   Bethlehem. But it was also decreed that He must die at Jerusalem--in
   the metropolitan city. Mark the simplicity, and yet the sublimity of
   the arrangement by which the meek and lowly Savior was to be born in
   our nature. The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin, whose name
   was Mary.

   28, 29. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, you that are
   highly favored, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women. And
   when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind
   what manner of salutation this was. The best of news may sometimes
   cause the greatest trouble of mind and heart. If you feel troubled when
   you receive a message from God, do not be astonished, as though some
   strange thing had happened to you. See how Mary, who was told that she
   was to receive the greatest honor and favor possible to a mortal being,
   was troubled by the angel's speech, perplexed by his extraordinary
   salutation.

   30. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for you have found
   favor with God. If we have found favor with God, there is no cause for
   us to fear. If God is gracious to us, we are raised above all reason
   for alarm. Some court the fickle favor of men but even if they gain it,
   they may well fear that they may shortly lose it. But the angel said,
   "Fear not, Mary: for you have found favor with God." And having found
   that favor, she would never lose it.

   31, 32. And, behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a
   Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He shall be great How true is that
   prophecy--"He shall be great." Christ is the greatest of all great
   ones. How great He is in our esteem! The tongues of men and of angels
   could not tell all His greatness! "He shall be great."

   32-37. And shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God
   shall give unto Him the Throne of His father David: and He shall reign
   over the house of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom there shall be no
   end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know
   not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Spirit
   shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you:
   therefore also that holy Thing which shall be born of you shall be
   called the Son of God. And, behold, your cousin Elizabeth, she has also
   conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her,
   who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible. It
   seemed meet that the Gospel dispensation should thus begin with two
   great wonders. The age of wonders has opened upon us now that the day
   of Grace has dawned. Now shall the barren woman keep house and be the
   joyful mother of children according to the ancient prophecy.

   38. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
   according to your word. Oh, that we all had such a spirit of submission
   as she had, that we might be willing to place ourselves absolutely at
   God's disposal, for Him to do with us as He pleased!

   38. And the angel of the Lord departed from her. His mission was
   accomplished, so he might go back to the Glory from which he had come
   at God's command.

   39-43. And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country
   with haste, into a city of Judah and entered into the house of
   Zachariah, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass, that when
   Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb,
   and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she spoke out with a
   loud voice, and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the
   fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me, that the mother of
   my Lord should come to me The most gracious people are always the most
   humble people. This question of Elizabeth, "Why is this granted to me?"
   has been one that we have often put concerning ourselves. She was the
   older woman of the two, but she felt herself highly honored by this
   visit from her younger relative whom the Lord had so wondrously
   favored. It is well when Christian people have a high regard for one
   another and think less of themselves than they do of others whom God
   has especially favored. It is one of the traits in the character of
   God's true people that they have this mind in them--while they who
   think themselves great prove that they are not the Lord's. If you think
   much of yourself, He thinks little of you.

   44, 45. For, lo, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my
   ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that
   believed. Not only Mary, who believed the angel's message, and was,
   therefore, blessed, but everyone of us who believes in God may share in
   this benediction!

   45, 46. For there shall be a performance of those things which were
   told her from the Lord. And Mary said. This humble Jewish maiden was a
   woman of great natural ability. This song of hers is worthy to be sung
   throughout all ages. It is true that it is mainly taken from the song
   of Hannah and other songs of devout persons in former ages, but this
   shows how Mary had studied the Word of God and laid it up in her heart.
   The best preparation that you young people can have for the highest
   honor and service in your future life is to bathe frequently in the
   Word of God and to perfume your whole life by a familiar and accurate
   acquaintance with Scripture Truths. Nothing else can make you so pure,
   or so prepared for all service which God may yet have for you to
   perform.

   46. My soul does magnify the Lord. That is a good beginning. Mary does
   not magnify herself in her Magnificat, she has nothing to say
   concerning her own dignity, though she was of a noble lineage. But she
   sang, "My soul does magnify the Lord."

   47. And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. She needed a Savior as
   much as we do, for she was a sinner like ourselves. And though she was
   blessed among women, she here indicates that she owed all that
   blessedness to the Grace of God, who had become a Savior to her, as
   well as to us.

   48. For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden. The family
   from which Mary sprang had become poor and she dwelt in lowliness at
   Nazareth.

   48, 49. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me
   blessed. For He that is mighty has done to me great things; and holy is
   His name. She was indeed a blessed woman to have such holy thoughts,
   such reverence for God, such a true idea of His might and majesty--and
   of the marvelous favor which He had shown to her.

   50. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to
   generation. Remember this, it was not mercy to Mary only--it was mercy
   to us, and mercy to all who truly trust the Savior in whom she trusted!

   51. He has showed strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in
   the imagination of their hearts. Sometimes we read of God's "finger."
   That refers to a part of His great power. At other times, we read of
   His "hand." That is a more brilliant display of His power. But here, as
   elsewhere, we read of His "arm." This is the majesty of His
   Omnipotence. Pharaoh's magicians told the king that it was the finger
   of God that worked the plagues of Egypt, but it was with His
   outstretched arm that He divided the Red Sea and overthrew Pharaoh and
   his hosts. Mary felt that in the work of salvation we see God's
   arm--not merely His finger, or His hand.

   52. He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of
   low degree. This is what God is constantly doing--casting down the high
   and mighty ones and lifting up the meek and lowly!

   53. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He has sent
   away empty. They who are self-satisfied shall sooner or later be cast
   out, but those who look to God, alone, and are hungry after Him, shall
   be satisfied with His favor.

   54-56. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy.
   As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. And
   Mary abode with her about three months and returned to her own house.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Genesis

   [1]32:1   [2]32:9-12   [3]32:28

   Numbers

   [4]519

   Deuteronomy

   [5]22:8

   Judges

   [6]16:3

   2 Samuel

   [7]2:1   [8]12:13   [9]12:14   [10]17:23   [11]23:4

   2 Chronicles

   [12]28:22

   Nehemiah

   [13]13:10

   Psalms

   [14]23:1   [15]25:11   [16]27:13   [17]34:7   [18]37:31   [19]60:4
   [20]88:10-16   [21]90:14   [22]91:11   [23]91:11   [24]91:12
   [25]110:1   [26]118:22   [27]119:33   [28]119:75   [29]130:4

   Proverbs

   [30]28:14

   Ecclesiastes

   [31]11:6   [32]12:1

   Isaiah

   [33]30:15   [34]49:13

   Jeremiah

   [35]2:36   [36]2:36   [37]2:37   [38]31:33

   Ezekiel

   [39]36:9

   Hosea

   [40]7:11   [41]11:1   [42]11:4   [43]12   [44]13:1   [45]13:6
   [46]14:1

   Joel

   [47]2:8

   Amos

   [48]6:1   [49]6:12   [50]7:1-3

   Malachi

   [51]3:1   [52]4:1   [53]4:2

   Matthew

   [54]4:1   [55]6:31-33   [56]9:2   [57]26:20   [58]26:20   [59]26:30

   Mark

   [60]1:31   [61]12:34

   Luke

   [62]1:53   [63]5:18-20   [64]7:41   [65]7:42   [66]11:14-54
   [67]11:27   [68]11:28

   John

   [69]6:37   [70]7:30   [71]7:31   [72]7:53   [73]8:1   [74]8:1
   [75]9:35   [76]14:18   [77]15:13   [78]16:20

   Romans

   [79]3:9   [80]5:6   [81]8:1   [82]8:28   [83]10:10

   1 Corinthians

   [84]16:20

   2 Corinthians

   [85]12:9

   Ephesians

   [86]2:4   [87]2:5

   2 Thessalonians

   [88]1:1   [89]1:2   [90]2:1   [91]2:2   [92]2:16   [93]2:17

   1 Peter

   [94]2:7   [95]4:1

   1 John

   [96]2:1   [97]3:1   [98]3:2   [99]3:2

   Jude

   [100]1:1
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Genesis

   [101]32:28

   Deuteronomy

   [102]22:8

   Judges

   [103]16:3

   2 Samuel

   [104]2:1   [105]12:13-14   [106]17:23   [107]23:4

   2 Chronicles

   [108]28:22

   Psalms

   [109]25:11   [110]27:13   [111]37:31   [112]60:4   [113]90:14
   [114]91:11   [115]130:4

   Proverbs

   [116]28:14

   Song of Solomon

   [117]5:2

   Isaiah

   [118]30:15   [119]49:13

   Jeremiah

   [120]31:33

   Ezekiel

   [121]36:9

   Hosea

   [122]7:11   [123]11:4   [124]13:6

   Joel

   [125]2:8

   Amos

   [126]6:12

   Matthew

   [127]4:1   [128]6:31-33   [129]9:2   [130]26:30

   Mark

   [131]1:31   [132]12:34

   Luke

   [133]1:53   [134]7:41-42   [135]11:27-28

   John

   [136]6:37   [137]7:53   [138]9:35   [139]14:18   [140]15:13
   [141]16:20

   Romans

   [142]10:10

   2 Corinthians

   [143]12:9

   Ephesians

   [144]2:4-5

   2 Thessalonians

   [145]2:16-17

   1 Peter

   [146]2:7

   1 John

   [147]3:2

   Jude

   [148]1:24-25
     __________________________________________________________________

            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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